The Makings of Mass Incarceration in the United States with Elizabeth Hinton
Air Dates: March 9-15, 2020
While the United States contains less than five percent of the planet’s population, it has nearly one-quarter of the world’s prison population. Elizabeth Hinton traces the politics and policy decisions since President Lyndon’s Johnson’s War on Poverty that created the nation’s reliance on mass incarceration.
Elizabeth Hinton is Professor in the Departments of History and African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Hinton’s research focuses on the persistence of poverty and racial inequality in the 20th-century United States. In her award-winning book, “From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America,” Hinton examines the implementation of federal law enforcement programs beginning in the mid-1960s that made the United States home to the largest prison system in world history. It has received numerous awards, including being named to the New York Times’s 100 notable books of 2016. In 2018, Hinton co-organized the landmark conference “Beyond the Gates: The Past and Future of Prison Education at Harvard,” committed to expanding educational access for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people at Harvard and stimulating meaningful dialogue about justice and inequality.
On this episode of “Story in the Public Square,” Hinton describes the punitive policies of the 1970s and 1980s that dealt with nonviolent drug crimes. Instead of utilizing a public health approach for drug abuse, Hinton says the “war on drugs” manifested itself as a war on the communities most affected by drug use, contributing to the rise in the U.S. prison population.
“Story in the Public Square” broadcasts each week on public television stations across the United States. A full listing of the national television distribution is available at this link. In Rhode Island and southeastern New England, the show is broadcast on Rhode Island PBS on Sundays at 11 a.m. and is rebroadcast Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. An audio version of the program airs 8:30 a.m. & 6:30 p.m. ET, Sundays at 4:30 a.m. & 11:30 p.m. ET on SiriusXM’s popular P.O.T.U.S. (Politics of the United States), channel 124. “Story in the Public Square” is a partnership between the Pell Center and The Providence Journal. The initiative aims to study, celebrate and tell stories that matter.
Telling the Stories of the Voiceless with Sara Jordenö
Air Dates: March 2-8, 2020
In the course of producing “Story in the Public Square” each week, co-hosts Jim Ludes and G. Wayne Miller revel in the chance to sit down with incredibly gifted story-tellers and artists, to hear them describe their craft, and to benefit from their unique perspectives on the world. Sara Jordenö is all of those things and more.
Jordenö is a filmmaker, visual artist and researcher whose work intersects art, activism, visual ethnography and cinema. Born in Sweden, Jordenö is active in Europe and the U.S., working with film, drawing, animation, video and installation. Jordenö directed the documentary feature film “KIKI” about a youth-led social movement for LGBTQ+ youth of color in New York City, working in in close collaboration with community leader Twiggy Pucci Garcon. KIKI premiered in the U.S. documentary competition at the Sundance Film Festival in 2016 and went on to screen at more than 80 film festivals around the world, earning the Teddy Award for Best Documentary Film at the Berlin International Film Festival, the Kathleen Bryan Edwards Award for Human Rights at the Full Frame Documentary Festival and a nomination for the 2017 Film Independent Spirit Truer Than Fiction award. Jordenö is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Film, Animation and Video at Rhode Island School of Design, teaching BA, BFA, MA and MFA level courses in documentary and experimental film theory and production, site-specific participatory artistic practices and artistic fieldwork in dialogue with anthropological research methods.
On this episode of “Story in the Public Square,” Jordenö describes her passion for telling stories of the voiceless and their strategies for survival and agency. As a member of several minority communities, she takes pride in illustrating the comradery and connection that forms among those who face marginalization.
“Story in the Public Square” broadcasts each week on public television stations across the United States. A full listing of the national television distribution is available at this link. In Rhode Island and southeastern New England, the show is broadcast on Rhode Island PBS on Sundays at 11 a.m. and is rebroadcast Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. An audio version of the program airs 8:30 a.m. & 6:30 p.m. ET, Sundays at 4:30 a.m. & 11:30 p.m. ET on SiriusXM’s popular P.O.T.U.S. (Politics of the United States), channel 124. “Story in the Public Square” is a partnership between the Pell Center and The Providence Journal. The initiative aims to study, celebrate and tell stories that matter.
