Spring '08 Events

Stay tuned for more exciting First Year Book events after the break! Use the comments to suggest an idea for an event.

No End In Sight

November 18 at 8pm Hoff Theater, STAMP - FREE Admission

Take time to think about the following questions:

• What does it mean to believe in something so much that you are willing to lay your career on the line, your life on the line?
  
  
• What happens when you find out that you’re wrong?
  
  
• What obligation do you have to speak out?
  
  
• Did the people in the film do enough or should they have done more?
  
  
• What would you do?

Chris Hedges Lecture

October 29 at 4pm Colony Ballroom - STAMP

Were you at the lecture Wednesday afternoon? What are your thoughts on the lecture? What most surprised you? What questions would you like to have asked Hedges?

Redacted

October 22 at 7pm Hoff Theater, STAMP - FREE Admission

Premiered at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, where it earned a Silver Lion "best director" award. Based on the Mahmudiyah killings, the gang-rape, murder, and burning of Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi, a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in March 2006 by U.S. soldiers who also killed her parents and her younger sister, the film is a montage of stories about U.S. soldiers fighting in the Iraq conflict, focusing on the modern forms of media covering the war.

Selected readings:

• From Hedges' War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning - Introduction and Chapter 4: The Seduction of Battle and Perversion of War.
  
• From The New Yorker - "Annals of War: exposure: Behind the Camera at Abu Ghraib," 3.24.2008.

Questions to think about:

• Once we know the truth, what is the value of war and the worth of all its tragedies?

• Why does one document the war?


• What does the lens of media filter out?


• Why is the spiritual damage to those who experience war generally downplayed?


• What is heroism?

The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

September 25 at 7pm Hoff Theater, STAMP - FREE Admission

Synopsis

"It is the story of America as seen through the eyes of the former Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara. One of the most controversial and influential figures in world politics, he takes us on an insider's view of the seminal events of the 20th Century. Why was this past century the most destructive and deadly in all of human history? Are we doomed to repeat our mistakes? Are we free to make choices, or are we at the mercy of inexorable historical forces and ideologies?" (Errol Morris)
* Winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary

More questions to think about:

• What are the lessons from McNamara from the Vietnam war? Would you add any more lessons?
  
  
• Are there lessons from our engagement in Iraq? Afghanistan?
  
  
• Is the "fog of war" an adequate excuse?
  

Teacher's Guide for the Fog of War
Fog of War Official Site
Director Errol Morris' Site