Past Speakers--2007

Civilization ~ June 24th at 11AM
Elizabeth Thomas

In the 1950s, Elizabeth Thomas's family spent many years in the Kalahari Desert making an ethnographic study of the Bushmen. In those days, the interior was unexplored, and the people had almost no contact with the rest of the world. Today, Liz is one of the few people still living who saw the pure form of hunter/gatherer life then lived by the Bushmen, now believed to be the First People, living as all of humankind once lived for its first 150,000 years on the planet.

Liz has degrees from Radcliffe and George Washington University. She got her first book contract when she was 19 and has been writing ever since. Among her many books are The Harmless People and The Old Way about Bushmen, two novels set in the Paleolithic, (Reindeer Moon and The Animal Wife). 

Elizabeth will shed light on Civilization, the Harmless People and a Return to Civility

Environment ~ July 1st at 11AM
Hugh Kauffman

Hugh Kauffman founded the Environmental Protection Agency in 1971 and is currently acting as ombudsman and senior policy analyst for that agency.  Kauffman, who specializes in emergency response, says that a government cover-up is taking place to hide information about the dangerous toxins in the flood waters of the Gulf Coast region. Having served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, Kauffman says that the Bush administration is preventing the EPA from releasing information that oil and chemical companies are mandated by law to provide. He says that the Bush Administration’s cover-up is endangering residents and relief workers throughout the Gulf Coast region, who are being exposed to dangerous levels of toxins, some of which have been proven to cause cancer and birth defects. From his vantage point as the chief investigator for the 9/11 cleanup, he can confidently say that the Bush administration engaged in the same practice after 9/11—covering up the truth about the dangers in the air and water and lying to the public in the weeks after the disaster. Kauffman reports that over 75% of the heroes who responded to 9/11 have gotten sick, and in some cases have died, because of exposure to toxins at Ground Zero, and that he fears a similar fate will befall relief workers and residents in the Gulf Coast. 

Hugh Kaufman will share his impassioned views on A More Civilized Approach to Responding to Environmental Disasters.  
POST EVENT NOTE: During Hugh's talk he referenced citations in the Homeland Security guidelines that allow the Government to "balance" public health interests with financial/tourism interests in their response to a dirty bomb (terrorist attack).  Those citations are: 71 Fed.Reg.174-196 (Jan. 3, 2006)(Dept. of Homeland Security: Preparedness Directorate; Protective Action Guides for Radiological Dispersal Device and Improvised Nuclear Device Incidents; Notice); See 71Fed.Reg. 177. See also, factors listed at 71 Fed.Reg. 183.  An article available
online at http://www.sierraclub.org/groundzero/report2006.pdf and titled Harmful Legacy of Pollution and Deception at Ground Zero:How Post 9/11 Disaster Policy Endangers Americ

Education ~ July 8th at 11AM
Jim Grant

Jim Grant is an international education consultant, educator and popular author. His mission to stop school failure began four decades ago when he served as both a principal and teacher. That mission also led Jim to found Staff Development for Educators, the nation’s leading provider of professional development training, where he currently serves as the executive director. He has traveled across the country speaking to educators with a unique blend of common sense, wisdom, and humor.

Jim’s views on education have appeared in numerous publications. He has also authored and co-authored over 25 books, including the best-selling Differentiated Instruction: Different Strategies for Different Learners, The More Ways You Teach, the More Students You Reach, and If You’re Riding a Horse and It Dies, Get Off. His latest book, The Death of Common Sense in Our Schools, will be released in July 2007.

Jim will speak on The Death of Common Sense in Our Classrooms.
POST EVENT NOTE: Jim Grant will be giving a talk and book signing for his latest book "The Death of Common Sense In Our Classrooms".  Audio CD's of his speech for the Monadnock Summer Lyceum rebroadcast on NHPR will also be available.  This event will be at the Toadstool book shop, in Peterborough NH, on Saturday September 15th at 2pm.

