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The Road [Not] Taken: The Real Choices of the 2004 Presidential Election
Fall 2004
Schedule of Events

Mount Holyoke Votes!

Co-sponsored with the Office of Student Programs, The Network, and WMHC, this event kicked-off the beginning of the academic year and the Fall series. At the heart of campus during the all day celebration, information was available on election issues, out-of-state registration, absentee ballots, presidential election debate schedules, local activist efforts, and Mount Holyoke student organizations. Doria Roberts, Atlanta based singer/songwriter/political activist performed to cap off the day with a free concert promoting voter awareness and social justice. Click here for more information.

To re-create the conversation held on November 13, 2000 directly after the 2000 Presidential election, speakers in our originating series American Democracy in Crisis? Money, Politics, and Civic Participation, Professors Theodore Lowi, Senior Professor of American Institutions at Cornell University, and Sean Wilentz, Dayton-Stockton Professor of History at Princeton University, return to campus this election year. Will the present political momentum affect voter turn-out in this election? Was the outcome of the 2000 the presidential election a "profound shock to our system" and how do we view it now, four years later?

Mark Dudzic, Labor Party National Organizer

A discussion on the various agendas, hidden and revealed, found in U.S. party politics during the presidential race. What is the social vision that underlies the political commitments of the Labor Party in this election? How can the American people look toward the party and the movements it supports for democratic change? What should students know that might not be addressed by the mainstream media during the course of the presidential campaigns? What will the election leave undecided? What issues are particularly relevant for this presidential election and why? Moderated by Preston H. Smith II, Associate Professor of Politics, Mount Holyoke College.

Visual Exposures: Media Images and the War in Iraq

Dorit Naaman, Ford Associate, Five College Women's Studies Research Center, Film Studies at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, Margaret R. Hunt, Professor, History and Women’s and Gender Studies, Amherst College, Karen Remmler, Professor, German Studies and Codirector, Weissman Center, Mount Holyoke College and Sut Jhally, Professor, Department of Communication, University of
Massachusetts.
Moderated by Joan Cocks, Professor of Politics and Critical Social Thought, Mount Holyoke College.

This panel explores the meaning and impact of the images of war in
Iraq that have circulated in photographs, films, and television, both in
the mainstream and alternative media. Panelists discuss photographs of prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib prison, beheadings in Iraq,
television representations of the war from Fox News to Al-Jazeera, and images from documentaries like Fahrenheit 911 and Control Room. This event is co-sponsored by the Five College Women’s Studies Research Center.

Screenings of Hijacking Catostrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire, a documentary by Jeremy Earp and Sut Jhally (USA, 2004), will be held on Sunday, September 26 and Monday, September 27, at 4 PM in Room 101, Dwight Hall. Click on the links below to read reviews of the documentary:

• Official Website
• Media Education Foundation
• The New York Times
• The California Film Institute
  

John Shattuck, Chief Executive Officer of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and author of Freedom on Fire: Human Rights Wars and the Roots of Terrorism (2003) and Elaine Scarry, Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University and author of “Resolving to Resist” (Boston Review, February/March 2004) come together as two leading voices from very different public spheres, at a historic moment in U.S. politics, to engage in a public conversation on human rights in the context of the 2004 presidential election. In what ways are international laws against human rights violations applicable to the United States? How does a democratic nation weigh the importance of national security with domestic and international human rights claims? What are the consequences of diminishing civil liberties for the viability of American democracy? Moderated by Christopher Pyle, Professor of Politics, Mount Holyoke College.

The Significance of the Latino Vote to the 2004 Presidential Election

Professor Rodolfo De La Garza, Professor of Political Science and Vice President for Research Tomás Rivera Policy Institute at Columbia University Lisa Garcia Bedolla, Assistant Professor of Political Science at University of California at Irvine, Andres Torres, Professor and Director of the Mauricio Gaston Institute, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Students from La Unidad organize a panel to recognize Latina Heritage Month and examine the importance of the Latino vote in the 2004 election. The Latino population is the largest and fastest-growing minority in the United States. The rise in the Latino population and an increase in Latino political activity has amplified presidential candidates’ outreach efforts towards Latino communities. This panel will explore the issues confronting Latinos and how the presidential candidates address these issues in their platforms. Academics who specialize in the field of Latino politics will provide non-partisan views of Democratic and Republican approaches to gaining the Latino vote. Moderated by Preston H. Smith II, Mount Holyoke College.

Views from Abroad: The International Implications of the 2004 Election Outcome

Claude de Renty du Granrut, deputy mayor of Senlis, France, member of the committee of the regions of the European Union, Janine Zacharia, Washington correspondent of the Jerusalem Post, and Fredrick O. Wanyama, Ph.D, Department of History and Political Science, Maseno University, Kenya and Five College African Studies Scholar form a panel co-sponsored with the Center for Global Initiatives to discuss such questions as: What impact will the outcome of the U.S. Presidential Election have on the image and legitimacy of the USA in international arenas? What has been the fall-out in response to current foreign policy? What will be the most pressing issues facing the global community in the wake of the election? Moderated by Eva Paus, Professor of Economics and Director, Institute for Global Initiatives.

Voting Matters: Who Votes and Why?

This public presentation is part of an ongoing interview project by three Mount Holyoke students, Victoria Blom ’06, Heather Fraser ’06, and Amanda Smith ’06 to ascertain why people do or do not vote. A self published zine discusses the crucial issues of the 2004 presidential race and this public presentation looks at how government policies affect the lives of citizens of different ages, races, ethnicities and genders. Why do citizens decide to vote or not to vote? What needs to happen so that voting matters for all citizens in the United States?

The Post-Election Snapshot

In a public conversation, Frances Fox Piven, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology at Graduate School and University Center, CUNY and author of Why Americans Still Don't Vote: And Why Politicians Want It That Way (2000), Rogers Smith, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania, and Mount Holyoke's own Jim Hartley, Associate Professor of Economics, look critically at the landscape after Election Day and engage in spirited dialogue with contrasting points of view on the election outcome--ideological or otherwise. This panel asks: Who are the real winners and losers of the election? What issues are defined by the outcome of this particular election? What did the election leave undecided? Moderated by Daniel Czitrom, Professor of History, Mount Holyoke College.