International Festival of Arts & Ideas

For centuries, the role of the bookseller—or librarian, or literary friend—has been akin to that of the country doctor: get to know patients through time and experience, then lovingly place the right prescription in their hands at the right time in their lives. In a world of Amazon.com and crowd-sourcing, has that central role of a personal literary mediator been lost? Susan Elderkin, a bibliotherapist at The School of Life in London and co-author of The Novel Cure, speaks on how and why to recommend books.

Most of us assume that intelligence is immutable, set by our genetic inheritance or by our upbringing. Writer and reporter Annie Murphy Paul explodes that myth by revealing the impact of the microenvironment.

How do companies innovate, and how do regional and national strategies incentivize creative growth? Connecticut has a history rich in innovation, from Eli Whitney inventing the cotton gin to the invention of the sewing machine to Sikorsky and the first successful helicopter in the Western Hemisphere. How does our state participate in a global conversation about innovation? Panelists include: Laurence Vigeant-Langlois (Sikorsky Innovations) Stephen J. Liguori (GE), Karti Subramanian (Vera Solutions) Mick Correll (GenoSpace) and moderator Cynthia Murphy (Thomson Reuters)

Marion Nestle is a consumer activist, nutritionist, award-winning author, and academic who specializes in the politics of food and dietary choice. Her research examines scientific, economic, and social influences on food choice and obesity, with an emphasis on the role of food marketing. Her books explore issues like the effects of food production on food safety, our environment, access to food and nutrition.

Cities are home to more than half of the world's population, and are the primary incubators of the cultural, social and political innovations that shape our planet. Benjamin Barber, author of the upcoming book If Mayors Ruled the World, proposes that cities represent a new paradigm of global governance - that democracy began in cities and works best in cities, and that networked cities working across borders can and already do solve global problems of climate change, immigration, security and transportation.

Barber is author of Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age and Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping the World. He is Senior Research Scholar at the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society of The Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Following Mr. Barber's presentation he is joined on stage by New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, Jr.

This panel looks at the increasingly diverse and multi-cultural society that the United States is moving toward: 2013 is the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, and the 50th anniversary of both the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.PanelistsHarlon Dalton (moderator) is currently the Priest-in-Charge at Christ Church Cathedral in Hartford. He holds a B.A. from Harvard University and a J.D. from Yale University. He has served as a public interest lawyer in New York and worked for the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. He also taught at Yale Law School, where he is now a professor emeritus.

Aracelis Vazquez Haye is the assistant pastor of the Primera Iglesia Bautitsa Hispana de New London, a fast growing American Baptist Latino/a congregation in New London, CT. She also serves as the Protestant Chaplain at Connecticut College in New London, CT, and at The Waterford Country School. Aracelis holds a Master of Divinity from Yale University, with special emphasis in youth and young adult ministry. Aracelis obtained a Bachelor of Arts from Eastern Connecticut State University in Latin American Studies, and a Master of Education in Higher Education Administration from Loyola University Chicago, Illinois.

Dr. Khyati Yogeshkumar Joshi is an Associate Professor of Education at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Dr. Joshi is the author of the book New Roots in America’s Sacred Ground: Religion, Race, and Ethnicity in Indian America (Rutgers University Press, 2006), which received the National Association for Multicultural Education’s 2007 Philip C. Chinn Book Award. She is co-editor of the collections Asian Americans Down South (University of Illinois Press, 2013) and Understanding Religious Oppression and Christian Privilege (Sense Publishers, 2008). She is the Religion, Schools And Society section editor for the Encyclopedia on Diversity in Education (Sage Publications) edited by James Banks, and has authored numerous book chapters and articles on race, immigration, and religion.

Reverend Dr. Frederick J. Streets is the Senior Pastor of the Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ in New Haven, the oldest African American American Congregational Church in the known world, founded in New Haven in 1820. He served as the Carl and Dorothy Bennett Professor in Pastoral Counseling at the Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva University, New York City, from 2007-2012. He also served as Chaplain of Yale University and Senior Pastor of the Church of Christ in Yale 1992-2007 and is the first African American and Baptist to hold this position.

Tisa Wenger is Assistant Professor of American Religious History at the Yale Divinity School. Her research and teaching interests include the history of Christianity in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century United States (especially the American West), the cultural history of the categories of religion and secularism, the politics of religious freedom, and the intersections of race and religion in American history. Her book We Have a Religion: The 1920s Pueblo Indian Dance Controversy and American Religious Freedom(2009) shows how dominant conceptions of religion and religious freedom affected the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico as they sought to protect their religious ceremonies from government suppression, and how that struggle helped reshape mainstream views of religion and the politics of Indian affairs. She is now writing a history of religious freedom as an American ideal, tracing its multiple and shifting deployments throughout U.S. history. These scholars, religious leaders and activists take a look back, and also enrich our thinking about the next 50 years of race in America. Presented in collaboration with Yale Divinity School.

