Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

General Vincent K. Brooks served in the U.S. Army for over 42 years from his entry into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point until his retirement from active duty in 2019 as a four-star general. Brooks spent his final 17 years of service in the general officer ranks and for nearly all those years in command of large, complex military organizations in challenging situations. His final active-duty assignment was commanding all US, South Korean, and international UN forces in the Republic of Korea. 

In his ongoing post-military career, he is a fellow at the University of Texas, a fellow at Harvard University, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a board director, and a consultant.

General Brooks will deliver the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies’ 2025-26 Lecture in Honor of General Crouch.

Victor Nani Agbeli is a world-renowned musician, dancer, and cultural historian, celebrated for his mastery of traditional Ghanaian and West African arts. Born into a family of distinguished artists from Ghana’s Volta region, he continues the legacy of his late father, Godwin K. Agbeli, a legendary drummer, dancer, and historian who chaired Ghana’s Folklore Music Council. Acclaimed for performances that electrify audiences with precision, energy, and athleticism, Agbeli is also a dedicated cultural ambassador and educator, committed to preserving and sharing Ghanaian heritage globally. He has led the award-winning Sankofa Roots II troupe, served as principal instructor at the Dagbe Cultural Center, and taught at Tufts University, Harvard University, CalArts, and the Edna Marley School of Dance, Theater, and Textile, among others. A multi-disciplinary artist, Agbeli bridges traditional Ghanaian music and dance with contemporary creative practices in percussion, choreography, history, and healing, inspiring audiences worldwide and shaping the next generation of cultural practitioners. Agbeli teaches Intro/Tech to traditional Ghanaian West African music, dance, song, arts, and history at Pomona College.

Morgan Gillette is a multi-instrumentalist and Marine Corps veteran based in Los Angeles. Growing up in a family with generations of both performing arts and military experience, he performed with various school, city, and state orchestras on viola and cello, while focusing on the guitar with family and friends. During nine years of active-duty service, Gillette’s passion for music never wavered. After his service, he continued his studies in the Applied Music Program at San Diego Mesa College, where he was exposed for the first time to traditional Ghanaian music, igniting his passion for drumming and percussion. Later, while at California Institute of the Arts, he began his collaboration with Nani Agbeli joining Agbeli’s West African Music and Dance department and performing with African music ensembles for two years at CalArts. Gillette’s love of Ghanaian song, dance, and drums persisted even through a year classical guitar training at the Traditional Music program at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. In 2019, Gillette joined Agbeli’s Volta Drum Dance, where he remains an active member and performer.

Monique Thompson’s dance journey began at the age of six when she started learning Nigerian-style dance under her first instructor, Baba Onochie Chukwurah. For the last four years, she has been training with Nani Agbeli, and has deepened her skills in Ghanaian drumming, dance, and singing. A life-long Pasadena resident, Thompson holds a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Cal State Northridge and a Master’s degree with a Multiple Subject Credential from The Alder Graduate School of Education. Thompson is an active member of Agbeli’s Volta Drum Dance and performs regularly throughout greater Los Angeles area.

This Athenaeum performance is part of a 4-part musical series for this academic year: Devotional and Spiritual World Music featuring Ghanian, South Asian, American Gospel, and Brazilian traditions.

 

Hannah Chazin is an archaeologist whose work investigates the history of human-animal relations, and explores how new scientific techniques like isotope analysis and ancient DNA analysis are re-shaping how archaeologists learn about life in the past. 

Currently an assistant professor of anthropology at Columbia University, Chazin’s book, Live Stock and Dead Things, was released in 2024 to critical acclaim. Yannis Hamilakis, professor of archaeology and of modern Greek studies at Brown University, states "We have been waiting for a book like this for many years... this is a rare bird of a book that pays our dues to the mundane beings that lived and labored with and alongside humans, but which were instrumentalized and objectified in scholarship for far too long." 

