Events

Thomas Talhelm, PhD
Associate Professor, University of Chicago
Booth School of Business

At our recent event on the Kalven Report, Cathy Cohen called for the creation of “a document that delineates our values.” That report and subsequent “Chicago Principles” statement (2014) valorize freedom of inquiry and expression but crucially fail to recognize that some have more power—and thus freedom to speak—than others and that free speech can come at the cost of inclusion. Institutional neutrality and a commitment to openness alone are not sufficient to maintain a space in which all students and faculty enjoy “a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation.”

In the face of unprecedented challenges to higher education, what kind of practices and atmospheres should we as a community be cultivating to both protect free inquiry and minimize harm? Can the classroom or the university environment be both safe and uncomfortable as part of the process of learning? Are diversity and equity as essential as free speech in the production of knowledge? How might these goals be compatible, and how might they be in tension? What kinds of commitments should we be affirming and struggling to enact? And what forms of governance, infrastructure, or other initiatives would serve such efforts?

Please join us for a conversation with Anton Ford, Gabriel Lear, and Gina Samuels as they discuss how we might define the values that shape our work and identify those that we need to incorporate into campus culture more fully.

“The Serial Killer: Making Sense of War and Defeat in Occupied Japan (1945-1952)”

THIS IS AN IN-PERSON EVENT AND WILL NOT BE LIVE STREAMING.

Tuesday, April 30 · 5 - 6:30pm CDT

Joseph Regenstein Library, Room 122 1100 E. 57th St. Chicago, IL 60637

Part of the CEAS Lecture Series, this event is co-sponsored with the University of Chicago Library and features the University of Southern California’s Benjamin Uchiyama. While much has been written about the Allied Occupation of Japan (1945-1952), surprisingly little scholarly attention has been paid to one of the most notorious criminals who captivated Japanese public attention during that period. In August 1946, ex-soldier Kodaira Yoshio was arrested and charged for the murder of seven young women during the last months of the war and the first year of the occupation. Subsequent public debates attempted to explain his crimes in connection to Kodaira’s wartime experience in China, thus underscoring the importance for Japan to fully extirpate its wartime past. Another stream of thought, however, located the crimes in the context of the chaos and breakdown in social order still afflicting Japanese society in the wake of defeat. These debates, coming so soon after Japan’s surrender, helped lay the first building block of postwar Japanese memories of the war and understandings of defeat. Professor Uchiyama is Associate Profess of History and author of Japan’s Carnival War: Mass Culture on the Home Front, 1937-1945 (Cambridge University Press, 2019) which received the 2021 John Whitney Hall Prize from the Association for Asian Studies.

Comics and cartooning are an outlet for expression of many things – including gender and sexuality. Join us for a panel discission as part of our Feminist/Queer Praxis series showcasing the work of three local artists (Kat Leyh, Sarah Szeszol aka Galactic Turnip and Bianca Xunise) who will talk about their career paths, their work and how they incorporate gender and sexuality in their comics.

The Feminist/Queer Praxis series, aimed at undergraduate audiences, brings artists, activists, scholars, and professionals to CSGS to talk about their work in the world as people committed to queer and feminist values and action.

Presented by the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality and co-sponsored by the Department of Visual Arts.