New England ~ July 15th at 11AM
Judson D. Hale Sr.

Mr. Hale is editor-in-chief of The Old Farmer’s Almanac and Yankee magazine, In this capacity he has appeared on hundreds of radio and television shows throughout the country – including The Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN and Late Night With Conan O’Brien.  His duties take him on speaking engagements year round.

He is the author of Discovering Our Faraway Brother, a book about his autistic brother.  He is also the author of Inside New England.  Among his many books are The Best of Yankee Magazine, The Best of The Old Farmer’s Almanac: The First 200 Years, The Old Farmer’s Book of Everyday Advice, and an autobiography.

Jud will speak on New England: Fact or Fiction.

Freedom ~ July 22nd at 11AM
Rev. Gloria E. WHite-Hammond, M.D.

Rev. Gloria E. White-Hammond, M.D., Co-Pastor of Bethel AME Church in Boston, MA since 1997, is also a pediatrician at the South End Community Health Center.  Besides her work with young women in Boston, Dr. White-Hammond’s work as a humanitarian has achieved global impact. She has worked as a medical missionary in several African countries including Botswana, Cote D’Ivoire and South Africa. Since 2001, Dr. Gloria has made seven trips into war-torn southern Sudan where she has been involved in obtaining the freedom of 10,000 women and children who were enslaved during the two-decades-long civil war. In 2002, she co-founded My Sister’s Keeper (MSK), a humanitarian women’s group that partners with women of Sudan in their efforts toward reconciliation and reconstruction of their communities. MSK has developed two grinding mill projects and supports the Akon School for Girls in Gogrial County. In February 2005, Dr. White-Hammond traveled into Darfur, western Sudan, to listen and learn from female victims of genocide in internally displaced persons camps. She recently served as the national chairperson of the Million Voices for Darfur campaign and currently is the co-chair of the Massachusetts Coalition to Save Darfur.

Dr. White-Hammond was awarded a degree in biology from Boston University, a Doctorate of Medicine from Tufts Medical School and a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School.

Politics ~ July 29th at 11AM
David M. Shribman

David Shribman became executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in after serving at the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Boston Globe, where he was assistant managing editor, columnist and Washington bureau chief.  He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in journalism in 1995 for his coverage of Washington and the American political scene.  Mr. Shribman is a regular panelist on the PBS show "Washington Week in Review," a frequent analyst for BBC radio and his current column, "My Point," is syndicated nationally.

He graduated summa cum laude from Dartmouth College and did graduate work at Cambridge University, England, as a James Reynolds Scholar.

He will bring his wit and intelligence to a discussion of How We can Hold Candidates Accountable for a Civilized Primary Season.

Language ~ August 5th at 11AM
Lewis Hyde

Lewis Hyde is a poet, essayist, translator, and cultural critic with a particular interest in the public life of the imagination.  His 1983 book, The Gift:  Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, illuminates and defends the non-commercial portion of artistic practice.  Trickster Makes This World:  Mischief, Myth, and Art (1998) uses a group of ancient myths to argue for the kind of disruptive intelligence all cultures need if they are to remain lively, flexible, and open to change.  He is currently at work on a book about our “cultural commons,” that vast store of ideas, inventions and works of art that we have inherited from the past and continue to produce. 

A MacArthur Fellow and former director of undergraduate creative writing at Harvard University, Hyde teaches during the fall semesters at Kenyon College, where he is the Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing.  During the rest of the year he is a Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. 

Lewis will speak on Cultural Commons.

Mandolins & MacDowell ~ August 12th at 10AM
Professor August Watters
And the New England Mandolin Ensemble
Note: This event starts one hour earlier, at 10AM

August Watters is a mandolinist and professor of ear training at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. As founder and director of the New England Mandolin Ensemble, he leads a quartet featuring some of today’s leading mandolinists, including classical mandolin icon Marilynn Mair (Roger Williams University), multistylistic virtuoso Jim Dalton (Boston Conservatory), and mandocello specialist Mitch Nelin. They will perform selections from their new CD "Sip A Little New" in conjunction with Professor Watters' talk on Mandolins and MacDowell.

