Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

Jane Naomi Iwamura is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of the West. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on Asian American religions, race, and popular culture in the United States, with a specialized emphasis on visual culture and Japanese American lived religions. She is the author of Virtual Orientalism: Religion and Popular Culture in the U.S. (Oxford, 2011) and co-editor of Revealing the Sacred in Asian and Pacific America (Routledge, 2003). Her scholarship has appeared in journals, including American Quarterly and Amerasia Journal.

Iwamura co-founded the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI), where she serves as a Co-PI and Project Director. She also sits on the National Editorial Board of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. 

Iwamura holds a Ph.D. in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley and an MTS from Harvard Divinity School, bringing a rich background in philosophy, cultural studies, and religious history to her work.

Dr. Iwamura's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Kutten Lectureship in Religious Studies at CMC.

Ruth Marcus is a contributing writer at The New Yorker who focusses on law, the courts, and the rule of law under President Trump. She joined The New Yorker after a 40-year career at the Washington Post, where, most recently, she was an associate editor and an opinion columnist. During her time at the Post, from where she resigned in protest in spring 2025, she covered the White House, the Supreme Court, and the Justice Department; served as deputy national editor; and was a deputy editor overseeing the op-ed section. She was a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Commentary. 

Marcus holds a B.A. from Yale College, where she wrote for the Yale Daily News, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

(Excerpted from the New Yorker Magazine)

Over the span of approximately 100 days in the spring of 1994, members of the Tutsi ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were systematically killed by Hutu militias. While the Rwandan Constitution states that over 1 million people were killed, scholarly estimates suggest between 500,000 and 662,000 Tutsi died.  The genocide was marked by extreme violence, with victims often murdered by neighbors, and widespread sexual violence.  By the time the Tutsi-led Rwandese Patriotic Front gained control of the country through a military offensive in early July, hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were dead and 2 million refugees (mainly Hutus) fled Rwanda, exacerbating what had already become a full-blown humanitarian crisis.

April 7^th is honored annually as the Day of Remembrance, or Genocide Against the Tutsi Memorial Day – this year marking the 32^nd annual commemoration which honors of all those whose lives were lost or forever changed by the genocide in Rwanda. In his remarks, Professor Peter Uvin will provide historical context and discuss lessons learned from this tragic era of Rwanda’s history and give insights into the country’s post-conflict recovery and healing.  Professor Uvin is a Belgian-born American political scientist and Professor of government and international relations at CMC where he has also held positions as the Vice President for academic affairs and the Dean of Faculty. He is the author of four books, including Aiding Violence: The Development Enterprise in Rwanda, which won the Herskovits Prize of the African Studies Association in 1999.

In addition to his focus on Rwanda, Professor Uvin’s other areas of expertise include Burundi, conflict resolution, international development, food policy, human rights, and NGO scaling up.  Uvin earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.  He was the Henry Leir Professor in Humanitarian Studies at Tufts University (2000), and academic dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts (2007-2013) and a Guggenheim Fellow in 2006.  In 2013 he was hired by Amherst College as its first provost before joining the CMC faculty in 2015.

Professor Uvin’s talk is co-sponsored by the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights at CMC.

G. John Ikenberry is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University in the Department of Politics and the School of Public and International Affairs. Ikenberry is also a Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, Korea. In 2018-2019, Ikenberry was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford University. In 2013-2014, Ikenberry was the 72nd Eastman Visiting Professor at Balliol College, Oxford, and a Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. Ikenberry is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

Ikenberry is the author of eight books, most recently, A World Safe for Democracy:  Liberal Internationalism in the Making of Modern World Order (Yale, 2020), and Debating Worlds: Contested Narratives of Global Modernity and World Order (Oxford, 2023). He is also author of After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars (Princeton, 2001), and Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order (Princeton, 2011).

Professor Ikenberry will deliver the 2025-26 Lecture in Diplomacy and International Security in Honor of George F. Kennan.

