2011 Speaker Series

June 26th

History Meets Fiction, and an Author Finds Inspiration

William Martin

In History Meets Fiction, and an Author Finds Inspiration, William Martin will take you on a journey to the sources of his own creativity. He will introduce you to historical figures, explore legendary locations, tell fascinating stories from American history, and discuss the world of modern publishing and Hollywood, too. Along the way, he’ll demonstrate the process by which a novelist fashions fictional reality from historical fact, and offer a few insights into finding the sources of creativity in any walk of life. 

In his youth, William Martin dreamed of telling “big stories on broad canvases,” and for over thirty years, he has been doing just that. The New York Times Best Selling Author of nine novels, is best known for his historical fiction, which has chronicled the lives of the great and the anonymous in American history while bringing to life legendary American locations, from Cape Cod to Annapolis to the City of Dreams. His first novel, Back Bay, introduced Boston treasure hunter Peter Fallon, who is still tracking artifacts across the landscape of our national imagination. His subsequent novels, including Harvard Yard, Citizen Washington, and The Lost Constitution have established him, as a “storyteller whose smoothness matches his ambition.”(Publisher's Weekly) He has also written an award-winning PBS documentary and a cult-classic horror movie, has contributed articles to Boston Magazine and book reviews to the Boston Globe, and has taught writing across the country, from the Harvard Extension School to the legendary Maui Writers Conference. There are now over three million copies of his books in print, and he was the recipient of the 2005 New England Book Award, given to "an author whose body of work stands as a significant contribution to the culture of the region."
He is also one of the few novelists in America to have made the New York Times Best Seller List in his twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties.

In City of Dreams, the fourth Peter Fallon novel, Peter and his girlfriend Evangeline head for Manhattan to hunt for a box of 1780 bonds that represent the unretired debt of the American Revolution. Modern complications ensue in the seat of the America’s financial power, and Manhattan history comes to life. Since Peter’s debut, a lot of other treasure hunters have appeared on the fictional scene – historians, booksellers, CIA agents, professors of symbology – but readers find something unique in the Peter Fallon adventures, because the stories unfold in interlocking past-and-present chapters as the modern thriller meets the historical novel.

The Providence Journal said of City, “The action keeps your heart racing with Russian thugs, crooked brokers, lots of financial lore, bodies piling up, chases and disguises and plots within plots. Martin cleverly intersperses all that with intricate, often frightening, always gripping tales from the past. A sequence in contemporary New York will be followed by the Great Fire there in 1776, or tales from Hell’s Kitchen in 1893, or J.P. Morgan’s rescuing the American economy in 1907. Martin can spin yarn after yarn that keeps you guessing, holding your breath, stunned...”

July 3rd

Special Independence Day Program
“THE PATRIOT FARMERETTE”

Elaine Weiss  

Songs of the Movement will be performed
Musical Direction by August Watters

Imagine a spunkier, and more controversial, Rosie the Riveter-- a generation older, and more outlandish for her time. She is the "farmerette" of the Woman's Land Army of America, doing a man's job, in military-style uniform, on the rural home front during WW I. 

During the Great War she was the toast of Broadway, the darling of the smart set, the star of the wartime cinema newsreel, and the highlight of the Liberty Loan parade. Victor Herbert and P.G. Wodehouse wrote songs about her, Rockwell Kent drew sly pictures of her, Charles Dana Gibson created posters for her, Theodore Roosevelt championed her, and Flo Ziegfeld  put her in his follies. 

And she had a starring role in Peterborough, where she trained at the Land Army training farm on East Hill.

From 1917 to 1920 the Woman's Land Army brought almost 20,000 city workers, society women, artists, business professionals, and college students into rural America to take over the farm work after men were called to wartime service. These women wore military-style uniforms, lived in communal camps, and did what was considered "mens' work"— plowing fields, driving tractors, planting, harvesting, and hauling lumber. The Land Army insisted its "farmerettes" be paid wages equal to male farm laborers and be protected by an eight-hour workday. New England was a center of activity for the Woman's Land Army: hundreds of New England women joined the Land Army as farmerettes, and hundreds more area women joined as sponsors, recruiters, and organizers (the Land Army was a privately organized, privately funded organization, not government-run). The WLA brought together suffragists, garden club women, educators, reform advocates, factory workers and artists in a woman-powered patriotic enterprise. Students, faculty, and alumnae of all the New England women’s colleges participated in the Land Army.

Peterborough plays an important role: Peterborough civic leader Mary Lyons Schofield opened a Land Army training farm on her property on East Hill, and she also served as President of the national organization of the Woman’s Land Army.

Join author Elaine Weiss as she presents a lively illustrated talk about the life and times of the farmerette, and the political and cultural forces which shaped the Woman’s Land Army. Her talk features stunning photographs, colorful posters, poems, and songs celebrating the Patriot Farmerette.

Elaine Weiss is a native New Yorker with many fond ties to New England. She has lived in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts and is very proud to be a Fellow of the MacDowell Colony.

