NewsPress Release - 2/2/2000

MARLBORO, VT - The second in a series of Faculty Forums at Marlboro College this semester will feature political science professor Margaret "Meg" Mott presenting "The Divine Rights of People: The Iberic-Latin Tradition of Democracy," at 4 p.m. Wednesday, February 16.

"Much of what we understand about democracy comes from our Protestant Anglo heritage," Mott says. "Southern Europe and Latin America developed their political institutions out of a Catholic and Counter-Reformation culture. This discussion will explore Catholic expressions of democracy in Spain, Portugal, and Latin America with occasional forays into the supernatural politics of saints."

Before teaching at Marlboro College, Mott taught courses at Johnson State College and the Community College of Vermont. She has been a columnist for the Brattleboro Reformer; a court advocate for the Brattleboro Women's Crisis Center; an editor of Out of the Kitchen, a feminist literary magazine; and a community organizer for the Sunday Night Action Group. Her lecture for this series will be taken from her book, Revolutions in Democracy, forthcoming from Harcourt Brace. The same lecture, abbreviated, will be presented at the International Political Science annual meeting in Ottawa.

Upcoming Faculty Forums will include mathematics professor Joe Mazur, who will speak about "Credibility, Persuasion, and Proof: Stages of Knowing," on March 1. Mazur will focus on an investigation of how one feels persuaded and how credibility emerges from organized investigation. "We will explore, compare, and trace stages of knowing the guilt or innocence of a defendant with the truth or falsity of a mathematical argument," he says. No knowledge of math is needed.

On Wednesday, March 29, writing and literature faculty member T. Hunter Wilson and sculpture and drawing faculty member Tim Segar will present "An Ordinary Evening in New Haven: A Poem by Wallace Stevens." The discussion will focus on the poem and what it has meant to each of them. Copies of the poem will be available a week beforehand.

The final forum in this series will feature English literature faculty member J. Birjepatil, who will present "Re-Reading and Re-Presenting Shakespeare" at 4 p.m. Wednesday, April 19. Birjepatil's lecture will focus on a critique of Post-Structuralist approaches to Shakespeare's texts and a critical evaluation of some recent productions of Shakespeare's plays.

The Faculty Forum series has been organized as a new opportunity for faculty members to share aspects of their work outside of the classroom with each other and interested students, staff, and community members.

All of the forums, which are free and open to the public, will take place in the Apple Tree building, which is fully accessible. For more information, please call (802) 257-4333.