chautauqua institution

Originally broadcast on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform at 10:45 a.m. EDT Wednesday, July 29, 2020.

Journalist Errin Haines, editor at large and a co-founder of the soon-to-launch publication The 19th, speaks with Chautauqua's Matt Ewalt about the mission and vision of her new venture, the ongoing struggle for inclusion and equality in newsrooms and generally, and the central role of race and gender in the 2020 election. The conversation was part of Chautauqua's week of lectures and conversations on "The Women's Vote Centennial and Beyond," celebrating and commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment's ratification.

• Read The Chautauquan Daily's coverage of this lecture.

The 19th is a nonprofit newsroom focused on the intersection of women, politics and policy. Prior to joining this new venture, Haines was a national writer on race and ethnicity for The Associated Press, offering sharp news analysis and original perspectives on current events on topics including urban affairs, policing, historically black colleges, civil rights, and the black electorate.

In addition to her role as a reporter, Haines is a tireless champion for diversity in the media, advocating for more jobs for journalists of color in newsrooms, and for fair and accurate coverage of African-Americans in mainstream news outlets. From 2011 to 2015, she served two terms on the board of directors for the National Association of Black Journalists as the organization’s vice president of print.

About Chautauqua Institution: Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. As a community, we celebrate, encourage and study the arts and treat them as integral to all of learning, and we convene the critical conversations of the day to advance understanding through civil dialogue. CHQ Assembly is the online expression of Chautauqua Institution's mission.

Our guest this episode is Stuart Chafetz, the longtime principal timpanist of the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra who has just been named as the ensemble’s first-ever principal pops conductor. A well-known and cherished presence on the Chautauqua Institution grounds each summer, Chafetz has made annual appearances on the podium for the ensemble’s Independence Day Pops Concert and the late-season collaboration with the Chautauqua Opera Company’s Young Artists. More recently, he has also served as a conductor for the orchestra’s live performances accompanying film presentations, beginning in 2019 with “Star Wars: A New Hope,” and continuing with “The Empire Strikes Back,” on Aug. 15, 2020.

Chafetz also serves as principal pops conductor of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, and is newly appointed as the principal pops conductor of the Marin Symphony. A conductor celebrated for his dynamic and engaging podium presence, he is increasingly in demand with orchestras across the continent.

Chafetz joined Chautauqua Vice President of Performing and Visual Arts Deborah Sunya Moore for a phone conversation shortly before the announcement of his new appointment at Chautauqua.

Our guest this episode is author, environmentalist and activist Bill McKibben, whose 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change. He is also a founder of 350.org, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement, which has organized 20,000 rallies around the world. A former staff writer for The New Yorker, McKibben writes frequently for a variety of publications around the world, including The New York Review of Books, National Geographic and Rolling Stone. He is the author of more than a dozen books; his latest, published in April, is Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?

McKibben joined John Merino for an in-studio conversation shortly after he delivered his Aug. 15 lecture in the Chautauqua Amphitheater as part of a week themed “Shifting Global Power.”

Our guest this episode is J. Ekela Kaniaupio-Crozier, the E Ola! Learning Designer and Facilitator at Kamehameha Schools Maui, where she provides campus support for a world-class Hawaiian culture-based education to students. A fluent speaker of the Hawaiian language, Kumu Ekela serves on the Hawaiʻi Development team for the Duolingo language learning app. She has been a Hawaiian language, studies and history instructor for more than 40 years in various settings, including K-through-12 schools, community college and four-year universities, and she continues to teach classes on Molokaʻi and on Maui free of charge.

Kumu Ekela and her Kamehemeha Schools colleague Makana Garma joined our Emily Morris for an in-studio conversation on July 26, shortly after she delivered a lecture titled “Renormalizing the Hawaiian Language” in the Chautauqua Amphitheater as part of a week themed “The Life of the Spoken Word.”

Our guest this episode is Julie A. Washington, chair of and professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Georgia State University’s College of Education and Human Development. Professor Washington specializes in language development and disorders in high-risk populations; early literacy and language interactions; African-American Child English; and African-American student achievement. Her work focuses on understanding cultural dialect use in young African-American children, with a specific emphasis on language assessment, literacy attainment, and academic performance. In addition, she is an affiliate faculty of Georgia State’s Language and Literacy Initiative.

Currently, Professor Washington is a principal investigator on the Georgia Learning Disabilities Research Innovation Hub, funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, part of the National Institutes of Health. This research initiative is focused on improving early identification of reading disabilities in elementary-school-aged African-American children who speak cultural dialects.