John DeStefano Jr., outgoing mayor of New Haven, and Richard Levin, outgoing president of Yale University, reflect on their 20-year partnership to knit together university and city. At the close of the DeStefano-Levin era, we ask: What is the legacy of this extraordinary partnership? What will it mean for New Haven’s future? Moderated by Douglas Rae, Richard S. Ely Professor of Management & Professor of Political Science.

John DeStefano, Jr.

John DeStefano, Jr. was sworn in as the 49th Mayor of New Haven on January 1, 1994. He is serving his 10th term in office. Mayor DeStefano has worked hard and successfully to strengthen the academic achievement of public school students, to build a vibrant mixed use city center, a competitive economic base, strong neighborhoods and a community culture of traditional values and social tolerance.

During Mayor DeStefano’s tenure virtually every public school has been rebuilt under the $1.5 billion Citywide School Construction Program. Key features of the school construction program have supported universal pre-k services, the largest inter-district enrollment and magnet school program in the State, college level lab and technology facilities and great architecture. In 2009, the Mayor and school board, of which he is a member and the appointing authority, announced the School Change Initiative. Supported by a ground breaking agreement with the New Haven Federation of Teachers, the City has launched a reform initiative whose key strategies are a portfolio approach to school management, a focus on teacher talent through a progressive teacher evaluation construct and a commitment to see that every child has the aspiration and is prepared for and able to complete college.

Since taking office in 1994 the City center has undergone a dramatic transformation into a mixed use community of some 12,000 residents. Anchored by the Mayor’s support of University, Hospital and medical center expansion, New Haven has emerged as a national center of life and bio science businesses. Downtown commercial, residential and retail occupancies stand at record lows. In 2010 the US Department of Transportation announced funding of the Downtown Crossing project which will remove a 1960’s era limited express highway that has divided the central business district from the City’s principal rail station and rapidly growing medical research, clinical and office district. The project will double the size of the downtown.

Neighborhoods have been strengthened as the city has managed housing stock to mixed income and use models, promoted commercial corridors, street smart infrastructure and public improvements. The City has decentralized police management districts, promoted the use of neighborhood based collaborations and a robust civic culture. That civic culture has resulted in a welcoming and inclusive community through initiatives such as the Elm City Resident Card that provides identification cards and access to public services for all residents of the City. Under the Mayor’s leadership, the City has sponsored the organization and capitalization of a community development bank whose mission supports the unbanked and promotes financial literacy. New Haven boasts an incredibly vibrant culture of economic and social entrepreneurship.

Mayor DeStefano has served as the President of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities and the National League of Cities, the oldest and largest organization representing America’s cities and towns. During his tenure New Haven has been named an ‘All America City’ three times.

Mayor DeStefano is the son of a New Haven police officer and a lifelong City resident. John and his wife Kathy DeStefano met at the University of Connecticut as undergraduates, where he also earned a Masters in Public Administration. Kathy is a first grade teacher and they are the parents of two sons.

Richard C. Levin

Richard C. Levin, Frederick William Beinecke Professor of Economics, has been Yale’s President since 1993. He received his B.A. from Stanford University in 1968 and studied politics and philosophy at Oxford University, where he earned a B.Litt. degree. He received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1974 and joined the Yale faculty. Before becoming president, he chaired the economics department and served as dean of Yale’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In August, Mr. Levin announced that he will step down as President of the University at the end of the current academic year, his twentieth year of service.

Exciting ventures to improve the University locally, nationally, and internationally have been a hallmark of Mr. Levin’s presidency. Close to home, his goals have included improving the campus infrastructure, and the University has invested over $5 billion in the renovation and construction of its facilities. Strengthening connections to the City of New Haven has led to innovative partnerships that have advanced economic development and encouraged home ownership in the City. In fall 2010, Yale joined with the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven and the City to announce New Haven Promise, a visionary scholarship and support program for city residents who graduate from a public school in the city and attend college in Connecticut. In mid-June 2007, the University purchased the Bayer HealthCare complex, a property with over 500,000 square feet of state-of-the-art research space, as well as office buildings, warehouses and other facilities.

