Other Items

• Created 6 November 2009; Published 10 November 2009
  Convocation: Luci Tapahonso

  Luci Tapahonso is an award-winning Navajo poet and short story author. Navajo was her first language but she learned English before starting school at the Navajo Methodist Mission in Farmington, New Mexico. She majored in English at the University of New Mexico, as an undergraduate and a graduate student, and is now Professor of English at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where she teaches Poetry Writing and American Indian Literature. She is the author of three children’s books and five books of poetry. She structures prose and poetry that are mixtures of family stories, Navajo culture and legendary tales. Utilizing many of the same storytelling techniques used by many Native American writers, she highlights aspects of her life that are important to her and has shaped the woman she is today. Unlike most Native American writers, however, Tapahonso’s writing is a translation from original work she has created in her tribe’s native tongue. Her work includes original songs and chants designed for performance. For this reason, her English work is strongly rhythmic and uses syntactical structures unusual in English language poetry. The title of her presentation was "A Radiant Curve: Stories and Poems."

• Created 30 October 2009; Published 28 October 2009
  Convocation: Jonathan Morduch

  Jonathan Morduch is Professor of Public Policy and Economics at New York University's Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. His research focuses on international development, poverty and financial access. He is the Managing Director of the Financial Access Initiative, a research consortium of leading development economists that aims to expand access to financial services for low-income individuals in developing countries. He has been chair of the United Nations Committee on Poverty Statistics and a member of the U.N. Advisors Group on Inclusive Financial Sectors. He has served as an advisor to the United Nations, World Economic Forum, Pro Mujer, and the Grameen Foundation. He is a member of the editorial boards of the World Bank Economic Review, Journal of Economic Perspectives, and Journal of Globalization and Development. Co-author of The Economics of Microfinance and Portfolios of the Poor: How the World's Poor Live on $2 a Day, Morduch has taught on the Economics faculty at Harvard University, and has held fellowships or visiting positions at Stanford, Princeton, and the University of Tokyo. The title of his presentation was "How the World's Poor Live on $2 a Day."

• Created 23 October 2009; Published 28 October 2009
  Convocation: John Harris '85

  John Harris (Carleton Class of 1985) stumbled into journalism during his freshman year at Carleton when a friend asked him to write a couple of articles for The Carletonian. He did, and the effect was instantaneous. Suddenly, he was certain what he wanted to do in life. For more than two decades, Harris worked for the Washington Post, serving as White House reporter. In an effort to break the traditional journalism mold, in 2006 he co-founded The Politico (print newspaper) and Politico.com where he now serves as editor-in-chief. The title of his presentation was "Barack Obama v. the Freak Show: Politics and Media on the Wild Frontier."

• Created 16 October 2009; Published 28 October 2009
  Convocation: Mark Bauerlein

  Mark Bauerlein is Professor of English at Emory University where he has taught since 1989, with a two-and-a-half year break in 2003-05 to serve as the Director, Office of Research and Analysis, at the National Endowment for the Arts, where he oversaw studies about culture and American life. He earned his doctorate in English at UCLA in 1988. His publications include Whitman and the American Idiom (1991), Literary Criticism: An Autopsy (1997), The Pragmatic Mind: Explorations in the Psychology of Belief (1997), Negrophobia: A Race Riot in Atlanta, 1906 (2001), Civil Rights Chronicle: The African American Struggle for Freedom (2003), and A Handbook of Literary Terms (2004). Apart from his scholarly work, he publishes in popular periodicals such as The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Post, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. His latest book attracted national buzz even in advance of its publication. Bauerlein’s provocative, deeply researched book finds ignorance in abundance and the Internet an all too enticing web of social networking that further insulates youth from their intellectual development. He contends that the technology that was supposed to make young adults more astute, diversify their tastes, and improve their minds had the opposite effect. The title of the book, and the title of his presentation, is "The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future."

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  Created 14 October 2009; Published 6 October 2009
  The Northfield Taoist Renaissance

  Professor Qiguang Zhao, the Burton and Lily Levin Professor of Chinese and Chair of Asian Languages and Literature, discusses what he hopes to achieve by teaching Taoist philosophy to a class at Carleton College.

• Created 2 October 2009; Published 2 October 2009
  KRLX: The Soul of Carleton

  A brief video portrait of KRLX, Carleton's own student-run radio station.

• Created 2 October 2009; Published 28 October 2009
  Convocation: Drew Miller '81

  Drew Miller (Carleton Class of 1981) brings locally grown talent with a global reputation. His Minneapolis-based band Boiled in Lead have for over 26 years been innovators in bringing folk music kicking and screaming to rock audiences (and rock music to screaming folk audiences!) Performing on fiddle, guitars, bass and percussion, the players improvise freely yet stay in sync, playing a vital mix of original and traditional material—a blend of Irish folk, American folk rock, and world music. The group and the individual musicians have won over 20 Minnesota Music Awards, and toured throughout the United States and in Europe. The convocation presentation of lecture-and-demonstration was followed in the evening with a public concert.