Experiencing Climate Change Through Story with Elizabeth Rush
Air Dates: February 24-March 1, 2020
Climate change is reshaping America’s coast-line—from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico; from Staten Island New York to California. For most of us, the change is invisible, but Elizabeth Rush tells us that is, in part, because we don’t know what we’re seeing.
Rush is the author of “Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore,” a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction, and “Still Lifes from a Vanishing City: Essays and Photographs from Yangon, Myanmar.” Her work explores how humans adapt to changes enacted upon them by forces seemingly beyond their control, from ecological transformation to political revolution. She served as the Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Humanities at Bates College from 2015 to 2017 and currently teaches creative nonfiction courses at Brown University that carry the environmental sciences and digital technologies into the humanities classroom. In 2019, Rush was named the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artist and Writer and joined scientists from the United States and Great Britain aboard the R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer for scientific “cruise” to the Thwaites Glacier, or “Doomsday Glacier,” in Antarctica. Thwaites’ deterioration destabilizes the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is one of the largest potential contributors to sea level rise.
On this episode of “Story in the Public Square,” Rush emphasizes the importance of creating space for the anxiousness and confusion that accompanies facing the realities of climate change. She says these unsettling feelings are “absolutely necessary to encounter if we’re going to [take actions] on the scale…this threat demands.”
“Story in the Public Square” broadcasts each week on public television stations across the United States. A full listing of the national television distribution is available at this link. In Rhode Island and southeastern New England, the show is broadcast on Rhode Island PBS on Sundays at 11 a.m. and is rebroadcast Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. An audio version of the program airs 8:30 a.m. & 6:30 p.m. ET, Sundays at 4:30 a.m. & 11:30 p.m. ET on SiriusXM’s popular P.O.T.U.S. (Politics of the United States), channel 124. “Story in the Public Square” is a partnership between the Pell Center and The Providence Journal. The initiative aims to study, celebrate and tell stories that matter.
Pell Center and League of Women Voters, Newport County to Celebrate Centennial of Women’s Suffrage
See the Newport Daily News’ Coverage of this event.
Newport, R.I. – The Pell Center at Salve Regina University and the League of Women Voters, Newport County will host Susan Ware, historian and leading feminist biographer to present “Why They Marched: Celebrating the Centennial of Women’s Suffrage” on March 3, 2020 as part of the Pell Center’s spring lecture series.
The struggle for women’s suffrage raised fundamental questions about women’s roles in politics and modern life, the relationship between citizenship and voting rights, and more. Ware’s lecture, “Why They Marched,” will uncover a diverse account of one of the most significant moments of political mobilization in American history.
“The League of Women Voters, Newport County is thrilled to partner with the Pell Center and Salve Regina University to bring Susan Ware, the highly respected and celebrated feminist historian and biographer to speak in Newport,” said Susan Wells, President of the Newport County League of Women Voters. In 2020, the League salutes those who made the ratification of the 19th amendment one hundred years ago, a reality. They also celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the U.S. League of Women Voters and honor those who carry on the fight for equal rights and justice for all today.
Ware is a pioneer in the field of women’s history and is the author and editor of numerous books on 20th-century U.S. history. She serves as the general editor of American National Biography and is currently the honorary women’s suffrage centennial historian at the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. The Library of America will publish her edited anthology “American Women’s Suffrage: Voices from the Long Struggle for the Vote, 1776-1965” in July. She also serves as a historical consultant to the American Experience documentary “The Vote.”
The lecture will be held at Salve Regina University’s Bazarsky Lecture Hall in the O’Hare Academic Building at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 3. Registration and more information can be found on the Pell Center’s Eventbrite page.
The Expanding News Desert with Penny Abernathy
Air Dates: February 17-23, 2020
It wasn’t so long ago that small and mid-sized American communities were served by multiple news outlets. Penny Abernathy warns of the expansion of “news deserts,” or areas without dedicated local coverage because of shifting technology and consumer behavior.
