Columbia 1968 and the World
A 40th Anniversary Event
April 24-27, 2008
This spring marks the 40th anniversary of the 1968 student protests at Columbia University. A group of alumni participants, working with faculty and students, has developed a program for a three-day conference to reexamine those events from a wide range of viewpoints and in the context of what was happening in 1968 in the country and the world. The conference will provide a chance for people who lived through that period to reconnect, reconcile, and reflect. And it will engage current students in a discussion about issues of war, race, and the role of the university—issues that are still with us 40 years later. What follows is a preliminary schedule of events showing confirmed speakers. All events are on the Columbia University campus; see event for building location. For a map of the Columbia campus, go to www.columbia.edu/about_columbia/map/
EVENTS WITH AN ASTERISK REQUIRE ADVANCE TICKETING. GO TO EVENT INFORMATION FOR DETAILS.
Thursday, April 24
7 p.m. Opening reception (Casa Italiana)
Sponsored by the
Charles Revson Fellowship Program at Columbia University
Welcome
Nancy Biberman
Barnard ’69, President Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corp.
Lee Bollinger
President, Columbia University
8 p.m Columbia 1968 and the World (Casa Italiana)
A look at what was going on in the nation and the world in 1968, from the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. to the abdication of Lyndon Johnson, from the Tet Offensive in Vietnam to Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, from the Eugene McCarthy campaign to the tumultuous Democratic Party convention in Chicago. It was a truly remarkable year.
Robert Friedman (moderator)
Journalist, former Columbia Spectator editor (1968)
Victoria de Grazia
James R. Barker Professor of Contemporary
Civilization and Director of the Institute
for the Study of Europe, Columbia
University
Tom Hayden
Activist, principal author of the Port Huron Statement, former California state legislator
Mark Kurlansky
Writer and author of "1968: The Year that Rocked the World."
William
Sales
Member Hamilton Hall Steering Committee,
Associate Professor, Africana and Diaspora Studies, Seton Hall University
Friday, April 25
10 a.m. From Vietnam to Iraq (Journalism School)
Forty years of U.S. intervention. What, if anything, have we learned?.
Michael Klare
Author and Five College Professor of peace and World Studies, Hampshire College
Noon Feminist Legacies of 1968 (501 Schermerhorn)
A moderated discussion with women who were at Barnard and Columbia in 1968 and played important roles in the rise of the feminist movement. Sponsored by the Institute on Research on Women & Gender.
Louise Yelin (moderator)
Kempner Distinguished Professor of Literature, Purchase College, SUNY
Ti-Grace Atkinson
Feminist activist and author
Rosalyn Baxandall
Chair of American Studies and Distinguished Teaching Professor, SUNY College at Old Westbury
Christine Clark-Evans
Associate Professor of French, Penn State University
Elizabeth Diggs
Head of Playwriting and Associate Professor of Dramatic Writing, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
Grace LeClair
Co-founder of
Calvert Social Investment Fund, Executive Director, NARAL Pro-Choice New
Hampshire
Sharon Olds
Poet, creative writing instructor New York University
Catharine Stimpson
University Professor, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, New York University
2 p.m Political Action and Official Response (Journalism School)
State and university officials regularly act to direct, limit, or oppose political activities by those under their authority. Their actions may range from providing opportunities for political expression and preventing unlawful conduct, to surveillance, harassment, prosecution, and violence. This session will explore the range of official responses to political activism in the late 1960s and today. Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Law and Culture.
Lee Bollinger
President, Columbia University
Ray Brown
Chair, White Collar Defense and Corporate Compliance Group, Greenbaum, Rowe, Smith & Davis
Samuel Gross
Thomas and Mabel Long Professor of Law, University of Michigan
Gustin Reichbach
New York State Supreme Court Justice
Kendall Thomas
Nash Professor of Law, Columbia University
4 p.m. Race at Columbia, Then and Now (Journalism School)
Forty years of struggle at Columbia, from opposing the gym in Morningside Park to demanding ethnic studies; from the anti-apartheid divestment campaign to hunger strikes. What are the common threads among the critiques made by people of color at Columbia? Is the campus still fragmented along color lines? Are the interventions of yesterday still viable today?
