Surnames and Social Mobility: Why So Much Persistence of Status Across Generations?
Gregory Clark, Professor of Economics, University of California – Davis
How much of our fate is tied to the status of our parents and grandparents? Using a novel technique–tracking family names over generations to measure social mobility across countries and periods—renowned economic historian Gregory Clark argues that social mobility rates are lower than conventionally estimated, do not vary across societies, and are resistant to social policies.
Sponsored by the Department of Economics
Constitution & Citizenship Day Lecture: Counter-Stories: Protecting Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in Wartime
View lecture online
Mark Graber, Jacob A. France Professor of Constitutionalism, University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law
Mark Graber examines the problems of how and why the U.S. has often enacted restrictive policies during wartime, and how military conflicts and tensions influence civil liberties and civil rights in the United States. Graber argues that the same factors explain why some rights are restricted, why some rights are expanded, and why some rights are protected during particular wars. These factors also continue to influence contemporary responses to military conflict.
Constitution and Citizenship Day Lecture, sponsored by the Department of Political Science
We Are Subjects of History: Indigenous Communities’
Guadalupe Moshan Álvarez, Bárbara Suárez Galeano, Principal Attorney, Fray Bartolomé Human Rights Center, San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico; Bárbara Suárez Galeano, Interpreter, Autonomous University of Social Movements, Centro Autónomo de Albany Park, Chicago
Mexico is at a critical moment: the forced disappearance of 43 Ayotzinapa rural teachers and college students set off a tidal wave of indignation and massive protests. In the context of a war on drugs that has left more than 25,000 disappeared, Guadalupe Moshan Álvarez will speak on the human rights situation in Chiapas, Mexico, FrayBa’s work, and the role of international solidarity.
Sponsored by the Department of Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication; Department of Sociology and Anthropology; Language, Literacy, and Culture Program; Global Studies Program; Department of Political Science
Mental Health Inequalities in the US From a Sociological Perspective
Michael Hughes, Professor of Sociology, Virginia Tech; Marta Elliott, Professor of Sociology, University of Nevada – Reno; Dawne Mouzon, Assistant Professor, Rutgers University – New Brunswick
Three sociologists will give short lectures about mental health inequalities in the US, with an emphasis on race and socioeconomic status. Michael Hughes will deliver a lecture entitled, “Racial Identity and the Mental Health Paradox,” Marta Elliott will deliver a lecture entitled, “The Onset of Mental Illness Among Men: A Stress Process Perspective,” and Dawne Mouzon will deliver a lecture entitled, “The Black-White Paradox of Disorders: Weighing the Empirical Evidence.”
Sponsored by the Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Educating For Insurgency: Youth Organizing and the Baltimore Algebra Project
Jay Gillen, Teacher, Baltimore City Public Schools
Jay Gillen and young people of The Baltimore Algebra Project will lead a discussion on ways students and adults in schools of poverty can see themselves as actors on the national stage, building towards insurgency from the “crawl space” of their classrooms.
Sponsored by the Honors College; Language, Literacy, and Culture Program
The Science of Happiness: When and Why Subjective Well-Being Matters
Erik Angner, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Economics, and Public Policy, George Mason University
The so-called science of happiness — the systematic empirical study of happiness, understood as a subjectively experienced mental state — is both politically controversial and philosophically interesting. Erik Angner will discuss under what conditions such a measure of happiness can serve as a proxy for well-being.
Sponsored by the Department of Philosophy; Department of Economics; Friends of the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery