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Truthtelling: Democracy in an Age Without Facts

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Conference Program

Friday, Oct. 28

10:30 a.m. Olin Auditorium	Welcoming Remarks: Leon Botstein, President, Bard College.
11:00 a.m. Olin Auditorium	Introductory Lecture: Roger Berkowitz, Academic Director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities.
11:30 a.m. Olin Auditorium	Keynote Address: Lewis Lapham is the editor of Lapham's Quarterly and former Editor of Harper's Magazine. He is the author many books including, PRETENTIONS TO EMPIRE: Notes on the Criminal Folly of the Bush Administration and MONEY AND CLASS IN AMERICA: Notes on Our Civil Religion. Lapham is currently the host of The World in Time: radio discussions with scholars and historians on Bloomberg Radio. Discussant: Francine Prose
1:00 p.m.	Lunch (2:10 p.m. dance performance with Marjorie Folkman)
2:30 p.m. Olin Auditorium	Keynote Address: Zadie Smith is the author of the novels WHITE TEETH, THE AUTOGRAPH MAN, and ON BEAUTY, which won the Orange Prize for Fiction. She has also edited an anthology of short stories entitled THE BOOK OF OTHER PEOPLE. Her collection of essays CHANGING MY MIND was published in November 2009. She is Harper's book critic and a Professor of Creative Writing at NYU. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Chair: Wyatt Mason
3:15 p.m. Olin Auditorium	Lecture: Jonathan Kay is the author of AMONG THE TRUTHERS: A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground. He is a Managing Editor of Canada’s National Post newspaper, a columnist on the newspaper’s op-ed page, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Salon.com, and The New York Times. Discussant: Ann Lauterbach
4:15 p.m.	Break
4:30 p.m. Olin Auditorium	Keynote Address: Naomi Oreskes is co-author of MERCHANTS OF DOUBT: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. She is also Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Discussant: Gregory Moynahan
6:00 p.m. Olin Auditorium	Lecture: Daniel Rose is Chairman of Rose Associates, Inc., a New York-based 85-year old real estate organization, and winner of four national Cicero Speechwriting Awards. He has been awarded Honorary Doctorates in Engineering (Polytechnic University) and in Humane Letters (Long Island University). Discussant: Richard Aldous
7:00 p.m.	Dinner for Speakers Attendees should avail themselves of the Hudson Valley's fantastic culinary Culture. Reservations recommended.

Saturday, Oct. 29

10:30 a.m. Olin Auditorium	Introductory Lecture: Wyatt Mason is Senior Fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and the Humanities. He is Contributing Writer at the New York Times Magazine, Contributing Editor at Harper's, and writes regularly for The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books. His writing has earned him the National Book Critics Circle Citation for criticism. He is also translator of the works of Rimbaud for The Modern Library.
11:00 a.m. Olin Auditorium	Lecture: Wolfgang Heuer is the editor of Hannaharendt.net and author of numerous books, including COURAGEOUS ACTION (COURAGIERTES HANDELN) and CITIZEN: PERSONAL INTEGRITY AND POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY. He is Privatdozent at Otto-Suhr-Institut für politische Wissenschaft at the Freien Universität in Berlin. Discussant: Ric Fouad
11:45 p.m. Olin Auditorium	Lecture: Peg Birmingham is author of HANNAH ARENDT AND HUMAN RIGHTS. She is currently working on a manuscript tentatively titled "A Lying World Order: Deception as a Philosophical and Political Problem." She is Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University. Discussant: Matthias Bormuth
12:30 p.m.	Lunch
1:00-2:00 p.m. Olin Auditorium	Discussion: Winners of the Hannah Arendt Center's Truthtelling Challenge: J.P. Lawrence, Katya Lebedev, Jacqueline Bao, Rezarta Seferi, Steven Tatum CoChairs: Jeff Champlin & Jennie Han
2:00 p.m. Olin Auditorium	Keynote Address: Sam Tanenhaus is the Editor of The New York Times Book Review. He is the author of THE DEATH OF CONSERVATISM and WHITTAKER CHAMBERS: A BIOGRAPHY. Discussant: Roger Berkowitz
3:15 p.m.	Lecture: Benjamin Kunkel is co-founding editor of n+1 and the author of the novel INDECISION. Discussant: Jessica Loudis '08
4:15 p.m.	Break
4:30 p.m. Olin Auditorium	Lecture: Idith Zertal the author of many books and articles on Jewish, Zionist and Israeli history, published in a dozen languageS. Her books include, ISRAEL'S HOLOCAUST AND THE POLITICS OF NATIONHOOD and LORDS OF THE LAND: The War over Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007. In the last ten years she has written extensively on Hannah Arendt's political thought. Zertal's annotated translation into Hebrew of Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism was published in Israel in 2010. She is Professor of Contemporary History at the Institute for Jewish Studies, the University of Basel. Discussant: Norman Manea
5:30 p.m. Olin Auditorium	Lecture: Walter Russell Mead is the James Clark Chase Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College and Editor-at-Large of The American Interest, where he writes the blog Via Meadia. His books include GOD AND GOLD: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World, and SPECIAL PROVIDENCE: American Foreign Policy and How it Changed the World. Discussant: Ian Buruma
6:30 p.m. Olin Auditorium	Concluding Lecture: Jerome Kohn is Trustee of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust and editor of the many volumes of Arendt's unpublished and uncollected writings: THE PROMISE OF POLITICS, ESSAYS ON UNDERSTANDING 1930-1954, RESPONSIBILITY AND JUDGMENT, and THE JEWISH WRITINGS (with Ron Feldman). Discussant: Roger Berkowitz
7:15 p.m.	Wrap-up
7:30 p.m.	Dinner for Speakers