Thulani Davis
Writer, Barnard ‘70
Arnim Johnson
Attorney, Columbia College ‘71
Manning Marable
Professor of Public Affairs, Political Science, and History, Columbia University
Johanna Ocana
Lucha, Columbia College
Claytoya Tugwell
Black Student Organization, Columbia College ‘10
Sudhir Venkatesh,
Professor of Sociology, Columbia University, Director of the Center for Urban Research and Policy, Director of the Charles H. Revson Fellowship Program
8 p.m. What Happened? (Law School)
A large-scale, multi-media narrative of the events at Columbia in the spring of 1968 told by witnesses and participants on as many sides, and from as many points of view, as possible. Including, among others: Nancy Biberman, Ray Brown, Al Dempsey, Leon Denmark, Larry Frazier, Robert Friedman, Stuart Gedal, Juan Gonzalez, Michelle Patrick, Mark Rudd.
Saturday, April 26
10 a.m. The Legacy of the Student Movement (Journalism School)
Forty years later, a battle is still being waged about how the events of 1968 are remembered.Did the student protests wreck Columbia or make the university a stronger institution? Did they lead to the election of Richard Nixon or help end the Vietnam War and inaugurate an era of profound social and cultural change?
Juan Gonzalez (moderator)
Author and columnist, New York Daily News
Lewis Cole
Professor of Film, Columbia University
.
Todd Gitlin
Professor of Journalism and Sociology, Columbia University, and former president Students for a Democratic Society
Maurice Isserman
William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of History, Hamilton College, and author of “America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s.”
Peniel Joseph
Associate Professor of African and Afro-American Studies, Brandeis University, and author of “Waiting Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America”
John McMillian
Lecturer in history and literature, Harvard University
Frances Fox Piven
Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology, City University of New York
Noon Lunch for those who took part in the occupation of Hamilton Hall, their families, and friends. (Location TBA)
2 p.m. Ethics and Protest (Journalism School)
The ethics of protest movements, including those in universities. What is the responsibility of the citizen when the state breaks laws that have been enacted for the protection of its citizens? What are the moral and strategic limits of violence?
Akeel Bilgrami (Speaker)
Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University
Frederick Neuhouser (Moderator)
Viola Manderfeld Professor of German & Professor of Philosophy, Barnard College.
Respondents:
Fred Block
Professor of Sociology, University of California, Davis
Jamal Joseph
Assoc. Professor and Chair, Columbia University Graduate Film Division,
Former New York Panther 21 defendant
Karl Klare
Matthews Distinguished University Professor, Northeastern University
Mark Rudd
Activist and president Columbia SDS, 1968
Eleanor Stein
Adjunct Professor, Albany Law School
Winnie Varghese
Episcopal Chaplain, Columbia University
4 p.m. Organizing, Activism, Engagement --Then and Now (Journalism School)
An intergenerational dialogue between current student activists and veterans of 1968.
about evaluating the changing dynamics of activism and how to move forward.
8 p.m. Voices of 1968
(School of International and Public Affairs, Altschul Auditorium)
Writers who were at Columbia read their work from and about 1968.
Paul Auster
Thulani Davis
Mary Gordon
Robert Holman
James Kunen
David Lehman
Hilton Obenzinger
Sharon Olds
Jonah Raskin
Kathy Seal
Ntozake Shange
David Shapiro
Paul Spike
Meredith Sue Willis
10 p.m. Live music and dancing at Havana Central, aka The West End
The Druids of Stonehenge (Woody Lewis, Billy Cross, Billy Tracy, Tom Workman, Roger Kahn, Carl Hauser, and David Budge)
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SPECIAL FILM SCREENING
Dodge Hall, 4th floor - Lifetime Screening Room
Saturday 10 AM to 6
10 AM Columbia Revolt Newsreel
11AM Vala Sherry and Kamau Suttles
12:30 PM A Time to Stir Paul Cronin
3 PM Remembering 1968 Edward Jahn
4 PM Columbia Revolt Newsreel
5 PM Vala Sherry and Kamau Suttles
All films are by independent filmmakers and have not been pre-screened by the conference organizers.
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Sunday, April 27
11 a.m. Memorial (Earl Hall)
A remembrance of those no longer with us
Noon Telling Our Stories (Earl Hall)
Open mike for veterans of 1968 to talk about their lives since then and lessons learned (Earl Hall)
2 p.m. Picnic lunch in Morningside Park
with a ceremony commemorating the halting of gym construction 40 years ago. Sponsored by Friends of Morningside Park.
Remarks by:
Adrian Benepe
New York City Parks Commissioner
Thomas Hoving
Former New York City Parks Commissioner
______________________________________________________________________________
Event organizing committee:
Nancy Biberman
Thulani Davis
Robert Friedman
Tom Hurwitz
Hilton Obenzinger
Laura Pinsky
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Attendance at this conference is free. Donations to help fund this event are gratefully accepted. Please make out checks to:
Columbia 68-08 Committee, 305 Riverside
Drive, Apt. 11C, New York, NY 10025
This donation is not tax deductible