Brain Injury ~ August 19th at 11AM
Brant A. (Bud) Elkind

Mr. Elkind serves as Vice President of the NH Brain Injury Association; by Governor Lynch’s appointment, he chairs the NH Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Advisory Council. A lecturer and educator, Bud is a Certified Brain Injury Specialist/Trainer, has worked in a-typical sub-acute, and post-acute brain injury rehabilitation settings. Bud is Director of Clinical Operations at Robin Hill Farm, a residential treatment and rehabilitation brain injury facility operating in W. Deering, Hillsborough and Peterborough, New Hampshire.

Mr. Elkind has a passion for brain injury rehabilitation and public education and is a self-described non-clinician with a high degree of clinical sensitivity.   He gives a fascinating talk, filled with passion, on the way we should Welcome Home Our Veterans.

Diplomacy ~ August 26th at 11AM
Ambassador Peter Galbraith

Ambassador Peter Galbraith has degrees from the Commonwealth School, Harvard College, Oxford University and Georgetown University Law Center.  He has served on the staff of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1979 to 1993, where he published many reports about Iraq and took a special interest in Kurdistan. In 1993, he was appointed the first U.S. Ambassador to Croatia by President Bill Clinton, later served as United Nations ambassador in East Timor and taught at the National War College (1999, 2001-2003).

Currently Ambassador Galbraith is senior diplomatic fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, and the author of The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End (2006), which argues that this country's "main error" in Iraq has been "wishful thinking" and advocates acceptance of a "partition" of Iraq into three parts as part of a "new U.S. strategy based on the reality of Iraq". He has also written extensively on Iraq in the pages of the New York Review of Books. 

Ambassador Galbraith will speak about Getting Out of Iraq and the Future of U.S. Diplomacy.

Past Speakers--2006

Steve Curwood ~ June 25 at 11AM    
The Good News About Climate Action
Mr. Curwood is the Executive Producer and Host of National Public Radio’s award-winning weekly environmental news program, Living On Earth. His hard-hitting, cutting-edge show brings to the fore the environmental problems facing our world. His show has won an Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio-Television News Directors Association, the New York Festivals Award, a CINDY Award, and the National Federation of Community Broadcasters Community Radio Program Awards. He had previously been the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for his work at the Boston Globe. Steve has a warm style that delivers his message to the core of your soul. This program will be fresh and exciting from start to finish.     www.loe.org/about/steve.htm

Letty M. Russell ~ July 2 at 11AM   
Hospitality in a World of Difference and Danger
Ms. Russell is Professor Emeritus of Theology at Yale Divinity School. Her presence on the world stage is felt through her works with the YDS Women’s Initiative on HIV/AIDS in Africa, the International DMin Program at San Francisco Theological Seminary, and the Steering Group of the WCC study on Women’s Voices and Visions of the Church. Through it all, she has found time to publish, in 2006, a book entitled Hagar, Sarah and Their Children: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Perspectives. She will bring insights into welcoming differences as drawn from the Bible and her ecumenical experience at the Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Porto Allegre, Brazil.

Jamaica Kincaid ~ July 9 at 11AM  
Notes from a Seed Collector
Jamaica Kincaid is famous as both a writer and a gardener. She travels the world collecting seeds and building beautiful gardens, then writes hard and tough about reality. She has received numerous awards and honors for her work, including the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund writer’s award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. Coming from a hard-scrabble background, she has entered the echelons of the top writers in the world. Her books are controversial, painting vivid word pictures of a world few of us will know or experience. Jamaica will read a few selected passages and we will go on a journey through her world of joy and pain, happiness and sadness, and find out what stirs the heart of this writer.   http://www.postcolonialweb.org/caribbean/kincaid/kincaidov.html

