Spring Schedule for UMaine Socialist, Marxist Studies Lectures Announced
Contact: Doug Allen, 581-3860
ORONO — The Spring 2009 Socialist and Marxist Studies Luncheon Series (Controversy Series) at UMaine begins Feb. 5 with a lecture about the implications of the home heating oil crisis in Maine and continues into April with thought-provoking talks reflecting on education, politics, terrorism, human rights and climate change.
Sponsored by the Marxist-Socialist Studies Interdisciplinary Minor and co-sponsored by the Maine Peace Action Committee, Campus Activities and Events, and with support of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Thursday afternoon lectures are held 12:30-1:45 p.m. in the Bangor Room of the Memorial Union, unless otherwise noted.
Speakers do not necessarily present socialist or Marxist viewpoints. The schedule is as follows:
Feb. 5
“The Home Heating Oil Crisis in Maine: One More Good Reason to Break the Oil Addiction,” with Tom Jackson, widely acclaimed independent filmmaker and creator of “Greetings from Missile Street on Iraq” and “Out of Balance on Climate Change”;
Feb. 12
“What Is to be Done? The Relevance of Lenin’s Writings for American Progressives in the 21st Century,” with professor David Gross, UMaine Honors Program and retired professor of English, University of Oklahoma;
Feb. 19
“Recent Reflections from India: The November 26, 2008 Terrorist Attacks in Mumbai and Gandhi in Times of Terror,” with professor of philosophy Doug Allen;
Feb. 26
“Do They Hate Us for Our Freedoms? A Deweyan Analysis of the Bush Doctrine,” with professor of philosophy Shane Ralston;
March 19
“Born without History: The Life of Amazonian Women,” with anthropology professor Constanza Ocampo-Raeder;
March 26
“Better Read than Dead: Change, Politics, Class, and the Purpose of Public Higher Education,” with professor John Wooding, former provost and vice-chancellor for academic affairs and current chair, Department of Regional Economic and Social Development, University of Massachusetts, Lowell; Wooding was a community and labor organizer in England and is author of The Point of Production: The Political Economy of the Work Environment and Work, Health and Environment: Old Problems, New Solutions. (Location: Coe Room)
April 2
“Economic Human Rights as a Way to End Poverty,” with Cheri Honkala, who has more than 15 years of organizing poor people and is the national coordinator of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, founder and former executive director of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, co-chair of the National Welfare Rights Union and a member of the Interim National Council of the Labor Party;
April 9
“Writing Socialist History,” with professor David Roediger, a Kendrick Babcock Chair of History and Afro-American Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a long-time scholar-activist, whose books include The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class and How Race Survived U.S. History: From Settlement and Slavery to the Obama Phenomenon. (Location: Coe Room)
For additional information, contact: Prof. Doug Allen, coordinator, Marxist-Socialist Studies, The Maples, University of Maine, Orono, Maine 04469. Allen can be reached at 581-3860.