Chazin's scholarship has appeared in American Anthropologist, American Antiquity, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Archaeometry, and the Journal of Field Archaeology. In support of her scholarship, she has received fellowships and grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the Institute for Advanced Study. Previously, she has done archaeological fieldwork in Armenia, Russia, Chile, Cambodia, and the western United States.

Chazin received a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago and is currently the co-director of the Karashamb Animals Project, which is exploring, using cutting-edge scientific analyses, the lives of the animals buried in an ancient necropolis in Armenia.

Gastón Enrique Espinosa is the Arthur V. Stoughton Professor of Religious Studies at Claremont McKenna College.  He is a graduate of Princeton (M.Div.), Harvard (M.Ed.), and UC Santa Barbara (Ph.D.) and did postdoctoral work at the UCLA School of Film and Television. 

Espinosa has held visiting fellow appointments at Dartmouth College, NHC National Institute for Advanced Studies, the University of Münster, Germany, and Princeton University. He has directed nine major surveys on Latino religions, politics, and activism from 1998-2022. 

Espinosa is the author or co-author of nine books, fifty refereed articles, book chapters, and reviews, sixty encyclopedia entries, 200 scholarly keynotes and presentations around the world, has made numerous television, radio, and media appearances, and has served as the director of eight major conferences. 

In 2002, he spoke at the National Hispanic Presidential Prayer Breakfast with President George Bush and Senator Joseph Lieberman and he currently is the co-director of the Columbia University Press Series in Religion and Politics.

Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind is an international figure in architecture and urban design. Informed by a deep commitment to music, philosophy, and literature, Libeskind aims to create architecture that is resonant, original, and sustainable.

Libeskind established his architectural studio, Studio Libeskind, in Berlin, Germany, in 1989 after winning the competition to build the Jewish Museum in Berlin. In February 2003, Studio Libeskind moved its headquarters from Berlin to New York City to oversee the master plan for the World Trade Center redevelopment, which is being realized in Lower Manhattan.

Libeskind’s practice is involved in designing and realizing a diverse array of urban, cultural, and commercial projects around the globe. The Studio has completed buildings that range from museums and concert halls to convention centers, university buildings, hotels, shopping centers, and residential towers. As Principal Design Architect for Studio Libeskind, Libeskind speaks widely on the art of architecture in universities and professional summits. His architecture and ideas have been the subject of many articles and exhibitions, influencing the field of architecture and the development of cities and culture.

Libeskind has won dozens of awards for his work including the Goethe Medal, the Hiroshima Peace Prize, the Dresden Peace Prize, and the European Union Prize for Civil Rights.

Mr. Libeskind's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the President's Office and the President's Leadership Fund.

Photo credit: Stefan Ruiz

Robert Twomey is an artist and engineer studying the ways we share space with machines—creative, perceptual, emotional—and how emerging technologies transform sites of intimate life. He houses this work in the Machine Cohabitation Lab. His projects have been presented at SIGGRAPH (Best Paper Award), CVPR, NeurIPS, ISEA, and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. He has been an artist-in-residence with Nokia Bell Labs’ Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), Carnegie Mellon’s STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, and a NYC Media Lab x Bertelsmann fellow. His work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, California Arts Council, Microsoft, Amazon, HP, and NVIDIA. Twomey holds a BS from Yale with majors in Art and Biomedical Engineering, an MFA from UC San Diego, and a PhD from the University of Washington. He is a professor of Computing in the Arts and a researcher with the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at UC San Diego.

Professor Twomey's Athenaeum presentation is the keynote for Third Annual Meeting of the World Imagination Network.

 

Sam Tanenhaus, best-selling and prize-winning author of books on American politics and media, is the former editor-in-chief of The New York Times Book Review. He has lectured at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia universities as well as at the George W. Bush White House and the Clinton, Kennedy, and Johnson Presidential libraries. 

His feature articles and essays have appeared in the Atlantic, New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Time, Vanity Fair, Prospect, and more than two dozen other publications in the U.S. and abroad. He is currently a contributing writer for the Washington Post and Distinguished Fellow of the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto.

