The University of Hartford 2009-2010 Community Conversations Colloquium
The newly created Community Conversations Colloquium comprises three important public events in each semester of the 2009-10 academic year. In this series of six invited lectures and panel discussions, the University community and the wider community will explore a broad range of issues related to civil liberties.
Topics will include capital punishment, social and economic justice, free speech, same-sex marriage, gun control and the right of self-defense, educational equity, civil rights, and personal privacy.
In each semester a high-profile, Connecticut-based panel presentation and discussion will be followed on later dates by two lectures, each delivered by a nationally prominent scholar.
The colloquium is sponsored by the Rogow Distinguished Visiting Lecturers Program and the Office of the Provost. The members of the colloquium planning committee are Jilda Aliotta, Mary Dowst, Marcia Moen, Katie Roy '09, Paul Siegel, and Donn Weinholtz.
Community Conversations Colloquium events are free and open to the public but tickets are required. For tickets, call 860.768.4228 or 800.274.8587.
Fall 2009 Schedule
- Capital Punishment in Connecticut — September 23
- To Heller and Back: Is There a Right of Self-Defense? — October 7
- Civil Liberties and Economic Democracy — November 4
Capital Punishment in Connecticut
Wednesday, September 23, 2009, 7:30 p.m.Wilde Auditorium, Harry Jack Gray Center
` The 2005 execution of Michael Ross ended Connecticut's 45-year-long moratorium on capital punishment. Public debate only intensified, however, climaxing in 2009, when the state legislature passed a bill ending executions and Governor Rell vetoed the bill.
Four panel members participated in the Ross case and will discuss capital punishment's legal and moral complexities.
Lynn Pasquerella, panel moderator, is provost of the University of Hartford and a philosophy professor who specializes in medical ethics and the philosophy of law. A high school classmate of Ross, she has long served as a prisoners' rights advocate.
Thomas J.Groark Jr. is an attorney, a mediator, and chair of the University of Hartford Board of Regents. He served as special counsel in the appeals phase of the Ross case.
Karen Goodrow is an attorney with the state's Division of Public Defender Services and director of the Connecticut Innocence Project. She represented Michael Ross during his last penalty-phase hearing in 2000.Kevin Kane is now Connecticut's chief prosecutor (chief state's attorney). He had directed the state's prosecution of Ross.
Harry Weller is a senior assistant state's attorney. He was lead appellate counsel in Ross's appeal of his conviction.
To Heller and Back: Is There a Right of Self-Defense?
Wednesday,October 7, 2009, 7:30 p.m.Wilde Auditorium,Harry Jack Gray Center
Joyce Malcolm, PhD, is professor of legal history at George Mason University School of Law, and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She previously served as director of the Division of Research Programs at the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her subjects of expertise include constitutional and legal history; constitutional law; the rights of the individual versus the rights of the state; and crime, violence, and public policy.
Malcolm has published scores of scholarly articles, book chapters, and essays, in addition to seven books. Her book, To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right (1994), has been cited with approval in U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including several times in the landmark case, District of Columbia v. Heller (2008).
Her book Guns and Violence: The English Experience (2002) has been widely discussed in both scholarly journals and the popular media. Her most recent book, Peter's War: A New England Slave Boy and the American Revolution, published by Yale University Press early this year, has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
See www.joyceleemalcolm.com for further information.
Political Liberties and Economic Democracy
Wednesday, November 4, 2009, 7:30 p.m.Wilde Auditorium, Harry Jack Gray Center
Michael Parenti received his PhD in political science from Yale University. He has taught at various universities and colleges, and he lectures frequently throughout the United States and abroad. His 21 books and hundreds of articles have been translated into at least 18 languages. The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome was selected as a Book of the Year for 2004 by Online Review of Books.
Parenti's books and lectures examine a wide range of subjects within the general areas of politics, culture, economics, and history. Among his subjects are imperialism, democracy, fascism, and other ideologies; historiography and ancient and modern history; the functions and workings of academia,mass media, technology, the judiciary, and other cultural institutions; and current wars and other social ills.
Perhaps his most influential book is Democracy for the Few, now in its eighth edition — a critical analysis of U.S. society, economy, and political institutions, and a college-level political-science textbook. His most recent book is Contrary Notions: TheMichael Parenti Reader. God and His Demons is forthcoming.
See www.michaelparenti.org for further information.