Buzz McLaughlin ~ July 16 at 11AM
The Making of an Independent Film
Mr. McLaughlin is co-founder of either/or films, an independent film company that shot its first feature-length film, The Sensation of Sight, last fall in Peterborough. A playwright whose work has won numerous awards including the National Play Award, he is also the author of the best-selling book The Playwrights Process, a former Professor of Theatre Arts at Drew University, and founder and former Artistic Director of Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey. Having spent nearly four decades in the arts and entertainment industry, he will discuss why either/or films took up residence in New Hampshire and what it took to produce a feature film in the beautiful Monadnock region. His insights will instruct and enlighten everyone about the state of the film business today both inside and outside of Hollywood.  www.eitherorfilms.com

Bill Littlefield ~ July 23 at 11AM    
Why I Have the World's Best Job
Mr. Littlefield is the writer in residence at Curry College and is nationally known as an author and as a sports commentator. His Only A Game is a weekly, one-hour sports magazine heard nationally on National Public Radio. The show covers a wide range of topics from the basic W's and L's to in-depth, sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic, always thought-provoking issues of the day. He has authored many highly regarded pieces, has won six Associated Press Awards and was lauded as one of Boston’s “Literary Lights” by the associates of the Boston Public Library. Bill will bring all this to bear on a fast-paced, give-and-take talk about current sports topics of interest to everyone. Be prepared to laugh and to see the games in a different light.   www.onlyagame.org/about/staff/billlittlefield.asp
 

Reverend Dr. Robin Meyers ~ August 6 at 11AM
Why the Christian Right is Wrong
A Ministers Manifesto for Taking Back Your Faith, Your Flag, Your Future
Dr. Robin Meyers has “spent his whole life trying to persuade people that ‘liberal’ is not a dirty word, and that Christianity is a way of life, not a set of creeds and doctrine demanding total agreement.” A United Church of Christ minister and Oklahoma City University Professor of Rhetoric, he became an Internet celebrity when his November 2004 antiwar remarks bounced from continent to continent gaining devotees. Meyers’s latest book, endorsed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, expands 10 of his most salient points into a manifesto that highlights the dichotomy between the Right’s talk of Christian values and its walk. Robin delivers an unambiguous, palpable blueprint for those who are indignant over the direction of this country and feel that the time has come for dignified but tangible resistance.   View Robin's latest book

MacDowell Medal Day ~ August 13 at 10AM
Selected Readings
Note: This event starts one hour earlier, at 10AM
MacDowell Medal Day- A Tribute to Alice Munro–August 13–10AM–Make note of this special time for a special day in Peterborough.  Join us for the kick-off program to the MacDowell Colony's Medal Day as we honor the recipient of the MacDowell Medal.  This year, the Colony will honor the great writer, Alice Munro. The Monadnock Lyceum will feature actors from the Peterborough Players reading excerpts from the honoree's best work and a musical interlude, provided by the world famous Monadnock Music ensemble.  We invite you to join us for an artful day of music and professional readings as we honor another great MacDowell Medalist, before you drive up the hill for the ceremonies and a peek inside the Colony. 
 www.macdowellcolony.org

Jill Nelson ~ August 20 at 11AM   
Living in Parallel Universes or How to Enjoy Life When You’re Not Enjoying Current Events
Ms. Nelson was born and raised in Harlem and has been a working journalist for more than twenty years. She has written books and articles on injustice, inhumanity and the human condition with incisive, sardonic wit, along the way being named Washington, D.C., Journalist of the Year and winning the American Book Award. In addition to writing, she worked as a Professor of Journalism at the City College of New York. She will bring a lifetime of experiences and observations to us, and with her usual wry humor and dynamic delivery, will leave every one of us thinking that, in this world, we can still be happy and move forward. Jill is a speaker much sought after for her insights and wisdom.    www.jillnelson.com

