ANNUAL FALL MEETING
Sunday, October 12, 2008 at 4 PM
Room 211, Hall of Graduate Studies
320 York STreet, New Haven, CT
Speaker: MARK SCHMITT
"Beyond the Election: The Next Era of American Politics"
Please join us for wine and cheese with Center members and friends (guests are welcome) and a timely election-year talk. As newly-appointed executive editor of The American Prospect (TAP) and a long-time columnist for that magazine, Mark Schmitt thinks, writes, and blogs about politics and government. His areas of expertise include budget and tax policy, reform of the political process, and the history and role of ideas in politics. His talk will deal with the broad sweep of domestic policy and politics and his view that the conservative era is coming to an end. Before joining TAP, Mark was a senior fellow at the New America Foundation; earlier, he was a program director at George Soros’ Open Society Institute in New York. In the 1990’s he worked as speechwriter and then policy director on the staff of Senator Bill Bradley, and served as a senior advisor on Bradley’s 2000 presidential campaign. Mark is a New Haven native, a graduate of Wilbur Cross High School and Yale College, class of 1983. He is the son of Center member Ruth Schmitt. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, Democracy, and the Financial Times, in addition to TAP. When he was appointed editor in June, he was described on Politico.com by bloggist Ben Smith as “more of a left-center policy wonk than a polemicist,” one who has “embraced the rise of the progressive movement as a reaction to increased political polarization and Republican power—often acting as something of an intellectual broker between the Netroots and establishment DC.”
Visit Mark's blog, The Decembrist at http://markschmitt.typepad.com/
Reading Group
For the past few years, Center members have met in a monthly reading group, devoting each year to a single work or a group of related works: one year, for example, a number of Greek plays; another year, Beowulf. This year, starting on October 14 at 1:30, the group explores the writing of three women novelists spanning three centuries: George Eliot (Daniel Deronda), Virginia Woolf (The Waves), and Shirley Hazzard (/The Great Fire ).
Interested in joining? Contact Ruth Schmitt, 203-865-1491, or ruth.hein@snet.net
