Duty and Disobedience Series

SPRING 2018

Being Queer and Muslim in the Trump Era
January 30, 2018, 4:30 p.m.
Heineman Ecumenical Center
Faisal Alam is a queer-identified Muslim activist, speaker, and writer of Pakistani descent as well as the founder of Al-Fatiha, an international organization for LGBTIQ Muslims and allies. Using his own life experience, and by exploring the complex history of the Islamic world, Faisal sheds light onto the lives of an often invisible community: queer Muslims. His work highlights many challenges facing sexual minorities within the Muslim world and the escalating Islamophobia in the United States.

Rewarding Disobedience:  A Talk by Ethan Zuckerman
Rescheduled to February 27 2018, 4:30 p.m.
McCarthy Center Forum
As Director of the Center for Civic Media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ethan Zuckerman helped create the Disobedience Award, a $250,000 cash prize awarded to a person or group who has made a positive difference through ethical disobedience.  New ideas are often uncomfortable ideas, and the Disobedience Award rewards rebels, free thinkers, innovators, and disrupters for breaking established rules, speaking truth to power, and envisioning the unimaginable.  

And Now What? The Present and Future of "DACA-mented" Youth
February 22, 2018, 4:30 p.m.
McCarthy Center Forum

In 2017, President Trump ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and left it up to congress to decide the future of the approximate 800,000 current DACA recipients. As DACA recipients wait to hear about their fate, they confront the pressures of racial profiling and sudden deportation in the hands of immigration and customs enforcement (ICE). What can “DACA-mented” youth expect? How are they experiencing these changes? What does their future look like? How does the end of DACA impact our community? In this Arts & Ideas event, the stories of struggle and resistance of “DACA-mented” youth will take center stage. Hendel Leiva, - immigrant rights activist and creator of “ImmigrationMic” - and Jason Giannetti - a local immigration lawyer, advocate and former FSU instructor - will collaborate with Framingham’s “DACA-mented” youth to discuss and contemplate a variety of answers to these questions.


A Jazz Musician Walks into a Comic Book Shop: Dave Chisholm’s Instrumental
March 1, 2018, 7 p.m.
Heineman Ecumenical Center

Composer, performer, and graphic novelist Dave Chisholm presents an evening of performing and discussing how the worlds of jazz music and graphic novels intersect in his latest graphic novel+album Instrumental. Through this unique event open to the public, Chisholm discusses his creative process as a vibrant interaction between the visual and musical with the art of storytelling at its core.  

Deej: Film Screening and Discussion
Wednesday, March 21, 7 to 9 p.m.
McCarthy Center Forum
Register via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/deej-inclusion-shouldnt-be-a-lottery-tickets-43205948154

In this film, DJ Savarese shares his experiences in educational settings by challenging the misconceptions of what a non-speaking student with autism can do.  Drawing upon his experiences as being one of the few non-speaking autistics who was included in regular education settings in K-12 and college, he shares his ideas about what full inclusion not only requires, but the potentiality it has to offer in changing educational climates.  Mr. Savarese will be present at the screening and will take questions during the post-screening discussion.

Europe's Soft Underbelly? ED & US Security Interests in the Western Balkans
March 29th, 2018, 4:30 p.m.
McCarthy Center, Alumni Room

Dr. Jasmin Mujanović, a researcher and consultant for a variety of international NGOs, government development agencies, and monitoring organizations, argues instead that the Balkans are on the cusp of a historic socio-political transformation. In his new book, Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans (published by Hurst Publishers in January 2018), Dr. Mujanović draws on a wide variety of sources, with a unique focus on local activist accounts, he argues that a period of genuine democratic transition is finally dawning, led by grassroots social movements, from Zagreb to Skopje.  Rather than pursuing ethnic strife, these new Balkan revolutionaries are confronting the 'ethnic entrepreneurs' cemented in power by the West in its efforts to stabilize the region since the mid-1990s.

Inaugural Olivia A. Davidson, Voices of Color Lecture Series: Angie Thomas
April 2, 2018, 7 p.m.
Dwight Performing Arts Center
Register via Eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/inaugural-olivia-a-davidson-voices-of-color-lecture-series-angie-thomas-tickets-42245315877

Angie Thomas is the bestselling author of young-adult novel The Hate U Give. A relevant and perfectly timed piece which highlights the stark socio-political and racial atmosphere in America today. Inspired by the #BlackLivesMatter Movement, she addresses police violence, racism, and activism through the lens of a teenage girl. The book is in the works to be made into a movie.   

Screening of The Big Lebowski
April 9, 2018, 7 p.m.
North Hall Commons Room

The Big Lebowski (directed by Joel and Ethan Coen in 1998) epitomizes anti-authoritarian disobedience.  The film satirizes the American Dream, the class system, militarism, and Reagan-era economics.  At its center is Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski, an irreverent slacker who gets pulled into the criminal world and upper-class corruption due to a case of mistaken identity.  Along with two friends, he attempts to stand up for his rights as a "little man" against powerful social forces. With its anti-authoritarian perspective and its unconventional cinematic style, The Big Lebowski showcases the power of film art. English Professor Claudia Springer will introduce the film and lead a discussion afterward about the film's view of disobedience.  

Symbiotic Earth: How Lynn Margulis Rocked the Boat and Started a Scientific Revolution
April 19, 2018, 4:30 p.m.
Dwight Hall Performing Arts Center

This feature length documentary presents a portrait of the great scientist and teacher Lynn Margulis who was at the helm of a significant paradigm shift in biology that affects how we look at ourselves, evolution, and planet Earth. More than a biography of a great scientist, more than a look at the history and politics of science, and more than an explanation of current scientific theories, this documentary offers a coherent look at a contemporary paradigm shift that affects decisions we make on a daily basis about health, nutrition and the environment. The revolution it describes is as important and far-reaching as those of Copernicus and Darwin. Following the screening, there will be a discussion with the film's director, John Feldman and Lynn Margulis' son, Dorion Sagan.