Dan L. Perlman
Associate Professor of Biology

We know that environmental conservation is important. And given the limited resources available, there has been an increasing emphasis on finding new ways to set conservation priorities effectively.

Most of the recent priority-setting methods concentrate on developing ever-more efficient (and arcane) algorithms. Unfortunately, many of these attempts to increase efficiency carry a major cost and are increasingly less useful in real-world situations. For example, how would one devise a method for a Colorado land trust whose goal is to "conserve agricultural, natural, and scenic open space resources"?

For the past decade, Professor Perlman has been developing a methodology that enables conservation groups to use their core values to set practical conservation priorities. During the session, he will discuss this methodology, using examples of his work with conservation groups in Montana, Colorado, and Arizona.

Michael Doonan, PhD '02
Assistant Professor, The Heller School for Social Policy and Management

This session will discuss the history of health-care reform in the United States, what problems health-care reform must tackle, the options most likely to be included in a reform proposal, and the likelihood of success.

Michael Doonan is the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Health Policy Forum and Director of the Council for Health Care Economics and Policy. His PhD from Brandeis is in both Political Science and Health Services Research. His research and publications focus on issues related to access to health care, Medicaid, SCHIP, federal/state relations, prescription drugs, public health and the economics of health system change. Professor Doonan served as a member of President Clinton's Health Care Taskforce working primarily on the Low-Income and Working Families work group, and as a member of the Taskforce Speakers Bureau. He also worked as a fellow for the U.S. Senate Finance Committee as they considered national reform in 1994. Professor Doonan began his career as a legislative aide for Senator John Kerry, where he worked on health and environmental issues.

Gary Jefferson
Carl Marks Professor of International Trade and Finance

The recent decades of China's robust growth and economic transformation increasingly have spawned new challenges. Among these are growing income inequality, environmental deterioration, and corruption. The additional challenge of the global financial crisis is resulting in a potentially destabilizing growth slowdown. Because most of the media in the United States focus on China's authoritarian political system and political repression, the American public often overlooks the evolution of China's civic culture and its emerging capitalist economy. Professor Jefferson will explore the nature of China's political reform and the underlying economic and social conditions that are nudging its political transformation.

Andrew Hahn, PhD '78
Professor and Director, Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy

Claudia J. Jacobs '70
Director of Capacity Building, Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy

Eleanor Garton
Researcher, Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy

Have you ever considered becoming a philanthropist? Whether you plan to donate $100 a year to your favorite charity or are contemplating starting a family foundation, there are many strategies that can help you to help others in the most efficient and effective way.

Philanthropy has never been more important in addressing deep social needs, and yet the field itself changes so rapidly that newcomers - as well as some experienced hands - are often bewildered about where to turn for information and sound advice. This class will review philanthropic trends and then deepen the discussion to include the many tradeoffs of giving away money both effectively and compassionately.

K. C. Hayes
Professor of Biology and Director, Foster Biomedical Research Laboratories

One of life's wonderful mysteries is the continuous interaction between our thoughts and our emotions, a masterful coupling of neurobiology and physiology. While thoughts are learned and stored, emotions are generally instinctive. Throughout our lives, we constantly attempt to hone these two basic processes to make living meaningful and rewarding.

By reflecting on his own life experiences, Professor Hayes has come to see how daily living reflects the constant tension between thoughts and emotions. For instance, the positive effects of joy and interest, sorted and stored as memory (mindful thoughts), serve to counter the negatives of anxiety and melancholy. His presentation will apply an art form of introspective photography from nature (using beauty as sensory emotional input) coupled with interpretive verse (mind thoughts) to illustrate the process. The idea is that once we are aware of the mechanism, we can greatly influence our thoughts and emotions to enhance daily living.

Reuven Kimelman
Professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies

Did man come before woman? Is male domination a curse? What is the source of sin? Professor Kimelman, who teaches courses and directs doctoral work in Talmud, midrash, liturgy, ethics, and the Jewish political tradition, will examine these age-old questions by exploring the relationship between historical and literary analysis. Other issues he will discuss during this session include: Is the story of Adam and Eve history or parable? Can there be a feminist reading of Eve? What are the implications of the differences between the Christian and the Jewish reading of the Adam and Eve story with regard to sin and sexuality? Professor Kimelman's books include The Moral Meaning of the Bible: The What, How, and Why of Biblical Ethics; The Rhetoric of Jewish Prayer: A Literary and Historical Commentary on the Prayerbook; and The Mystical Meaning of Lekhah Dodi and the Welcoming of the Sabbath.

Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, P'07, P'10
Associate Professor and Chair of Classical Studies

Robert Meyer
Professor of Physics

Technology and engineering were highly sophisticated in ancient Rome, where they played a major role in the physical infrastructure of cities. Here at Brandeis, Professors Koloski-Ostrow and Meyer demonstrate an exciting new collaboration between the humanities and sciences. They have twice taught a course called Roman Technology and Art, which presents the physical principles of Roman technology in their historical context. The course engages students directly with the subject through exercises and problems such as working with ropes and pulleys, modeling aqueduct flow, building arches and mosaics, and making quantitative estimates of the role of technology in the Roman economy. They also examine the Roman amphitheater with a focus on the famous Coliseum.

Tom Doherty
Professor of Film Studies

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, American Jews were a vibrant presence in Hollywood cinema. After July 15, 1934, however, the strict enforcement of the Production Code under Joseph I. Breen stemmed the flow of Jewish-American characters and coinages. But the code was not Hollywood's only ethnoreligious consideration. The absence of Jews on the American screen coincides, not accidentally, with the rise of Nazism in Germany. Within weeks of Hitler's ascension to power, Hollywood films with identifiable Jewish content or prominent Jewish actors were denied entry into the Third Reich. Thereafter, the erasure of all things Jewish from the Hollywood screen was abetted by the certainty that Jewish content would be banned from the lucrative German market. In this context, a screen portrait of a Jew-qua-Jew was not just a political statement against Nazism but a self-inflicted commercial limitation. By the late 1930s, however, as the Nazi bureaucracy of racism hardened and the rants turned to pogroms, anti-Semitism once thought to be a temporary fever-emerged as a bedrock principle of the Third Reich. Moving at a glacial pace, taking the most timorous of steps, a few studio filmmakers confronted the realities Hollywood officials thought best to avoid.