Jonathan Mahler P’26 is a longtime staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and the author of the bestselling Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning, which was adapted as an ESPN miniseries; The Challenge; and The Gods of New York, which was named a best book of the year by the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Economist, and Amazon. At the Times magazine, he covers a wide range of topics including politics, entertainment, education, media, the law, sports. His journalism has received numerous awards and been featured in The Best American Sports Writing.

(Photo credit: David Jacobs)

Louis Tay is the William C. Byham Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Purdue University and Co-Founder of ExpiWell. A leading expert in psychological measurement, well-being, and artificial intelligence applications in psychology, Tay has pioneered frameworks for understanding how AI systems can be rigorously evaluated for bias using principles from psychometric theory.

Tay's scholarship has shaped multiple fields through his editorial leadership of major reference works. He has co-edited five handbooks: Big Data in Psychological Research (APA Books), Handbook of Well-Being (DEF Publishers), Handbook of Positive Psychology Assessment (Hogrefe), Oxford Handbook of the Positive Humanities (Oxford), and Technology and Measurement around the Globe (Cambridge). His research has appeared in journals including American Psychologist, Nature Human Behavior, Psychological Bulletin, and Journal of Applied Psychology.

Tay has contributed to United Nations research reports on well-being and consults for top tech companies and Fortune 500 organizations on topics including AI and measurement bias. He currently leads research funded by the John Templeton Foundation examining whether and how AI conversational agents can cultivate character virtues. As co-founder of the tech company ExpiWell, he developed a platform used by researchers worldwide for ecological momentary assessments.

Dr. Tay's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the President’s Office and Open Academy.

Jeff Kukucka is a professor of psychology at Towson University and a decision scientist whose work aims to optimize the human element of forensic and medicolegal decision-making. He previously held a leadership position on NIST's OSAC for Forensic Science—a federal organization that develops and promotes best practice standards for all areas of forensic science—and he recently oversaw the nation's first-ever independent audit of restraint-related deaths in police custody, the findings of which raised concerns over bias and error in autopsy decisions. He also frequently trains forensic examiners and attorneys on these issues, and he has testified as an expert witness in nine U.S. states.

Rob is a researcher on AI consciousness and welfare, working at the intersection of philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and the ethics of AI. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from NYU and currently serves as Executive Director of Eleos AI, a research organization dedicated to understanding and addressing the potential wellbeing and moral patienthood of AI systems. Previously, he was a researcher at the Center for AI Safety and the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University.

Professor Long will deliver the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies' 2025-26 Golo Mann Lecture.

Neha Dixit is an independent journalist and author based in New Delhi. For over two decades, she has reported on politics, gender, labour, and social justice in South Asia, producing investigative, narrative, and long-form journalism for Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Caravan, The Wire, and others. 

Her work has exposed extrajudicial killings, hate crimes, human trafficking, unethical clinical trials, and sectarian majoritarian violence. She has won over a dozen national and international awards, including the International Press Freedom Award (2019) from Committee to Protect Journalists, the Chameli Devi Jain Award (2017), and the Lorenzo Natali Prize for Journalism (2011).

Her book, "The Many Lives of Syeda X" (Juggernaut), traces 30 years in the life of a migrant Muslim woman navigating Delhi’s informal labour economy, holding over 50 jobs without minimum wage. The book, a vivid portrait of urban India’s invisible workforce, was named Book of the Year 2024 by The Hindu and the Deccan Herald among others. It won the Ramnath Goenka Sahitya Samman and Kalinga Best Debut Award and a Special Jury Mention by the CG Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing.

Ms. Dixit's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by President's Leadership Fund. 

Ken Liu is an American author of speculative fiction. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards for his fiction, he has also won top genre honors in Japan, Spain, and France.

Liu’s most characteristic work is the four-volume epic fantasy series, The Dandelion Dynasty, in which engineers, not wizards, are the heroes of a silkpunk world on the verge of modernity. His debut collection of short fiction, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, has been published in more than a dozen languages. A second collection, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, followed. He also penned the Star Wars novel, The Legends of Luke Skywalker. His latest book, All That We See or Seem, is a techno-thriller about the fight against loneliness in the age of AI.