Penelope (Penny) Abernathy is the Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics at the University of North Carolina and former executive at The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. A journalism professional with more than 30 years of experience as a reporter, editor and senior media business executive, she specializes in preserving quality journalism by helping news organizations succeed economically in the digital environment. Her research focuses on the implications of the digital revolution for news organizations, the information needs of communities and the emergence of news deserts in the United States. She authored “The Expanding News Deserts,” a major 2018 report that documents the decline and loss of local news organizations in the U.S., and was the lead co-author of “The Strategic Digital Media Entrepreneur” which explores in-depth the emerging business models of successful media enterprises.
On this episode of “Story in the Public Square,” Abernathy describes what she calls “ghost newspapers,” or newspapers that have drastically reduced their staff and content as a byproduct of shifts in consumer behavior. She attributes the loss of reporting on education, the environment, and investigative pieces to this shift.
“Story in the Public Square” broadcasts each week on public television stations across the United States. A full listing of the national television distribution is available at this link. In Rhode Island and southeastern New England, the show is broadcast on Rhode Island PBS on Sundays at 11 a.m. and is rebroadcast Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. An audio version of the program airs 8:30 a.m. & 6:30 p.m. ET, Sundays at 4:30 a.m. & 11:30 p.m. ET on SiriusXM’s popular P.O.T.U.S. (Politics of the United States), channel 124. “Story in the Public Square” is a partnership between the Pell Center and The Providence Journal. The initiative aims to study, celebrate and tell stories that matter.
Telling the Stories of War with Mark Jacobson
Air Dates: February 10-16, 2020
War stories—whether the stuff of memoir or fictional portrayals of people at war—are mainstays of literature across human history, and today, that extends to film. Mark Jacobson is both a historian and a veteran who seizes on the power of modern storytelling in film to educate the next generation about the realities of war.
Dr. Jacobson is the John J. McCloy ’16 Professor of American Institutions and International Diplomacy at Amherst College and is a non-resident Senior Fellow at Salve Regina University’s Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy. He has over twenty years of experience in the federal government, international organizations, and academia working on some of the most complex and politically sensitive national security issues facing the United States. Since November 2017, Jacobson has served as a senior policy advisor at Kasowitz Benson Torrres LLC where, as a part of the Government Affairs and Strategic Counsel group, he helps to advise on and resolve complex and politically sensitive issues for clients, as well as representing clients before the U.S. government. Jacobson was previously appointed as the Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Defense and Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy and served in Kabul, Afghanistan as the Deputy NATO Representative and Director of International Affairs at the International Security Assistance Force.
On this episode of “Story in the Public Square,” Jacobson describes what he wants his students to take away from his courses that cover the stories of modern warfare. He says, “I want them to understand what the cost of war is,” saying one of the best ways to decrease the amount of future wars is to understand their true cost.
“Story in the Public Square” broadcasts each week on public television stations across the United States. A full listing of the national television distribution is available at this link. In Rhode Island and southeastern New England, the show is broadcast on Rhode Island PBS on Sundays at 11 a.m. and is rebroadcast Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. An audio version of the program airs 8:30 a.m. & 6:30 p.m. ET, Sundays at 4:30 a.m. & 11:30 p.m. ET on SiriusXM’s popular P.O.T.U.S. (Politics of the United States), channel 124. “Story in the Public Square” is a partnership between the Pell Center and The Providence Journal. The initiative aims to study, celebrate and tell stories that matter.
What it Means to Be an American with Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen
Air Dates: February 3-9, 2020
History, as a subject of study, is more than a linear progression of events—it’s ideas, currents of thought, institutions of learning, social movements, moral awakenings and more. In a brief, new book, Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen traces the history of ideas that shaped the United States from its beginnings.
Ratner-Rosenhagen is the Merle Curti Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison). She specializes in U.S. intellectual and cultural history and focuses on the history of philosophy, political and social theory, religion, literature and print culture, the visual arts, and the transatlantic flow of intellectual and cultural movements. She is the author of American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas and has received numerous awards for her writing, including the Morris D. Forkosch Prize for the best first book in intellectual history. Along with her academic scholarship and teaching, Ratner-Rosenhagen is the founder of the Intellectual History Group at UW-Madison, an informal, interdisciplinary working group for faculty and graduate students interested in the varieties of intellectual history and history of ideas.