Elaine is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Boston Globe, and on National Public Radio. She was a producer for Vermont Public Radio and also worked for the Vermont Humanities Council. She is a frequent correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor.

Since the publication of Fruits of Victory, Elaine has given lectures about the Woman’s Land Army at the Library of Congress, National Archives, Smithsonian Museum of American History, the Chautauqua Institution, Boston Public Library, Schlesinger Library  at Harvard, Brown University, Providence Public Library, and the Rhode Island National Guard,  and many other venues.

She is a graduate of Kirkland and Hamilton College, and holds a  masters degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.  Elaine lives in Baltimore, Maryland with her husband, Julian Krolik, a professor of astrophysics at the Johns Hopkins University.

July 10th

Claiming our Faith:  Why We Need Religious Voices in the Struggle for LGBT Equality

Dr. Sharon Groves

In Claiming our Faith:  Why We Need Religious Voices in the Struggle for LGBT Equality, Sharon Groves will tell you why when you scratch the surface of any argument used against the rights of  lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, you will find a religious claim used in support of it.  Dr. Sharon Groves, Director of the Religion and Faith Program at the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT advocacy organization, will discuss how progressive religious voices are reshaping the prevailing religious discourse around LGBT equality.  People of faith speaking out for LGBT equality are not only the most effective voices countering the religious right but they help all of us align our civil rights with our highest moral values.

Sharon will address the role of religion in the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, the recent victory for marriage equality in New York state, and much more.  In addition she will provide an overview of the state of LGBT equality at this historical juncture.

Director, Religion and Faith Program Sharon joined HRC in September 2005.  She brings to the Human Rights Campaign considerable experience editing, writing and managing print and online publications.  She has overseen the creation of numerous new resources, including a weekly preaching resource, a guide to living openly in your place of worship, a curriculum that follows the movie For the Bible Tells Me So and another that helps congregations wrestle with issues of gender identity within their faith communities. She has published on religion and marriage equality, the importance of religious advocacy within the LGBT movement and the struggle for equality within world religions.  Sharon previously served as managing editor for Feminist Studies, an interdisciplinary scholarly journal housed at the University of Maryland ,where she also taught courses in English literature, literature and social change, and women's studies.  She is a lay leader at All Souls Church, Unitarian, where she has chaired the Committee on Ministry and worked extensively on issues of racial justice, community voting rights and neighborhood outreach.  Sharon received her Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Maryland in 2000 and since then has engaged in extensive course work in theology and sexuality from Wesley Theological Seminary and the Chicago Theological Seminary.

Moderator: The Rev. Dr. David Robins is the minister of the Peterborough Unitarian Universalist Church.

*NOTE: The scheduled speaker, Beth Coye, regrets being unable to travel due to a health condition..

July 17th

“American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us”

Robert Putnam

Robert Putnam changed the way we think about the fabric of American society with his hugely influential 2000 bestseller, Bowling Alone. Now the renowned Harvard political scientist will change the way we think about religion in America, in his groundbreaking examination. Drawing on the two most comprehensive surveys ever conducted on religion and public life in America, and a dozen in-depth portraits of diverse congregations, Putnam goes to the heart of the religious issues roiling our society. The author analyzes how the current alliance between religion and conservative politics was built, and sketches possible outlines of a completely different political-religious alignment.

Robert D. Putnam is Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, and Visiting Professor, University of Manchester (UK).   He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the British Academy, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and past president of the American Political Science Association.  He was the 2006 recipient of the Skytte Prize and has served as an adviser to presidents and national leaders around the world. He has written more than a dozen books, including Bowling Alone and Making Democracy Work, both among the most cited publications in the social sciences in the last half century. The London Sunday Times has called him “the most influential academic in the world today.” Putnam’s most recent book, American Grace, co-authored with David Campbell of Notre Dame, focuses on the role of religion in American public life. American Grace is a major achievement in the study of America’s religious landscape, and has received advance praise from notable academic, literary, and civic leaders around the country.

July 24th

"How to Protect Your Brain"

Dr. Carolyn Bernstein

Dr, Carolyn Bernstein will review the latest scientific information about how the brain ages, and what you can do to keep your brain in good shape as you get older.  She will discuss why an older brain is actually more efficient than a younger brain for some types of memories, and go over both normal and abnormal brain aging. She will present the role of overall wellness, review latest updates on nutrition and exercise, and speak about how stress affects your nervous system. Research has shown that if you challenge your brain with word games and memory quizzes, it helps you stay sharp. Dr. Bernstein will end by giving some clear recommendations for putting together your own plan.

The author of the groundbreaking book The Migraine Brain (Free Press 2008), her clinical interests include headache and migraine, hormonal headaches and women’s issues in neurology. She also teaches neurology at the Harvard Medical School.