He’s often involved in media adaptations of his work. Recent projects include The Regular, under development as a TV series; Good Hunting, adapted as an episode in season one of Netflix’s breakout adult animated series Love, Death + Robots; and AMC’s Pantheon, adapted from an interconnected series of Liu’s short stories.

Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Liu worked as a software engineer, corporate lawyer, and litigation consultant. He frequently speaks at conferences and universities on a variety of topics, including futurism, machine-augmented creativity, history of technology, bookmaking, and the mathematics of origami.

Mr. Liu is the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies' 2025-26 Ricardo J. Quinones Lecturer.

Photo credit: Lisa Tang Liu

(Special Note: This event had originally been scheduled for Monday, September 22, 2025. We are honoring the head table sign-ups from that original date. Students who had secured a head table spot (or were waitlisted for the head table) will have the right of first refusal for the head table. If you had a confirmed spot at the head table, we are aware of who you are and we will contact you directly in early March.)

Sir Malcolm Evans, KCMG (Knight Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George) and OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire), is the Principal of Regents Park College at Oxford University. 

Prior to his role at Oxford University, Sir Malcolm was Professor of International Law at the University of Bristol, where previously he had been Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law. His research interests center on the international protection of human rights, with particular focus on the prevention of torture and the freedom of religion in recognition of which he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2015. He also works extensively on issues concerning the international law of the sea, including in particular questions concerning maritime boundaries and the protection of human rights at sea. Among his many roles, Sir Malcolm has served as a member and, from 2011-2020, Chair of the United Nations Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture. In 2015 he was appointed a Member of the Panel of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales, then the largest and most wide-ranging public inquiry yet undertaken, which concluded its work in late 2022. He has also served as a member of the Advisory Panel on Freedom of Religion and Belief of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

Sir Malcolm read Law at Regent’s Park College (1979-82), returning for doctoral research (1983-87) for which he was awarded the degree of DPhil. Sir Malcolm holds an Honorary Doctorate from Bangor University and is a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. 
 

David Brooks is a former columnist for The New York Times and a contributor to The Atlantic. He is a commentator on “The PBS Newshour" and founder and Chair of Weave: The Social Fabric Project. 

His forthcoming book “How To Know A Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen” will be published in October. His previous three books were “The Second Mountain,” “The Road to Character,” and “The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement,” all #1 New York Times bestsellers.

Mr. Brooks has taught at Yale and Duke and now teaches at the University of Chicago. He has received over 30 honorary degrees from American universities and is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. 

Mr. Brooks's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Valach Speaker Series and the Open Academy at CMC.

(Photo credit: Howard Schatz©SCHATZ-ORNSTEIN)

Michael Vorenberg received his A.B. and Ph.D. from Harvard University and is professor of history at Brown University, where he has taught since 1999. He is the author of Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment, a Finalist for the Lincoln Prize and a major source for Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film Lincoln. His most recent book is Lincoln’s Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War, which was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2025. He is currently on the board of editors of the Journal of Constitutional History and was previously on the board of editors of Law and History Review. He is also a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. His forthcoming article comparing declared states of emergency in Civil War-era America and present-day America will be published in the summer of 2026.

Professor Vorenberg's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Salvatori Center’s Lofgren Program in American Constitutionalism.
 

Diane Wagner ‘87 is the executive producer of The Migrant Child Farmworkers – Now High-Profile Professionals^©. After a successful career in market research consulting for Fortune 500 clients, Wagner is now an independent storyteller who is passionate about telling stories that inspire audiences, especially children, to elevate their self-image, better recognize their potential, and gain access to more educational opportunities.

Wagner studied Economics at Claremont McKenna College and subsequently earned her MBA from U.C. Irvine.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Diane Wagner who will be joined by producer Jesse Gift and several individuals featured in the film (Tony Cárdenas, Enrique Diaz, Lisa Ramirez and Dr. Ramon Resa). Brandon Guzmán (a former undocumented migrant child farmworker and featured presenter Xolo Maridueña's manager) may also attend.

This program is co-sponsored by the President’s Office and Open Academy.

SPECIAL SCHEDULE: Film will be screened during dinner starting at 6:20 pm and will be followed by comments from Diane Wagner and audience Q & A.