Taking its cue from the most significant political event — the presidential debate — to occur at the University in the months ahead, the fall Assembly Series will feature several speakers with a politically related or election-oriented focus.
Starting off the season, however, is a speaker from the business world. Bethany McLean, the Fortune magazine reporter who was the first to question how energy giant Enron made its money, will give a talk based on her book, The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, at 11 a.m. Sept. 8 in Graham Chapel.
Unless specifically stated, Assembly Series lectures are held at 11 a.m. on Wednesdays in Graham Chapel.
McLean’s lecture, like all Assembly Series talks, is free and open to the public; although a few may be restricted to the general public, subject to overcrowding concerns. Go to the Assembly Series Web site, assemblyseries.wustl.edu, for specific information regarding each lecture.
McLean, now a senior writer for Fortune, joined the financial magazine’s reporting staff in 1995. She covers a wide range of companies and industries and also contributes to the “Street Life” column for fortune.com.
Her story, “Is Enron Over-priced?” was published in the March 2001 issue of Fortune. Two years later, McLean’s book, co-written with colleague Peter Elkind, was published. The Smartest Guys in the Room chronicles the scandal and is considered by many to be the definitive account of the Enron debacle.
Before becoming a writer, McLean worked in investment banking.
Her lecture is co-sponsored by Delta Sigma Pi.
Veteran investigative reporter and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Seymour Hersh will discuss “Foreign Policy in an Election Year” Sept. 15. From his first book in 1970, My Lai 4: A Report of the Massacre and Its Aftermath — for which he received a Pulitzer Prize and a host of other journalistic awards — to his soon-to-be-published eighth book, Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, Hersh has been called one of the hardest-working muckrakers in the country.
His lecture is co-sponsored by Chimes, a junior honorary society at the University.
The first of a two-part discussion of the USA Patriot Act will be given by Viet Dinh Sept. 22 in Anheuser-Busch Hall, Room 310. A Georgetown University law professor, Dinh helped draft the controversial legal document when he spent two years as U.S. assistant attorney general for legal policy under John Ashcroft.
His talk, “Liberty and the Rule of Law After September 11th,” will be part of the School of Law’s Public Interest Law Speakers Series (PILSS).
On Sept. 29, David Cole, Dinh’s colleague at Georgetown University law school and outspoken critic of the Patriot Act, will discuss “John Ashcroft’s Paradigm of Prevention and the Future of Civil Liberties.” Cole’s talk also will take place in Room 310 of Anheuser-Busch Hall and is a part of the PILSS.
On Thursday, Sept. 23, the Assembly Series will host a special event featuring two of the University’s most distinguished faculty members. Philip D. Stahl and Jonathan S. Turner, recipients of this year’s Faculty Achievement Awards, will discuss their work at 4:30 p.m. in the auditorium of Uncas A. Whitaker Hall for Biomedical Engineering.
Turner, Ph.D., the Henry Edwin Sever Professor of Engineering in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, has received the University’s Arthur Holly Compton Faculty Achievement Award.
Internationally recognized for his accomplishments in computer networks and telecommunications, Turner’s research interests include the design and analysis of high-performance routers and switching systems, extensible communication networks and analysis of algorithms.
Stahl, Ph.D., the Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. Professor and head of the Department of Cell Biology and Physiology in the School of Medicine, is the recipient of the Carl and Gerty Cori Faculty Achievement Award.
Stahl has been recognized as a creative and prolific scientist. His research concerns the mechanisms involved in endocytosis, the process through which cells absorb external substances such proteins, in an effort to detect how growth signals are internalized into cells.
One of the most influential and articulate voices of American conservative political thought, William Kristol, will address “What’s at Stake in the 2004 Election” at 11 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 7, the day before the presidential debate at the University.
Kristol is a prominent television commentator, has authored best-selling books and has been editor and publisher of The Weekly Standard since 1995. In addition, he has held many leadership roles in the Republican Party.
His talk is co-sponsored by the Conservative Leadership Alliance and the College Republicans.
On Oct. 13, the Assembly Series will welcome back Susan Faludi, the writer of two groundbreaking books that analyze the forces and impact of changing societal roles. When it was published in 1991, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women was an immediate best seller. Her second book, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Male, was published eight years later.
Her talk will be the Olin Fellows Lecture.
The prominent University of Chicago scholar Robert Richards will give a talk at 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 21, in Rebstock Hall, Room 215. He is a professor of history, of philosophy and of psychology and an expert on Darwin and evolutionary theory.
His work focuses on how Romantic concepts of the self, and aesthetic and moral considerations, altered scientific representations of nature. The title of his lecture is “Did Ernst Haeckel Commit Fraud in Defending Darwin’s Theory?”
His talk will serve as the Thomas Hall Lecture.
A journalist who has worked in print, television and most recently online (popandpolitics.com), Farai Chideya‘s main goal is to reach the politically disenfranchised in America, especially minority youth. Her talk, “Trust: Reaching the Million Missing Voters,” will be Oct. 27.
Chideya has been a writer and has covered political news for ABC, Oxygen, CNN, MTV and Newsweek magazine. She has also authored two books.
Her talk is co-sponsored by the Association of Black Students and will be the Black Arts & Sciences Lecture.
Gerald Torres, the University of Texas law professor best known for co-authoring, with Lani Guinier, the acclaimed book, The Miner’s Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy, will talk about his work as a leader in the civil rights and environmental justice movements.
His talk, “Knowledge, Power and Democracy: Insights From the Civil Rights and Environ-mental Movements,” will be Thursday, Oct. 28. The lecture is co-sponsored by the Association of Latin American Students, and is a part of the law school’s lecture series.
On Nov. 3, Washington University faculty panelists will give their thoughts on the results of the presidential election. Panelists and the moderator will be announced at a later date.
The annual Holocaust Lecture will feature writer, poet and Colgate University professor Peter Balakian. An Armenian-American, he has devoted two books to examining the tragedy of the Armenian genocide. The first was the memoir The Black Dog of Fate, and most recently he published The Burning Tigress: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response, which received a New York Times Book Review “Notable Book” citation.
His talk will be at 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 4.
The final lecture will be delivered Nov. 10 by Chinese novelist Anchee Min. Her life story, detailed in the autobiography Red Azalea, reflects the uncertainty, hardship and fear that many Chinese citizens endured under the rule of Mao Tse Tung.
After immigrating to America in the 1980s, she learned English and published several novels.
This will serve as the Neureuther Library Lecture, co-sponsored by the Department of English in Arts & Sciences.
For more information, call 935-4620 or go online to assemblyseries.wustl.edu.