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Speakers for 2002-2003

The theme for 2002-2003 was: Immigration and Global Citizenship.
The spring series speakers included:

Alejandro Portes,Professor of Sociology from Princeton University, spoke on "Second Generation Immigrants and the Future of American Society: Reflections on Recent Empirical Trends" in January. Prof. Portes is past president of the American Sociological Association. The author of more than 200 articles and chapters on national development, international migration, Latin American and Caribbean urbanization and economic sociology, his book, City on the Edge - the Transformation of Miami co-authored with Alex Stepick, won the Robert Park Award in urban sociology and the Anthony Leeds Award for best book in urban anthropology in 1995.

Ian Lustick, Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania,  discussed "'Rights' of Return for Palestinians and Jews: Lessons for the Negotiation of Usable Truth" in April. Pit.  Prof. Lustick is the author of several books, including Unsettled States, Disputed Lands, and For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel. 





Gary Gerstle, professor of history at the University of Maryland, will present "Race, Nation, and Immigration in the Twentieth Century" on Thursday, April 24 at 8:00 p.m. in the Kirner Johnson Auditorium.  Professor Gerstle is the author of Working-Class Americanism: The Politics of Labor in a Textile City, 1914-1960 and American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century. He is also co-editor of The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980 and E Pluribus Unum? Contemporary and Historical Perspectives on Immigrant Political Incorporation.

Ambassador Warren Zimmerman's talk about "Elihu Root and the Origins of American Imperialism" has been rescheduled for the fall semester 2003.

George Borjas spoke on September 12.  Prof. Borjas is an economist from Harvard and the author of numerous books and articles on immigration. He is the most prominent U.S. economist in the field of immigration. His recent book, Heavens Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy has been the topic of both praise and heated debate.

The following were the speakers during the fall semester:

David Horowitz, who spoke on September 18, is a nationally known author and lifelong civil rights activist. He was one of the founders of the New Left in the 1960s and editor of its largest magazine, Ramparts. In the 1970s he created the Oakland Community Learning Center, an inner city school for disadvantaged children that was run by the Black Panther Party. In the 1990s he created the Individual Rights Foundation, which led the battle against speech codes on college campuses, and compelled the entire "president?s cabinet" of the University of Minnesota to undergo five hours of sensitivity training in the First Amendment for violating the free speech rights of its students. In 1996 he was a spokesman for the California Civil Rights Initiative, which barred government from discriminating against "or granting preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin." This year he has joined Ward Connerly?s campaign to pass a Racial Privacy Initiative. This is an anti-racial profiling initiative that would prevent government agencies from asking citizens about their race. David Horowitz is an outspoken opponent of censorship and racial preferences, and a defender of the rights of minorities and other groups under attack -- including the rights of blacks, gays, women, Jews, Muslims, Christians and white males.
William Julius Wilson, the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University and Director of the Joblessness and Urban Poverty Research Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, spoke in the Hamilton Chapel on September 30. He is the author of numerous publications including When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor and The Bridge over the Racial Divide: Rising Inequality and Coalition Politics.





Douglas Massey spoke on October 14th about "Mexican Immigration: Consequences of Failed U.S. Policies." He is the outgoing president of the American Sociological Association, and the author of several books including American Apartheid and, most recently, Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in and Era of Economic Integration. In the book he looks at the consequences of U.S. immigration policies on the "social and economic fabric" of Mexico and the U.S.


On October 28, Raja Halwani, assistant professor of philosophy at the School of Art of the Art Institute of Chicago, addressed "The Just Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," the subject of his next book. A philosopher on ethics and political theory, his book titled, Care, Love, Sex and Virtue Ethics, will be published in 2003.









Peter Vogelaar, Executive Director of the Mohawk Valley Refugee Center in Utica, joined a panel of refugees from the local area chaired by Hamilton government professor Alan Cafruny last November 12. Prior to joining the Refugee Center in June, Vogelaar was director of the Joint Relief Ministry, a community-based educational program in Cairo, Egypt, that serves refugees from the Sudan and the Horn of Africa. Cafruny, who serves as board chair for the Refugee Center, is author of The Union and the World: The Political Economy of a Common European Foreign Policy.