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September 2019
“Through Western Eyes: Humanitarian Communication and the Rohingya Refugee Crisis”
Bimbisar Irom (Murrow College of Communication) will talk about the Western media coverage of the ongoing Rohingya refugee crisis that originated in Myanmar and has now spilled over into the neighboring countries of Bangladesh, India, Thailand, and Malaysia. The presentation will explore media coverage of “distant suffering” as a cultural product that draws on earlier iconographies, ideologies, and relationships of dominance. How does the media build proximity and distance between spectators and people they will never meet? This central question…
Find out more »“The Quest for Environmental, Climate, Racial, and Economic Justice in the United States”
Robert Bullard, 2019 recipient of WSU's William Julius Wilson Award for the Advancement of Social Justice, is a distinguished professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University in Houston and the author of 18 books. Often called the “father of environmental justice,” Bullard was recently listed among the world’s 100 Most Influential People in Climate Policy by the national policy group Apolitical. Environmental crises, both sudden and ongoing, are among the many causes and contributing factors of…
Find out more »October 2019
Adobe Creative Jam Final Competition
This fall students in UNIV 104 have collaborated with Adobe to create mobile apps addressing a theme related to this year’s Common Reading. The competition has asked them to develop skills in critical thinking, digital literacy, and communication and to consider the needs of their audience with creativity and empathy. This event will showcase the finalist groups as they present their apps to a panel of expert judges and compete to receive prizes. Verification of attendance available.
Find out more »Reading and Q&A with writer Terese Marie Mailhot from her novel “Heart Berries”
In 1830, President Andrew Jackson and the U.S. Congress passed the Removal Act, a bill that forced Native Americans to leave the United States and settle in the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River, effectively turning them into asylum seekers in their own land. This history of being forced-refugees is still on the minds of many tribal members in the U.S., including artists and authors. Terese Marie Mailhot is a writer from the Seabird Island Band of British Columbia.…
Find out more »“How Democracies Die”
Steven Levitsky is comparative political scientist and professor of government at Harvard, who researches Latin America. His 2018 book How Democracies Die has been a New York Times bestseller and has been hailed by many publications as a “best nonfiction” title for 2018. As we consider the conditions that create fragile states that in turn create the conditions of forced migration, Levitsky offers a perspective about how democracies fail—not just through violent coups, but more commonly through a gradual slide…
Find out more »“Papers, Ships, and Tweets: American Policy toward European Jews in the 1930s and its Memory in Contemporary Battles over Refugees”
Professor Ray Sun and honors student Zili Chang will talk about the American policies and debate in the 1930s regarding European Jews seeking asylum in the face of Nazi persecution--and the connections between refugee debates in that time period and our own. This talk is part of the 2019-20 Common Reading series. Verification of attendance available.
Find out more »November 2019
“Climate Change as a Moral Imperative”
Robin Meyer is an author, syndicated columnist, and NPR commentator. He is the senior minister at Mayflower Congregational UCC Church and Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Social Justice at Oklahoma City University.
Find out more »“Immigrants and Schools in the American Empire”
Drawing from his 2016 book Education for Empire: American Schools, Race, and the Paths of Good Citizenship, Clif Stratton (History and UCORE) will discuss how racism, nativism, and imperialism have shaped the public education of immigrants and native-born non-whites in the U.S. Verification of attendance provided.
Find out more »Poem Reading and Q&A with Visiting Writer Jericho Brown
Jericho Brown is one of the most brilliant young stars of American poetry today. Not only does his work cite America’s history with slavery, one of the largest forced migrations in human history, it also explores complacency—the inaction of people who choose not to leave their zones of safety to understand larger problems of social justice. Brown is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at…
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