Updated: Possible News Events to Cover

Some cool events in the area.  Unfortunately every one of them requires me to skip a class. Story of my life.

Everyone should try and check them out if they’re in the area.

1. On Wednesday October 5^th, at 7:30 Internationally acclaimed theologian and activist Matthew Fox will speak on “Where Do We Go from Here?: Spirituality for the Twenty-first Century.” Fox was a member of the Dominican Order for 34 years and holds a doctorate from the Catholic University of Paris. He is the author of 29 books and is currently a visiting scholar at the Academy for the Love of Learning in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  The event, sponsored by the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life and by the Weissman Center is particularly relevant because of our current global social climate.
2. On Thursday October 13^th at 4:30pm Sebastian Farber, a professor of Hispanics from Oberlin college, is coming to talk at Amherst College.  The topic of discussion is about “War, Dictatorship and Memory: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on Spain.”  More specifically he is talking about “The Duty of Memory, the Right to forget: Historical memory Beyond Stalemates.” In the last decade, efforts to confront the legacy of the Spanish Civil War and Franco dictatorship have catapulted Spain into front page news. The exhumations of mass graves and the suspension of judge Baltazar Garzón for attempting to investigate General Franco’s military regime, are just two of the stories that have prompted high-profile figures like human rights activist Rigoberta Menchú, to cite Spain as an example of the need for global mechanisms of justice and restitution.
3. On Thursday October 13^th at 5:00pm Anne Walthall will be discussing “Weaponry Technologies and Masculine Identities: The Introduction and Diffusion of Guns into Japan” at Smith College.
4. On Wednesday October 5^th palistinian speaker Diana Buttu will be presenting On the Front Line: An Account of Peace Negotiations between Israel and Palestine.  Buttu is a Dubai Initiative Research Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She has played key roles in Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations from 2000 to 2005. Her lecture will address the following questions: What lessons can be learned from those negotiations? What role, if any, could women have played in these talks? Diana Buttu is a Fellow at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. She previously served as a legal advisor to the PLO’s negotiating team in its negotiations with Israel and was later an advisor to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. During her tenure as a legal advisor, Ms Buttu was part of the team that successfully litigated Israel’s Wall before the International Court of Justice. Ms Buttu is a frequent commentator on Palestine, Palestinian politics and the peace process, appearing on CNN, BBC, MSNBC, and Al Jazeera among other networks. She holds degrees from the University of Toronto, Northwestern University and Stanford University. She is a member of the Ontario Bar.
5. On Wednesday October 5^th Northampton resident and The New York Times contributor Brooke Hauser will host a discussion about nonfiction writing and read from her book, The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens. Set during one year at a vibrant Brooklyn school where students come from more than 45 countries and speak more than 28 languages, the book follows the stories of a few unforgettable teenagers, all recent immigrants learning English. Many of the students overcame unimaginable difficulties to reach the United States.
6. On Thursday October 13^th at 6:00pm Clemente Bernad will be at Amherst College’s symposium on “War, Dictatorship and Memory: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on Spain.” Clemente Bernad is a graduate in photography, cinema and video at the University of Barcelona. From 1987 to present he has worked as a documentary photographer and writer with a particular interest in issues of migration, social justice, violence, memory and conflict. Bernad’s work has been displayed at several museums, including a recent exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. He will be presenting his latest work, Kept Awake, at the North American premier of his documentary Dying for Dreams.