Mr. Tanenhaus's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Open Academy and the Salvatori Center, both at CMC.

Photo credit: Michael N. Pressman

Keith Nightingale '65 commanded four rifle companies, three battalions, and two brigades throughout his military service. He was an original member of the 1/75th Rangers when formed in 1974. He served two tours in Vietnam including as unit advisor to the 52d Ranger Battalion and subsequently as a company commander with the 101st Airborne Division. 

After leaving the service, Nightingale has made an annual commitment to return to the D-Day invasion site in Normandy, France to lead "staff rides" (tours) for Airborne and Ranger soldiers. He speaks for "the originals" and takes the soldiers to the key battle sites in Normandy to showcase the invasion activity.

Mr. Nightingale's Athenaeum presentation commemorates Veterans' Day, 2025.  

Ken Miller (B.A. Pomona College, J.D. Harvard Law School, Ph.D. U.C. Berkeley) is Don H. and Edessa Rose Professor of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College. He became director of the Rose Institute on July 1, 2021, having served as associate director from 2009 to June 2021. He has served as a member of CMC’s Government faculty since 2003. Miller’s research focuses on state government institutions, with an emphasis on direct democracy and the interaction between law and politics. His publications include Texas vs. California: A History of Their Struggle for the Future of America (Oxford University Press, 2020), Direct Democracy and the Courts (Cambridge University Press, 2009), and co-edited volumes Parchment Barriers: Political Polarization and the Limits of Constitutional Order (University Press of Kansas, 2018) and The New Political Geography of California (Berkeley Public Policy Press, 2008). Miller was the Ann and Herbert Vaughan Fellow in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University (2011-2012) and a visiting scholar at the John Goodwin Tower Center for Political Studies at Southern Methodist University (2017-2018). At the Rose Institute, he has worked with students on numerous research projects, including the biennial Video Voter Guide project and the 24-state Miller-Rose Institute Initiative Database.

Vernon C. Grigg III is a seasoned trial lawyer and educator with a deep commitment to education, and public service. Holding degrees from Yale Law School (J.D.), the London School of Economics (G.S.C.), and the University of Michigan (BA), Vernon has served as CEO & President of Up with People, an international educational program where he built leadership programs and led a global team through the challenges of a worldwide pandemic. His legal career includes representing diverse clients, from government officials to Fortune 100 companies, and significant pro bono work in civil rights. Vernon has taught at Golden Gate University School of Law and has international experience, including groundbreaking roles in South Africa and Israel. As theExecutive Director of the Kravis Lab, Vernon aims to advance CMC’s mission in civic engagement and civic leadership by bringing students knowledge, skills and inspiration.

The Civitas Sessions focus on the stuff you need to know before it becomes the stuff you wish you had known…Curated by the Kravis Lab and hosted at the Athenaeum, this lunch series is designed to build real-world civic skills and the knowledge needed to live thoughtful, productive lives as responsible community members and leaders. Each session will deliver practical knowledge and discuss how the subject matter applies to important current issues. 

PRO: 
Emma Ashford is a foreign-policy scholar and Senior Fellow with the Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center. Prior to joining the Stimson Center, Ashford spent significant time at the Atlantic Council and the Cato Institute where she led projects related to U.S. foreign policy, international security, and the politics of global energy markets. Ashford is the author of the book "Oil, the State, and War: The Foreign Policies of Petrostates" and maintains a steady presence in current discourse on international relations through her bi-weekly column “It’s Debatable,” for Foreign Policy. In addition to her role at the Stimson Center, Ashford serves as a nonresident fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point and as an adjunct assistant professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. Ashford will argue the restraint position in the debate.

