Common Hour Fall 2008
Common Hour is now accepting Nominations for the 2008-2009 year.
Nominate a speaker!
Common Hour begins at 12:30 p.m. and concludes at 1:30 p.m.
Friday, September 12
Henry Laurence, Karofsky Faculty Encore Lecture
"You Can't Say That! Keeping Terrorists, War Crimes and Gay Marriage off TV"
Henry Laurence is an associate professor of government with a joint appointment in Asian studies at Bowdoin. He teaches courses in Japanese and comparative politics, media and politics, and international political economy. In 2007–2008 he was a research associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University. He is currently writing a book on broadcasting politics that compares the BBC, PBS, and Japan’s NHK. He has also written on financial politics, the "Comfort Women," Japanese gangsters, the Asian currency crisis, and satellite television.
Kresge Auditorium, Visual Arts Center
Friday, September 19
Senator George Mitchell '54, Former Senate majority leader, negotiator of the Northern Ireland Peace Accord, and Chair of the investigation into illegal steroid use in major league baseball
Senator George J. Mitchell was born and raised in Waterville, Maine, and graduated from Bowdoin College and Georgetown University Law Center. He entered the U.S. Senate in 1980 and went on to an illustrious career in the Senate that spanned fourteen years. In January 1989 he became Senate majority leader. He held that position until he left the Senate in 1995. During his tenure, Senator Mitchell earned enormous bipartisan respect. It has been said “there is not a man, woman, or child in the Capitol who does not trust George Mitchell.”
In 1995, he established the Mitchell Scholarship Program (now the Mitchell Institute) to create ongoing Scholar involvement in leadership and professional development, as well as community service and mentoring activities.
In 2008, Time magazine included him on its list of the one hundred most influential people in the world.
Pickard Theater, Memorial Hall
Tickets required; tickets available beginning Monday, September 8, at the David Saul Smith Union information desk.
Friday, September 26
Edward Albee, American Playwright
"The State of Theater and the Arts in America"
Called “the greatest living playwright” by The New Yorker, the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner is lauded as “one of the eternal innovators” in American drama, challenging his audiences with stories that express the bone-simple, shattering truth of the human experience. Albee's plays, with their intensity, their grappling with modern themes, and their experiments in form, startled critics and audiences alike while changing the landscape of American drama. His short work The Zoo Story, together with 1962's full-length Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and 1966's A Delicate Balance, created the mold for American drama for the rest of our century.
Pickard Theater, Memorial Hall
Tickets required; tickets available beginning Monday, September 15, at the David Saul Smith Union information desk.
Friday, October 17
G. Calvin Mackenzie '67, The Goldfarb Family Distinguished Professor of Government, Colby College, and Author, "The Liberal Hour"
"The 1960s, Then and Now"
Cal Mackenzie's professional work focuses on governance and public policy, with a special interest in presidential transitions and the politics of presidential appointments. He is a graduate of Bowdoin College and earned his Ph.D. in government at Harvard. He is the author or editor of more than a dozen books and scores of articles, including his latest book, The Liberal Hour: Washington and the Politics of Change in the 1960s (co-authored with historian Robert Weisbrot). Mackenzie is The Goldfarb Family Distinguished Professor of Government at Colby College, where he has taught for 30 years.
Kresge Auditorium, Visual Arts Center
Friday, October 31
Student Performances, Parents Weekend
Entertain your parents and join us for dance, poetry, and a capella performances by Bowdoin's very own student groups. Don't miss this popular Common Hour!
Morrell Gymnasium
Friday, November 14
Sloane Crosley, Author, "I Was Told There'd Be Cake" 
Sloane Crosley is the associate director of publicity at Vintage Books. She is also a member of several literary nonprofits, including the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Committee, where she is a board member. A glittering amalgam of Dorothy Parker, David Sedaris and Chuck Klosterman, Crosley writes in a sharp, elegant style that is entirely, refreshingly, her own. Her book, I Was Told There’d Be Cake, is the comic debut of the year, deceptively feather-light and preternaturally wise. An instant bestseller, Cake tells the rich comedic soil of disappointments – social, romantic and professional – to present an indispensable portrait of what it feels like to be young today. HBO recently acquired the rights to I Was Told There'd Be Cake for an upcoming television series.
Kresge Auditorium, Visual Arts Center
Friday, December 5
Student Chamber Ensemble Concert
Please join us for a relaxing afternoon of wonderful music performed by students in the Bowdoin Department of Music.
Studzinski Recital Hall, Kanbar Auditorium
Common Hour aims to provide an occasion for faculty, students, and staff to absent themselves from daily concerns, gather in common spaces, and engage in the ideas of speakers and the presentations of artists, and with each other in discussion of shared interests and concerns. The hour will seek to bring into the public Bowdoin forum the best of what happens in our academic departments, student groups, and the wider world: political commentary; discussion of scientific and technological issues; the work of writers, poets and journalists; philosophical ideas; the visual and performing arts; sports; business; and international affairs.
More About Common Hour
All speakers' books available at the Bowdoin Bookstore
Read the Common Hour Statement of Purpose
Explore past semesters' Common Hours in the Common Hour Archives
Contact Common Hour at CHour@bowdoin.edu