George A. Miller
When George A. Miller died in 1951 he left an estate of almost a million dollars to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign "to be used . . . for educational purposes . . . other than current general operating expenses." More Information
Our guidelines have been extensively revised in order to streamline the application process. Application Site
Support for this series as a whole is provided by:
Office of the Chancellor, Office of Equal Opportunity and Access, Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, The Center for Advanced Study, George A. Miller Programs Committee and Peggy Harris Memorial Fund, The Council of Deans, and The Graduate College.
Criminal Trafficking and Slavery: A Global Problem
February 23, 2006
Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Third Floor, Levis Faculty Center
919 West Illinois Street, Urbana
Susan Forbes Martin
Executive Director, Institute for the Study of International Migration, Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Criminal trafficking and slavery are growing national, regional, and global problems yet they are much-neglected subjects in academia and public policy. Susan Martin explores the global dimensions of the trafficking and slavery problem, evaluates measures being taken to address these criminal activities, and advances recommendations about what could feasibly be done to diminish and eradicate these practices and to assist the affected victims.
In conjunction with:
Center for African Studies, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, Center for Global Studies, Center for International Business and Economic Research, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, College of Law, College of Communications, Department of Anthropology, Department of Economics, Department of Geography, Department of Political Science, Department of Sociology, European Union Center, Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, Program in South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security, Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center, Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program,
This lecture is held in conjunction with Criminal Trafficking and Slavery: the Dark Side of Global and Regional Migration, the Joint Area Centers Annual Symposium, held February 24-25. For more information call 265-5186 or visit: www.cgs.uiuc.edu/resources/jacs/.
21st-Century Color Lines and Other Lines: The Challenge of Pan-Africanism
February 27, 2006
Monday, 4:00 p.m. Third Floor, Levis Faculty Center
919 West Illinois Street, Urbana
Bill Fletcher
President and Chief Executive, TransAfrica Forum, Washington DC
As we enter the 21st century, the color line in the global Pan-African movement has certainly not disappeared, but has evolved. Other divisions among the oppressed have complicated notions of transformative strategy for the movement: national liberation struggles hit a strategic dead-end after defeating colonialism and wealth polarization on the planet has raised the issue of class like never before. Race is constantly reconstructed; it is never a permanent category.
In conjunction with:
African-American Cultural Program, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, College of Law, Department of French, Department of Geography, Department of History, Department of Political Science, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Department of Sociology, Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program
Closing Pandora's Box: Human Rights Conundrums in Cultural Heritage Protection
March 10, 2006
Friday, 4:00 p.m. Plym Auditorium, Temple Hoyne Buell Hall
611 Taft Drive, Champaign
William Logan
UNESCO Chair of Heritage and Urbanism, Deakin University, Australia
Across the globe conflicts have arisen over the cultural heritage—both tangible and intangible— underwriting claims to historical and current ethnic presence on the landscape. From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe the world is awash in an alphabet soup of often violently contested heritage sites and practices. The destruction of monuments and restriction of living cultural practices demoralizes—indeed delegitimizes—a people, inhibits intercultural understanding, and impedes economic development based on heritage tourism.
In conjunction with:
Art History Program, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, Center for Global Studies, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Department of Anthropology, Department of History, Department of Landscape Architecture, Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism, Department of Urban and Regional Planning
This lecture is held in conjunction with the CHAMP workshop, Cultural Heritage and Human Rights, on March 11 in the IPRH building, 805 W. Pennsylvania, Urbana. The workshop is open to the public. For more information, please access www.champ.uiuc.edu.
The Yalta Conference and Ronin Office Ladies: Two Plays Performed by the Seinendan Japanese Theatre Troupe
March 14, 2006
Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.
Theatre, Lincoln Hall
702 South Wright Street, Urbana
Seinendan Theatre Troupe directed by Oriza Hirata, Tokyo, Japan
One of the most important Japanese "little theatre" troupes of the past twenty years, Seinendan, will perform two comedies by Oriza Hirata in Japanese with English supertitles.
In The Yalta Conference, three actresses recreate the February 1945 meeting at which Stalin, Churchill, and a terminally ill Franklin Roosevelt determined the shape of the postwar world. Insightful and hilarious, The Yalta Conference puts a unique Japanese spin on one of the cardinal events of the twentieth century.
Ronin Office Ladies spoofs Chushingura, the classic tale of the forty-seven masterless samurai who hatch an elaborate plot to avenge their master’s wrongful death. Seinendan’s irreverent parody takes place in a contemporary corporate lunchroom, where disgruntled “office ladies” plot to avenge the mistreatment of a colleague.
In conjunction with:
College of Fine and Applied Arts, Department of Theatre, Foreign Languages Building Fund, Global Crossroads Living Learning Community, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, Japan House, Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security, Unit One, Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program
Trusting Edison: From Speculative Belief to Reliably Reconstitutable Phenomena
March 27, 2006
Monday, 4:00 p.m. Third Floor, Levis Faculty Center
919 West Illinois Street, Urbana
Charles Bazerman
Professor and Chair, Department of Education, University of California at Santa Barbara
Using the case of Edison's light and power as well as other cases from the history of scientific and technical writing, Bazerman will explore the rhetorical process by which incredible claims about new discoveries and inventions become trustworthy representations of material realities--how words and symbols connect to real objects and events.
