The State of Our Nation: Where Are We Now?

POLITICS / The American Dream and What it Means Now

Wendy Schiller / Brown University

The America of 2017 reflects significant changes in the underlying fabric of our society, with changes in the composition of our population, our attitudes and our national social structure. In the last 100 years we have seen period of great social and political change, from the women’s suffrage movement to the labor movement to civil rights. We are in the midst of another period of political and social transition. This class will take on the difficult question: What does America stand for?

Wendy Schiller / Brown University
Wendy Schiller is a Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Brown University. She is an expert in the field of the U.S. Congress and political representation, and the recent recipient of a National Science Foundation grant to study party conflict and factionalism in the U.S. Senate. Professor Schiller has been a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution and a six-time recipient of the Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award at Brown.

ART / Modern Art: What it means (and why you couldn’t have done it)

Tina Rivers Ryan / Metropolitan Museum of Art

As museums, galleries, and art fairs continue to expand around the world, it’s a simple fact that more people are seeing more art in more places than ever before. But it seems like the more we look, the less we’re really seeing: given that most of us have little to no training in “reading” images, we tend to lose sight of the works themselves (which explains some of our fascination with taking “art selfies,” or gawking over record-breaking auction prices). On top of that, the modern and contemporary artworks that are most popular with audiences today are often notoriously–and even deliberately–difficult to understand.

If we’re willing to put in the effort, however, we can learn to understand even the most demanding works of art. In the past, art showed us beauty, but also provided moral instruction, recorded history, and inspired religious feeling. Today, art still does all of that, and also asks us to think about ourselves and our relationship to the world around us, while teaching a form of critical thinking opposed to the hectic pace of our everyday lives. Looking closely at a few works of art from the last hundred or so years, we will see why modern and contemporary art matters so much now–and learn how to make sense of it.

Tina Rivers Ryan / Metropolitan Museum of Art
An art historian by training, Dr. Tina Rivers Ryan holds a BA from Harvard, three Master’s Degrees, and a PhD from Columbia. She has taught classes on art at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and Columbia, where she was one of the top-ranked instructors of the introduction to art history, “Art Humanities: Masterpieces of Western Art.” Her scholarly writing and art criticism have appeared in the notable periodicals Artforum, Art in America, and Art Journal, and her work has been commissioned by museums such as the Walker Art Center and Tate Modern. She regularly lectures on art to both public and academic audiences internationally. In 2015, she joined the curatorial staff of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

1 hour and 15 minute / Lunch Break

AMERICAN STUDIES / Race in America: Past, Present, and Future

Christina Greer / Fordham University

In this lecture, Professor Greer will encourage participants to solidify and define their current understanding of race and ethnicity in relation to group identity in the U.S., incorporation of immigrants over time, and the overall political climate in America today. The class will dissect the interplay between race and ethnicity and look at how these dual identities affect participation and policy attitudes.

In addition, we’ll discuss feelings toward the American Dream in 2017 and beyond. Specifically, we’ll consider the promise of economic, political, and social advancement, regardless of race or other circumstances. In the Q & A portion of the presentation, we will talk about whether preservation of an ethnic identity is an essential element in better achieving representation, policy stances, and political participation as a pathway to success in our country now.

Christina Greer / Fordham University
Christina Greer is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Fordham University. Her book “Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream,” was the recipient of the WEB du Bois Best Book Award. She was also voted City & State’s 2014 Top 40 Under 40 Rising Stars. Professor Greer is a frequent political commentator on several media outlets, primarily MSNBC and NY1, and is often quoted in media outlets such as the NYTimes, Wall Street Journal, Newsday, and the AP.

BIOETHICS / The Dilemmas of Modern Medicine

Jeffrey Kahn / Johns Hopkins University

In this lecture, Professor Kahn will examine the state of health care and biomedical research in the U.S. and around the globe, through the lens of ethics. The lecture will start with some historical context and examples from bioethics, and draw some parallels from the past for the current state of our public discussions on a range of controversial bioethics issues.

Topics will include the practices of research involving patients as well as healthy subjects, the debates about the beginning and end of life, reproductive technologies, transplantation, and the latest cutting edge research in genetics and genomics.

The Schafler Forum
7 West 83rd St.
New York, NY 10024
Congregation Rodeph Sholom

Tickets $195