CON: 
Mark Gitenstein served as the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union from 2022 to 2025 and as U.S. Ambassador to Romania from 2009 t0 2012. A longtime public servant and attorney, Gitenstein spent 17 years on the U.S. Senate Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, gaining extensive experience in legislative and policy matters. Over the past decade, Gitenstein has focused much of his work on Central and Eastern Europe, particularly Romania. In his roles as ambassador and later as counsel to NGOs and private-sector clients, he has dedicated his efforts to strengthening democratic institutions through greater transparency, anti-corruption initiatives, and the advancement of the rule of law. In addition to his leadership in global politics,  Gitenstein has extensive experience navigating turbulent moments in American domestic politics. In 2020, Gitenstein assisted in President Biden’s transition into the role. He will argue the interventionist position in the debate. 

MODERATOR:
Aditya Pai ’13 is a trial attorney and recent Democratic congressional candidate in CA-45, a perennially ‘purple’ district in north Orange County. Pai’s service work at the Orange County Red Cross, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Habitat for Humanity-OC and over 2,000 hours in pro bono legal aid has garnered awards from the California Bar, Harvard, the Urban Land Institute, and the Disneyland Resort. He earned a B.A. Summa Cum Laude from Claremont McKenna College, where he served as student body president, and M.Phil. and J.D. degrees in history and law from Cambridge University and Harvard Law School. Pai grew up in Irvine, CA and is a naturalized American citizen from Bombay.

This program is co-sponsored by the Dreier Roundtable at CMC, whose mission is to inspire public service.

Hany Farid is a professor with joint appointments in the School of Information and Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the co-founder and chief science officer at GetReal Security. His research focuses on digital forensics, forensic science, misinformation, image analysis, and human perception. 

Farid received his undergraduate degree in computer science and applied mathematics from the University of Rochester in 1989, and his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997. Following a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, he joined the faculty at Dartmouth College in 1999 where he remained until 2019 when he joined the faculty at UC Berkeley. He is the recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

Henry Olsen '83 was previously an editor at UnHerd.com and a regular contributor to American Greatness, City Journal, and World Magazine. His work has been featured in many prominent publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Review, The Guardian, and The Weekly Standard.

His predictions of the 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018 elections were particularly praised for their remarkable accuracy. In the 2016 campaign, he accurately identified the factors fueling the rise of Donald Trump early in the race, and his election-eve predictions were among the most accurate of any major analyst or commentator. Olsen regularly speaks about American political trends and global populism in the United State, Europe, and Australia.

Olsen has worked in senior executive positions at many center-right think tanks. He most recently served from 2006 to 2013 as Vice President and Director, National Research Initiative, at the American Enterprise Institute. He previously worked as Vice President of Programs at the Manhattan Institute and President of the Commonwealth Foundation.

Olsen has a B.A. in government from Claremont McKenna College and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the Rose Institute of State and Local Government. 

Mr. Olsen's Athenaeum presentation is sponsored by Rose Institute of State and Local Government at CMC.

Sharon Sliwinski is professor of Information and Media Studies at Western University in Canada. Her interdisciplinary work brings together the fields of visual culture, political theory, and psychosocial studies. She has written extensively on photography, human rights, and the social imaginary. In 2017, she was elected to the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada. Her latest book, An Alphabet for Dreamers, will be published by MIT Press in October 2025.

Professor Sliwinski’s Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies at CMC.

 

Yoshiko M. Herrera is a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research on Russian politics: nationalism, identity, and ethnic politics; political economy and state statistics (national accounts); and international norms, has been published with Cambridge University Press, Cornell University Press, the American Political Science Review, Perspectives on Politics, Comparative Politics, Political Analysis, Journal of Peach Research, Social Science Quarterly, Post-Soviet Affairs, and other outlets.

At UW–Madison, Herrera teaches courses on comparative politics, the Russian War on Ukraine, social identities and diversity, and post-communist politics. In 2021, she was a recipient of the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award at UW-Madison. 

Herrera received her B.A. from Dartmouth College and M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Before arriving in Madison in 2007, Herrera was the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Social Sciences in the Government Department at Harvard University (1999-2007).  

Professor Herrera's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at CMC.