In conjunction with:
Center for Writing Studies, College of Education, Department of Educational Policy Studies, Department of Speech Communication, Department of Sociology, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Information Trust Institute
Realizing Human Rights: Access to HIV/AIDS-related Medication and the Role of Civil Society in South Africa
March 28, 2006
Tuesday, 4:00 p.m. Third Floor, Levis Faculty Center
919 West Illinois Street, Urbana
Zackie Achmat
Chairperson, Treatment Action Campaign, South Africa
Zackie Achmat lives with HIV/AIDS. He is an activist with roots in the anti-Apartheid struggle and is at the forefront of campaigns for the rights to health care and medicine. Among his numerous awards, he has received The Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights and was voted one of 35 heroes of 2003 by Time Magazine.
"For children, women and men with HIV/AIDS, the rights to dignity, life, equality and their inter-connections with the right to health care access, particularly access to medicines including anti-retrovirals stands between us and death. This is particularly true in poor countries and poor communities in wealthy countries. These rights 'dignity, life, equality' are essential tools in our struggle to remove the barriers to HIV treatment and health care for all." - Zackie Achmat
In conjunction with:
Center for Global Studies, Department of Anthropology, Department of Geography, Department of History, Department of Psychology, Department of Sociology, Gender and Women’s Studies, Global Crossroads Living/Learning Community, Institute of Communications Research, International Programs and Studies, Medical Humanities and Social Science Program, Medical Scholars Program, Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Concerns, School of Social Work, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program
The Black Power Movement: Self-Determination, Transformation and Sabotage
March 31, 2006
Friday, 4:00 p.m. Room 112, Gregory Hall
810 South Wright Street, Urbana
Kathleen Cleaver
Senior Lecturer in Law, Emory School of Law, Emory University
Senior Lecturer, Department of African and African American Studies, Yale University
Kathleen Cleaver, former National Press Secretary for the Black Panther Political Party, discusses her experiences in one of the most recognized and revered groups of the Black Power Movement. She also provides insight on the anti-colonial thesis of the Black Power Movement.
In conjunction with:
African American Cultural Program, Asian American Studies Program, College of Education, Department of Anthropology, Department of English, Department of History, Department of Sociology, Gender and Women’s Studies Program, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, International Programs and Studies, Latina/o Studies Program, Native American Studies Program, S.P.E.A.K. Café, Unit for Cinema Studies, Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program
This lecture is held in conjunction with the conference, Race, Roots, Resistance: Revisiting the Legacies of the Black Power Movement to be held March 29-April 1, 2006. For more information, visit www.aasrp.uiuc.edu.
The Spider Trap: Corruption, Organized Crime and Transition in the Balkans and Russia
April 6, 2006 Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Third Floor, Levis Faculty Center
919 West Illinois Street, Urbana
Award-winning journalist and author of The Balkans, 1804-1999, Misha Glenny will discuss his current research: the tangled relationship between weak government, corrupt business and crime as the foundation for the emergence of capitalism and the driving force in the region since 1989.
In conjunction with:
Center for International Business Education and Research, Center for the Study of Democratic Governance, College of Law, Department of History, Department of Journalism, Department of Political Science, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, European Union Center, Global Studies Initiative, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, Institute for Government and Public Affairs, International Programs and Studies, Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security
Ethics and the Collapse of Civilization
April 21, 2006
Friday, 4:00 p.m.
Room 100, Gregory Hall
810 South Wright Street, Urbana
Jonathan Lear
John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor, Committee on Social Thought, Department of Philosophy, The University of Chicago
If one's civilization is collapsing, and its central values and norms become drained of meaning, how should one live?
Jonathan Lear will address this deeply difficult philosophical, ethical and human question by reflecting on the case of the Crow tribe of American northwest plains Indians in the late 19th century, as they thought about how they should live during a period in which their traditional life was becoming impossible.
In conjunction with:
College of Communications, College of Education, College of Fine and Applied Arts, College of Law Program in Law and Philosophy, Department of Advertising, Department of Anthropology, Department of Classics, Department of Educational Policy Studies, Department of English, Department of History, Department of Journalism, Department of Political Science, Department of Speech Communication, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, Institute for Communication Research, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory
Toxic Drift: The Lasting Legacy of Post-World War II Pesticide Use
April 25, 2006
Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.
Auditorium, Spurlock Museum
600 South Gregory, Urbana
Pete Daniel
Historian and Curator, Division of Work and Industry, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington DC
Following World War II, chemical companies put wartime research to use in the domestic market: with the help of agricultural experts, they promoted the use of synthetic chemicals as pesticides. The haunting consequences include children playing hide-and-seek in the mists of DDT produced by a spray truck, ducks falling dead from the sky, and massive fish kills. Pete Daniel will discuss this instance of government failure to protect human health and wildlife, and explore its implications for newer issues such as mad cow disease and genetic engineering.
In conjunction with:
Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society, Center for Global Studies, Collaborative for Cultural Heritage and Museum Practices, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, College of Law, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Department of Human and Community Development, Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, Department of Philosophy, Department of Political Science, Department of Sociology, Department of Speech Communication, Environmental Council, Environmental Law Society, Human Dimensions of Environmental Systems Program, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, Martin Luther King Jr. Committee, Medical Humanities and Social Sciences Program, Natural History Survey, School of Art and Design, Spurlock Museum
Check back often for the latest details about these upcoming events. Although we make every effort to insure the accuracy of these materials, all information is subject to change.