July 31st

 “Bringing Elsewhere Here: Why War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, and Genocide Matter”

James Waller 

Mass atrocities – including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide – represent the most pressing human rights issue of the 21st century.  While international law and norms to prevent and respond to mass atrocity have gained increasing recent acceptance, there still remains a general lack of international political will to actually intervene. This presentation will explore the moral, political, economic, and military costs of non-intervention. 

Dr. James Waller is Professor and Cohen Chair of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College (NH).  Keene State College is home to the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, one of the nation’s oldest Holocaust resource centers, and also offers the only undergraduate major in Holocaust and Genocide Studies in the United States. 

Waller is a widely-recognized scholar in the field of Holocaust and genocide studies. In the policymaking arena, Waller is also regularly involved, in his continuing role as an Affiliated Scholar with the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation, as the curriculum developer and an instructor for the Raphael Lemkin Seminar for Genocide Prevention.  These seminars, held on-site and in conjunction with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, introduce mid-level government officials from around the world to issues of genocide warning and prevention.  Waller also has delivered invited briefings on genocide prevention and perpetrator behavior in atrocities in Africa for the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the CIA Directorate of Intelligence as well as leading education and training in genocide prevention for the US Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  In January 2009, he was selected for the inaugural class of Carl Wilkins Fellows by the Genocide Intervention Network.  This fellowship program is designed to foster sustained political will for the prevention and cessation of genocide.

Waller is also widely-recognized for his work on intergroup relations and prejudice.  In January 1996, while at Whitworth University, Waller developed an innovative study program titled "Prejudice Across America."  The study program drew national media attention and was named by President Clinton’s Initiative on Race as one of America’s “Promising Practices for Racial Reconciliation.”  Many of the experiences from the study program are chronicled in his first book, Face to Face: The Changing State of Racism Across America (New York, NY: Perseus Books, 1998), and a second book released in October 2000, Prejudice Across America (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi).  Prejudice Across America was short-listed for a 2001 Outstanding Book Award from Boston University’s Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North America.

Waller complemented the domestic success of his “Prejudice Across America” study program with a new international study program, “Peace and Conflict in Northern Ireland.” This program, first offered in January 2006, used situated learning to allow students to explore the origins of, and responses to, intergroup conflict and violence in Northern Ireland.  The program went beyond, however, simply having students learn about Northern Ireland and challenged them to learn from Northern Ireland in order to generalize that learning to other cases of intergroup relations.

Dr. Waller lectures and speaks on Holocaust and genocide studies, intergroup relations, and prejudice for academic, professional, and public audiences.  He has given endowed or funded lectures at more than 50 colleges and universities, including the University of Massachusetts, Amherst College, Florida Atlantic University, Claremont-McKenna College, the University of Notre Dame, Washington State University, Sonoma State University, College of the Holy Cross, and Hope College.  He is frequently interviewed by broadcast and print media, including PBS, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.

August 7th

“Where is the Real ART in Architecture?”

Robert Hillier 

Architecture in America today is not created for a single client.  There are a host of invisible “clients,” i.e. forces that greatly influence the architectural outcome of a project: political, financial, cultural, environmental, technological and legal. The art of architecture today is not just about creating a work of art, but more about identifying all of these clients for a project and then satisfying them. With its consideration of a new library for the 21st Century and possible changes on Main Street to enhance its downtown, Peterborough may soon meet these hidden clients and have to deal with them.

J. Robert Hillier, FAIA, will explore these conditions and also pursue an answer to the most important question, “What is the future for architecture as a profession?” He has lectured extensively on the practice of architecture and is a member of the core faculty at the Princeton University School of Architecture.

8/14

MacDowell Colony Medal Day (no Lyceum)

August 21st

“Bridging the Divide: Working Towards Peace Through Friendship”

Warren Muir and Idil Cazimoglu, Cyprus Friendship Program

Warren Muir, an executive director at the National Academy of Sciences, is also the chair and executive director of the all-volunteer Cyprus Friendship Program (CFP). In the past, he served as the chair and president of the Children’s Friendship Project for Northern Ireland, Inc. upon which CFP is modeled.

Idil Cazimoglu is a Turkish-speaking Cypriot teen who spent a month with the Muir family in July 2009 getting to know and sharing a bedroom with Thalia Ioannidou, a Greek-speaking Cypriot teen.

Since then Idil and Thalia have been actively promoting friendship, trust, understanding, and peace between their two communities separated by UN Peacekeeping forces on the small island of Cyprus in the Middle East. Because of their friendship, the two girls and a pair of CFP boys were asked to accompany Archbishop Desmond Tutu, peace negotiator Lahkdar Brahimi, and former president Jimmy Carter for 3-1/2 days, when the three Elders visited Cyprus in Dec 2009 to promote peace. That visit and the teens’ friendships are the subjects of a documentary video that was released by the Elders in Cyprus and in London in February.

Warren and Idil will describe how American families can be personally involved in advancing peace in the world and how Cypriot teens and their families are becoming friends and are changing the future of their island with the support of American host families.