Past Speakers--2005

June 26: Gary Hirshberg
How Business Can Save The World
Gary Hirshberg has skillfully married stewardship to the environment with success in business. From his years as an environmental educator and director of an organic farming school, Gary Hirshberg became a yogurt maker and founder of Stonyfield Farm, where he saw his company grow to its current $172 million annual sales level with distribution in all 50 states. He has won numerous awards for corporate and environmental leadership, including the 1999 Global Green USA's Cross Millennium Award, inspired by Mikhail Gorbachev. He was named Business NH Magazine's "Business Person of the Year", and is the founder of The Social Venture Institute, a boot camp for entrepreneurs.

July 3: Rob Williams
Making Sense of Our 21st Century Hyper-Media Culture
Dr. Rob Williams has said our country is "the most mediated society in world history, with Americans spending 10-12 hours a day consuming media". He has taught and written about media literacy education for many years. He currently serves as a Vermont-based media literacy consultant, runs a two-person ML/video production company called MEMEfilms, teaches history and media studies at Champlain College and Sacred Heart University, and is board president of the Action Coalition for Media Education (ACME at www.acmecoalition.org). As an activist, this concern is that "clearly, we live in a media culture that serves the interest of a few at the expense of the many."

July 10: Grace Paley
In and Out of The World
Poet and activist Grace Paley will read from her work and talk about what is on her mind. Grace Paley's stories have appeared in The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly, among other publications. Her highly acclaimed collections of stories include Enormous Changes at the Last Minute and Later the Same Day, as well as two books of poetry and one collection of poems and prose pieces. Long actively involved in antiwar and feminist movements, Grace Paley has won many awards for her writing and has taught at Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence, Dartmouth College and City College. She lives in Thetford Hill, Vermont and New York City.

July 17: Richard Meryman
Andrew Wyeth: Genius Misunderstood
Renowned writer and editor Richard Meryman will talk about the paintings of Andrew Wyeth, his life and the manner in which he managed to apply emotion to a flat surface, accompanied by slides of Wyeth's work. Meryman worked for 23 years as a reporter, editor and staff writer for Life magazine. He is the author of Andrew Wyeth: A Seceret Life, described by Geoffrey C. Ward as ".a revelation. No one will ever view [Wyeth's] apparently tranquil works the same way again after reading this vivid and astonishing portrait of the turbulent, driven man who paints them." Meryman  has known Andrew Wyeth from 1964 and is himself the son of the Dublin artist, Richard C. Meryman, for whom he was named.

July 24: William Sinkford
Finding Common Ground
The Reverend William G. Sinkford is the first African-American president of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Named one of the nation's most prominent and powerful black religious leaders by Beliefnet, a multi-faith electronic community, he is cited for being "a particularly vocal proponent of legalizing gay marriage" and of peace in the Middle East. While at Harvard University, he advised youth groups, served as Assistant Director of Rowe Camp and directed the Harvard-Roxbury summer project. After graduation, he spent a year in Greece as a Michael Clark Rockefeller Fellow.  He received his Master of Divinity from the Starr King School for the Ministry and was ordained in 1995.

July 31: Bill Curry
Confessions of a Zen Democrat
As a former speechwriter to President Bill Clinton, state senator, comptroller, and nominee for governor of the state of Connecticut, Curry has spent his life serving in public office. An advocate for campaign finance and ethics reforms, he has led many national public policy organizations.  After graduating from Georgetown, he earned his law degree from the University of Connecticut. Curry was elected to the Connecticut State Senate at age 26. He championed laws to broaden freedom of information and end the revolving door between government service and lobbying. He has been on NPR and television, including appearances on "Firing Line with William F. Buckley, Jr." and "Debates/Debates." He has recently written his biography and a screen play soon to be broadcast on national television.

