Scripps College Humanities Institute has announced its fall 2003 program exploring the topic of Poverty. The program’s opening symposium, The Other America: The Hiddenness of Poverty in the U.S, will take place on September 25, 2003, at 4:15 p.m., with another session following at 7:30 p.m., both in the Hampton Room of the Malott Commons on the Scripps College campus. The event is free and open to the public. For more information and a complete schedule of events, please call the Humanities Institute at (909) 621-8326.
Scheduled symposium speakers hail from a range of disciplinary perspectives and expertise, and will address issues related to the theme of Poverty, with a particular emphasis on the invisibility of poverty in a nation of plenty and the legacy of Michael Harrington, who helped inspire the War on Poverty. Topics explored will include: The Man Who Discovered Poverty, presented by Hamilton College Professor Maurice Isserman; How the Child Welfare System Hides Poverty, presented by Northwestern University School of Law Professor Dorothy Roberts; and The Things They Carry: Growing Up Poor in the World’s Richest Nation, presented by Alex Kotlowitz, journalist and award-winning author of There Are No Children Here.
Under the leadership of Institute Director Julia E. Liss, the Fall program will also include several lectures, a film series, a photography exhibit, Empty Pockets: Images of Children in Poverty at the Clark Humanities Museum, and a conference on Women and Poverty in the United States, co-organized and co-sponsored with Intercollegiate Women’s Studies of the Claremont Colleges. Program guests include authors, scholars, artists, and activists.
Director Liss notes: “We chose the theme of Poverty this year for a number of reasons. By focusing on poverty, we can address critical issues, such as homelessness, hunger, children living in poverty, housing, health and inequality, and social policy on these issues, both within the U.S. and internationally. These lectures will also approach the topics from different disciplinary perspectives, a central concern of all Humanities Institute programming.”
For a full schedule of events, please contact the Humanities Institute at (909) 621-8326.