On this episode, Ratner-Rosenhagen says one of the central questions of American intellectual history is, “what does it mean to be an American?” This question prompts us to look at the past through the ideas and people who made them or who were moved by them. We can then ask, what were their answers to the question, what kinds of conditions lead them there, and how are those answers translated into public policies or the built environment?
“Story in the Public Square” broadcasts each week on public television stations across the United States. A full listing of the national television distribution is available at this link. In Rhode Island and southeastern New England, the show is broadcast on Rhode Island PBS on Sundays at 11 a.m. and is rebroadcast Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. An audio version of the program airs 8:30 a.m. & 6:30 p.m. ET, Sundays at 4:30 a.m. & 11:30 p.m. ET on SiriusXM’s popular P.O.T.U.S. (Politics of the United States), channel 124. “Story in the Public Square” is a partnership between the Pell Center and The Providence Journal. The initiative aims to study, celebrate and tell stories that matter.
Bridging the Gap with Linda Tropp
Air Dates: January 27-February 2, 2020
Many people today can mock appeals for understanding between partisans with the phrase, “can’t we all just get along?” For Dr. Linda Tropp however, understanding the dynamics of inter-group conflict and facilitating positive dialogue has become her life’s work.
Tropp is a professor of social psychology at the University of Massachusetts and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. Her research focuses on expectations and outcomes of intergroup contact, interpretations of intergroup relationships, and responses to prejudice and disadvantage. She has been a visiting scholar at the National Center for Peace and Conflict Studies in New Zealand, the Kurt Lewin Institute in the Netherlands, the Marburg Center for Conflict Studies in Germany, Pontificia Universidad Católica in Chile, the University of California, Berkeley, and the International Graduate College on Conflict and Cooperation, where she taught seminars and workshops on prejudice reduction and intervention. Tropp has worked with national organizations to present social science evidence in U.S. Supreme Court cases on racial integration, on state and national initiatives to improve interracial relations in schools, and with non-governmental and international organizations to evaluate applied programs designed to reduce racial and ethnic conflict. She received the 2012 Distinguished Academic Outreach Award from the University of Massachusetts Amherst for excellence in the application of scientific knowledge to advance the public good. She has co-authored and edited several books, including “When Groups Meet: The Dynamics of Intergroup Contact.”
On this episode of “Story in the Public Square,” Tropp describes her research on how group membership affects how we see and experience our relations with other people. She says that our perceptions of the world around us are a function of our lived experience, and if we’re accustomed to one way of life, we are prone to think our way is the right way, or the only way.
“Story in the Public Square” broadcasts each week on public television stations across the United States. A full listing of the national television distribution is available at this link. In Rhode Island and southeastern New England, the show is broadcast on Rhode Island PBS on Sundays at 11 a.m. and is rebroadcast Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. An audio version of the program airs 8:30 a.m. & 6:30 p.m. ET, Sundays at 4:30 a.m. & 11:30 p.m. ET on SiriusXM’s popular P.O.T.U.S. (Politics of the United States), channel 124. “Story in the Public Square” is a partnership between the Pell Center and The Providence Journal. The initiative aims to study, celebrate and tell stories that matter.
Spring 2020 Event Series Announced
The Pell Center has announced its event series for Spring 2020. Tickets to these events are free and will become available approximately two weeks prior to the event date. Please RSVP for each event on the Pell Center’s Eventbrite page and call 401-341-2927 or email [email protected] with any questions. Scroll to the bottom of this page to join our email list and stay informed about when tickets become available.
Please note, all events will take place at the Bazarsky Lecture Hall in the O’Hare Academic Center with the exception of our April 2 event, Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore, which will take place at Ochre Court.
January 28, 2020, 6:00 p.m.
Bazarsky Lecture Hall, O’Hare Academic Building, Salve Regina University
The Information Trade: How Tech Companies Act Like Countries & What It Means for Our Democracy
Dr. Alexis Wichowski, Columbia University
February 18, 2020, 7:00 p.m.
