Past Events

As the nation’s 22nd Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, Robert Reich implemented the Family and Medical Leave Act; led a national fight against sweatshops in the U.S. and illegal child labor around the world; headed the administration’s successful effort to raise the minimum wage; secured worker’s pensions; and launched job-training programs, one-stop career centers, and school-to-work initiatives.

Throughout his career, Robert Pinsky has been dedicated to identifying and invigorating poetry’s place in the world. As Poet Laureate, Pinsky founded the Favorite Poem Project, in which thousands of Americans shared their favorite poems.

Panel Discussants: Walter Mignolo, Pheng Cheah (Rhetoric), Gillian Hart (Geography) and José David Saldívar (Ethnic Studies and English). Moderated by Anthony J. Cascardi (Townsend Center Director)

Walter D. Mignolo is William H. Wannamaker Professor of Literature and Romance Studies, Cultural Anthropology and Spanish at Duke University. Professor Mignolo’s research focuses on global coloniality and the history of capitalism.

Panel Discussants: Stephen Greenblatt, Wendy Brown (Political Science, Gender and Women’s Studies), Roland Greene, (English, Comparative Literature, Stanford University) and Jeffrey Knapp (English)

Stephen Greenblatt is Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. His areas of specialization include Shakespeare, 16th- and 17th-century English literature, the literature of travel and exploration, and literary theory.

Panel Discussants: Hélène Cixous, Pheng Cheah (Rhetoric), Suzanne Guerlac (French) and Judith Butler (Rhetoric, Comparative Literature)

Theorist, novelist, playwright, and educational innovator Hélène Cixous is one of the best-known of the late-20th-century “French feminists.” Her work, often considered deconstructive, is known for its experimental writing that crosses the traditional limits of academic discourse into poetic language.

Suman Mukherjee, eminent theater director from India and Townsend Center Visiting Artist in Residence, directs Professor Sudipto Chatterjee in a solo-performance piece on the life, times and music of Lalon Phokir, the saint-composer of the multireligious “Baul” of Bengal.