Launching and enhancing international initiatives has been another priority. All Yale undergraduates now have the opportunity to study or participate in internships abroad. Several years ago, need-based financial aid became available for all international students in Yale College as it has been for U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Mr. Levin has established numerous educational and research partnerships in China and India. On March 31, 2011, the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Yale announced that Yale-NUS College would be established in Singapore, providing a new model of liberal arts education for Asia.

Mr. Levin is recognized as an advocate and leader of the role of higher education in local and global sustainable development. He established an Office of Sustainability in 2005, and that year endorsed an aggressive greenhouse gas reduction target and strategy for the University.

Mr. Levin serves on President Obama’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology. He is a trustee of the Hewlett Foundation, a director of ClimateWorks, American Express, and C3, and a member of the National Committee on United States-China Relations. He served on a bipartisan commission to recommend improvements in the nation’s intelligence capabilities and he co-chaired a major review of the nation’s patent system for the National Academy of Sciences. President Levin holds honorary degrees from Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, Peking, Tokyo, and Waseda universities and Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Richard Levin and his wife, Jane, have lived in New Haven throughout their more than 40 years at Yale. They have four children and seven grandchildren.

Douglas Rae (moderator)

Douglas Rae is a student of the interface between business and government. He has served on the Yale faculty since 1967, chairing the political science department during the 1980s. He took public service leave in 1990 and 1991 to serve as chief administrative officer of New Haven during a crisis period. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, was a fellow of Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, a fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, and has received numerous honors and prizes for his research. He has consulted widely and variously to the parliaments of Spain, Italy, & the Netherlands Antilles, select corporate leaders, to numerous American cities and universities, and to the BBC. At Yale, he has held leadership positions and board memberships with the University Library, Yale University Press, the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, the Division of Social Sciences, the Department of Athletics, and Yale SOM. In 2010, Mr. Rae was awarded the Mory's Cup in recognition of his service to Yale.

Siddharta Mitter, noted cultural critic, is joined by artists from the bands Noori, Red Baraat, and Asphalt Orchestra for a conversation about music as a tool for radical transformation in today's changing worlds, both in the United States and around the globe. Sociologist and scholar of cultural politics Sujatha Fernandes joins the discussion.

TAMAR GENDLER is professor of philosophy at Yale University and chair of the university’s philosophy department. From 2006 to 2010, she served as chair of Yale’s cognitive science program. During the 2009- 2010 year, Gendler was a full-time student at Yale University, supported by a Mellon New Directions Fellowship, and took courses in neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry.

Gendler has been on the faculty at Yale since 2006. From 2003-2006, she was associate professor of philosophy at Cornell University and co-director of Cornell’s program in cognitive studies. From 1997-2003, she taught philosophy at Syracuse University as an assistant and then associate professor. Gendler received her Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University in 1996 for work conducted under the tutelage of Robert Nozick, Derek Parfit, and Hilary Putnam. She received her BA in humanities and mathematics-and-philosophy from Yale University in 1987.

Between her undergraduate and graduate studies, she did education policy work for the RAND Corporation. Gendler’s professional philosophical writings focus primarily on issues in philosophical psychology, epistemology, metaphysics and aesthetics. Recently, she has given a number of public lectures on the topic of human flourishing. Most of her current professional work is on a cluster of issues surrounding the relations between explicit and implicit attitudes. She is interested in bringing together insights from traditional philosophical work on parts of the soul with contemporary work in social, cognitive, and clinical psychology. Gendler’s other current interests include general questions about philosophical methodology, and a number of specific issues that arise from thinking about the relation between imagination and belief. Her earlier philosophical work addressed various topics in metaphysics and epistemology, including conceivability and possibility, perceptual experience, personal identity, and the methodology of thought experiments. Her research and teaching are informed both by the tools of traditional analytic philosophy, and by recent empirical work in developmental, cognitive and social psychology.

This event was originally presented on June 17, 2012 at the Yale University Art Gallery as part of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas.

The Visionary Leadership Award honors a leader whose trailblazing work is impacting the world. Occurring outside of the annual Festival, the award connects the Festival’s Ideas programs to every day impacts on the community and the world, and was created in honor of the late Jean M. Handley’s leadership as a Founding Director of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas.We are thrilled to honor Charlayne Hunter-Gault, an award-winning journalist whose life and work has brought light to a number of important issues in civil rights, social justice, public health, and education.Ms. Hunter-Gault's personal life story forms the backdrop for the important work that she has accomplished professionally: in 1961, she experienced the civil rights movement first hand as one of the first black students to be admitted to the University of Georgia, in 1961. Her attorney during the case was Constance Baker Motley, a New Haven native who would later become the first black female to serve as a federal judge.