Bazarsky Lecture Hall, O’Hare Academic Building, Salve Regina University
Multicultural Education Week
A Conversation with Dr. Cornel West moderated by Dr. Kelli J. Armstrong, President, Salve Regina University Presented by the Offices of Student Engagement & Multicultural Programs and Retention
February 25, 2020, 7:00 p.m.
Bazarsky Lecture Hall, O’Hare Academic Building, Salve Regina University
Why They Marched: Celebrating the Centennial of Women’s Suffrage in Partnership with the League of Women Voters of Newport County
Dr. Susan Ware, Historian and Leading Feminist Biographer
March 3, 2020, 7:00 p.m.
Bazarsky Lecture Hall, O’Hare Academic Building, Salve Regina University
China Rising: The Future of U.S. China Relations
Panelists:
Ms. Dorinda Elliott, China Institute.
Dr. Gary Jefferson, Carl Marks Professor of International Trade and Finance, Brandeis University and renowned specialist on the China economy.
Ambassador Nicholas Platt, served as ambassador to Pakistan, Philippines, Zambia and high-level diplomat in Canada, China, Hong Kong and Japan. He is the former president of The Asia Society.
Dr. Lewis Rutherfurd is a pioneer venture capital investor in China and other emerging markets in Asia. He also serves as a consultant to the Pell Center.
March 10, 2020, 7:00 p.m.
Bazarsky Lecture Hall, O’Hare Academic Building
Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore
Elizabeth Rush, author – finalists for the Pulitzer-Prize
April 2, 2020, 6:30 p.m.
Ochre Court, Salve Regina University
This event is in partnership with RI Center for the Book. Seating will be limited.
Fourth Annual John E. McGinty Lecture in History
Elements of Presidential Leadership
Dr. Robert Dallek, Professor of History Emeritus, University of California-Los Angeles
April 23, 2020, 6:30 p.m.
Location: Bazarsky Lecture Hall, O’Hare Academic Building
Film Screening & Discussion: “The Newport Bridge: A Rhode Island Icon” followed by Q&A with producers Jamie McGuire and Michelle Abbott
April 28, 2020, 6:30 p.m.
Bazarsky Lecture Hall, O’Hare Academic Building, Salve Regina University
The Death of Expertise with Tom Nichols
Air Dates: January 20-26, 2020
In a meeting on Capitol Hill 15 years ago, a respected foreign policy analyst said that most national security assessments out of Washington ignored the elephant in the room: the United States and the impact of our domestic politics on the state of the world. While Tom Nichols wasn’t in the room that day, he brings a rigorous analytical mind steeped in national security to his analysis of the world around us.
Nichols is a U.S. Naval War College University Professor, and an adjunct professor at both the U.S. Air Force School of Strategic Force Studies and the Harvard Extension School. He specializes in Russian affairs, nuclear strategy, NATO issues, and is a nationally-known commentator on U.S. politics and national security. Nichols was a staff member in the United States Senate, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Harvard Kennedy School, and previously taught at Dartmouth, La Salle University, and Georgetown. He is also a five-time undefeated ‘Jeopardy!’ champion, and was noted in the ‘Jeopardy!’ Hall of Fame after his 1994 appearances as one of the all-time best players of the game. Nichols is the author of “The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters.”
On this episode of “Story in the Public Square,” Nichols describes the rise of anti-expertise sentiments which he credits with today’s unparalleled access to information. He says that while technology has helped facilitate global peace through greater connectedness, it has also “flooded us with cheap, easy information that actually confirms us in our biases [and] makes us lazy in seeking better information.” Nichols says the internet is structured to reward instantaneous opinions, which he adds, “indulges a certain amount of narcissism.”
“Story in the Public Square” broadcasts each week on public television stations across the United States. A full listing of the national television distribution is available at this link. In Rhode Island and southeastern New England, the show is broadcast on Rhode Island PBS on Sundays at 11 a.m. and is rebroadcast Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. An audio version of the program airs 8:30 a.m. & 6:30 p.m. ET, Sundays at 4:30 a.m. & 11:30 p.m. ET on SiriusXM’s popular P.O.T.U.S. (Politics of the United States), channel 124. “Story in the Public Square” is a partnership between the Pell Center and The Providence Journal. The initiative aims to study, celebrate and tell stories that matter.