August 7: Jeff Warner
Banjos, Bones and Ballads
With warmth, humor and understated scholarship, Jeff Warner connects 21st century audiences with the music and daily life of the 19th century population, bringing "the latest news from the distant past."  He is a folklorist and Community Scholar for the New Hampshire Council on the Arts and has toured nationally for the Smithsonian Institution, singing American and English folk songs. He is the editor of Traditional American Folksongs from the Frank and Anne Warner Collection. He is the producer of the CD set: Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Stil, and has recorded for Flying Fish, Appleseed and National Geographic Records.

August 14: David Houghton
The Future of New Hampshire: Land Use Planning and Habitat Preservation
David Houghton, president of New Hampshire Audubon, a statewide membership organization dedicated to the protection of wildlife and the environment, has lobbied extensively for the protection of New England's endangered wildlife and lands. He was Regional Director with the Trust for Public Land where he led efforts to protect more than 375,000 acres of land spanning New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont. He received the Wildlife Management Institute's Touchstone Award for his work on the Connecticut Headwaters Project and was named "Conservationist of the Year" in 1998, by the Upper Valley Land Trust.  He is a true believer that conservation is good for our wildlife, but it is also good and necessary for the soul.

August 21: Ellen Langer
On Becoming an Artist: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity
A psychology professor at Harvard University, Ellen Langer works on the illusion of control, aging, decision-making, and mindfulness theory as described in over 150 research articles and six academic books. She is the author of The Power of Mindful Learning and Mindfulness, in which she discusses the profound psychological and physical advantages of mindful information processing. Her newest book, On Becoming An Artist, was just published by Random House this spring. She has received many academic honors including: The Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest, American Psychological Association Distinguished Contributions of Basic Science to Applied Psychology Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. A full length feature film, "Counter Clockwise", is currently in the works about Langer's life.

August 28: Christopher Ricks
Gratitude for Bob Dylan
Christopher Ricks, author of Dylan's Visions of Sin, is a Warren Professor of the Humanities, co-director of the Editorial Institute at Boston University, and a member of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics.  He has just begun his five-year appointment as Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford.  Mr. Ricks is the author of numerous books about writers and poets including: Milton's Grand Style (1963), Tennyson (second edition, 1998), Keats and Embarrassment (1974), The Force of Poetry (1984), T.S. Eliot and Prejudice (1988), Beckett's Dying Words (1993), Essays in Appreciation (1996), Allusion to the  Poets (2002), and Reviewery (2003). He also edited The Oxford Book of English Verse and The New Oxford Book of Victorian Verse.

Past Speakers 2004

Lester C. Thurow, Dean, MIT's Sloan School of Business.  "Building Wealth in the 21st Century"

Eleanor Clift, Journalist.  "Politics, Journalism and Media Discourse in the New Millenium"

Paul Tsongas, US Senator, MA.  "The Future of America"

Ken Burns, Filmmaker.  "The Mystic Chords of Memory"

Laura W. Murphy, Director, American Civil Liberties Union.  "The USA Patriot Act: Is It All That Bad"

Walter Peterson, Governor, NH.  "Reflections on Troubled Times"

Charles W. Collier, Senior Philanthropic Advisor, Harvard University.  "The Practices Of Successful Families"

Dr. Thomas Moore, former monk.  "American Spirituality from Orenda to Amazing Grace"

B.F. Skinner, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University.  "What Is Behaviorism?"

Zainab Salbi, founder, Women for Women International.  "A Refugee Woman’s Reality"

Jane Alexander, Journalist.  "Supporting the Arts"

Granny "D" Haddock, Activist.  "On the Road for Campaign Finance Reform"

Mai Cramer, WGBH, Real Blues.  "The Importance of Blues Musician Muddy Waters"

Ted Nace, author, Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy.  "Confessions Of a Recovering Capitalist"

Stephen Jay Gould, Professor of Zoology and Geology, Harvard University.  "Growing Young: Human Evolution as a Process of Increasing Youthfulness"

   To Order copies of these past lectures please send email to dcflemming@aol.com