David Barboza is the Shanghai Bureau Chief of The New York Times, where he has been posted since 2004. In 2013, Barboza was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting “for his striking exposure of corruption at high levels of the Chinese government, including billions in secret wealth owned by relatives of the prime minister, well documented work published in the face of heavy pressure from the Chinese officials.” He was also part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. In 2008, Mr. Barboza won The Times’ internal business award, the Nathaniel Nash Award. He has twice won the Gerald Loeb Award for business reporting. Mr. Barboza graduated from Boston University with a bachelor’s degree in history and attended Yale University Graduate School. Mr. Barboza’s Athenaeum talk is sponsored by the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at Claremont McKenna College. Read more...

Victoria Sanford is professor and chair of anthropology and founding director of the Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies at Lehman College. She holds a doctorate in Anthropology from Stanford University, where she studied International Human Rights Law and Immigration Law at Stanford Law School. A prolific author, her books include, among others, Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala and Tierra y Violencia en Guatemala. In August of 2012, she served as an invited expert witness on the Guatemalan genocide before Judge Santiago Pedraz in the Spanish National Court’s international genocide case against the Guatemalan generals. Professor Sanford’s Athenaeum talk is sponsored by the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights at Claremont McKenna College. (Photo credit: Julien Charlon)

David Sedaris is a humorist, comedian, author, and radio contributor. A regular on NPR and in the New Yorker, he is the best-selling author of, among many other books, Me Talk Pretty One Day and When You Are Engulfed in Flames. With sardonic wit and incisive social critique, Sedaris is one of the most observant writers addressing the human condition today and has become one of America’s pre-eminent humorists and a master of satire.

Sedaris is currently on a U.S. tour that is getting rave reviews around the country.

(Photo credit: Hugh Hamrick)

SPECIAL NOTES:

The Athenaeum will not serve dinner on the night of Mr. Sedaris’ appearance.

Doors will open at 6:30 p.m.

Mr. Sedaris will begin signing books in the Athenaeum lobby at 6:45 pm. The show will begin at 7:30 pm. He will speak for about an hour, followed by 20 to 30 minutes of Q & A. He will continue to sign books (for as long as it takes) after the show.

Seats for this event will be extremely limited and restricted to CMC students, faculty, and staff. Faculty and staff are limited to bringing one additional immediate family member.

Seating is on a first come-first serve basis only.

Seats cannot be held for others.

Wajahat Ali, a journalist at Al Jazeera America, is a lawyer, an award-winning playwright, a television host, and a consultant for the U.S. State Department. Ali helped launch the Al Jazeera America network as co-host of Al Jazeera America's The Stream, a daily news show that extended news and conversation to social media and beyond. Author of The Domestic Crusaders, the first major play about Muslim Americans post-9/11, he is also the lead author and researcher of Fear Inc., Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America. He speaks on the multifaceted Muslim-American experience and the emergent generation of millennials poised for social change. Mr. Ali’s Athenaeum talk is co-sponsored by the President’s Leadership Fund. (Photo credit: Delaney Chambers) Read more...

Tim Haughton is an associate professor of European Politics at the University of Birmingham and a former director of Birmingham’s Centre for Russian, European, and Eurasian Studies. He has held visiting positions at Harvard and Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Haughton has published widely on party politics, the politics of Central and Eastern Europe, and has been the co-editor of the Journal of Common Market Studies Annual Review of the European Union since 2008. Professor Haughton’s Athenaeum talk is sponsored by the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at Claremont McKenna College. Read more...

Toshia Shaw is the founder of Purple W.I.N.G.S. (Women Inspiring Noble Girls Successfully), which seeks to demystify misconceptions about who is at risk for sexual violence. Having personally overcome domestic violence and sex-trafficking, Shaw draws on her own experiences in an effort to relate and connect with the girls and women she serves and transforms. In 2006 realizing that girls in her community were being trafficked in staggering numbers, she felt compelled to start speaking up about the issue of domestic minor sex trafficking in Las Vegas, Nevada. She transforms and inspires with her harrowing journey out of sex trafficking. Read more...

View video: YouTube with Toshia Shaw

Jennifer Taw teaches International Relations, U.S. Foreign Policy, and Security Studies at CMC. Previously, she taught at Occidental College, UCLA, and USC. She began her career at RAND, where she spent a decade studying counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, Special Forces, urban combat, and peace operations. Her publications include Mission Revolution: The U.S. Military and Stability Operations and several co-authored editions of World Politics in a New Era. Professor Taw will be the Freshmen Inauguration Speaker. This event is restricted to first-year incoming CMC students, who are automatically signed up for it. Read more...

As you return to campus, no longer a new student, but perhaps not completely decided about your next three years at CMC, what new things will you try this year? What will you focus your energies on? Join us for a dinner, exclusively for the sophomore class, where you will have the opportunity to build relationships with your fellow classmates and connect with faculty. All attendees will receive a special class gift from the Dean of Students office. This event is for current sophomores only. Sophomores must place a reservation to attend this dinner. Space is limited, so don’t miss out!