Professor Washington joined Chautauquan Daily editor and Institution lecture and literary arts associate Sara Toth for an in-studio conversation on July 25, shortly after delivering a lecture in the Chautauqua Amphitheater as part of a week themed “The Life of the Spoken Word.”

Our guest on this episode is Ambassador William J. Burns, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the oldest international affairs think tank in the United States. Ambassador Burns retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2014 after a 33-year diplomatic career. Hailed as an “American diplomatic legend” by Secretary of State John Kerry, he holds the highest rank in the Foreign Service, Career Ambassador, and is only the second serving career diplomat in history to become deputy secretary of state.

Ambassador Burns is the author of an acclaimed new book, The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal, which Henry Kissinger called “an incisive and sorely needed case for the revitalization of diplomacy — what Burns wisely describes as our ‘tool of first resort.’”

He joined Chautauqua Institution President Michael E. Hill for an onstage conversation on June 28 in the Chautauqua Amphitheater, during the first week of the 2019 summer assembly season, themed “Moments That Changed the World.”

For the second consecutive summer, Chautauqua Theater Company is producing a free, touring outdoor production of a Shakespeare classic. This summer, having started June 25 on our own Bestor Plaza, CTC is performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream at a variety of locations around Chautauqua County, including Jamestown, Mayville and Southern Tier Brewing Company. On this episode, CTC Artistic Director Andrew Borba and Midsummer director Sarah Elizabeth Wansley, speak with longtime Jamestown mayor Sam Teresi about the city’s two productions, including the upcoming July 13 show at the Riverwalk Park.

Bishop Gene Robinson joins us to reflect on his first season as Chautauqua's vice president of religion and senior pastor, and particularly the Interfaith Fridays initiative launched in 2018, which will continue in 2019. A full DVD set of the nine 2018 Interfaith Fridays is available for purchase at the Chautauqua Bookstore.

On today's episode guest interviewer David Griffith, vice president and Emily and Richard Smucker Chair for Education, speaks with Alexandria Marzano-Lesnovich, author of The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir, winner of the 2018 Chautauqua Prize. Part reportage and part memoir, The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir follows a young law student through her early career as she digs into both her own past, and the past of a convicted murderer. In a book 10 years in the making, Marzano-Lesnevich shows how the law is more personal than we would like to believe, creating a “gripping” story of “great importance.” Chautauqua readers called it “an extraordinary memoir” that is “brave and intimate.”

A 2014 National Endowment for the Arts fellow, Marzano-Lesnevich has received a Rona Jaffe Award and has twice been a fellow at both MacDowell and Yaddo. Alexandria’s essays appear in The New York Times, Oxford American, and the anthologies True Crime and Waveform: Twenty-first Century Essays by Women, as well as many other publications.

Alexandria received The Chautauqua Prize in a public presentation on Friday, Aug. 3.

Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich's Aug. 3 presentation in the Hall of Philosophy:

• Video and audio: online.chq.org/…
• Coverage in The Chautauquan Daily: chqdaily.com/…

Today's episode features a conversation with Derek Ham, assistant professor of graphic design in the North Carolina State University College of Design. He is also the creator of the “I Am A Man” VR Experience, an interactive virtual reality experience set to the historic events of the Civil Rights Movement. “I Am A Man” is the basis of Derek’s two master classes through Special Studies at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday, August 13, at Chautauqua. Register for either class at chqtickets.com.

Derek’s research interest spans the areas of game-based learning, algorithmic thinking, and digital fabrication. In his work, he continues to investigate both virtual reality and augmented realty technology to find ways these tools can expand the possibilities of interaction design. Before joining the faculty in the College of Design, Derek has taught at MIT’s School of Architecture, Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD), and the Rhode Island School of Design. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHam.

On today's episode we feature a conversation with author and professor Ralph Young, an expert on dissent and protest movements. As a history professor at Temple University, Ralph has taught the courses “Dissent in America,” “Recent U.S. History” and “Trials in America,” as well as a weekly discussion forum called the “Dissent in America Teach-ins.” His books include Dissent in America: The Voices That Shaped a Nation; Make Art Not War: Political Protest Posters from the Twentieth Century; and, most recently, Dissent: The History of An American Idea. Ralph spoke to guest interviewer John Merino following his July 23 Amphitheater lecture to open Chautauqua's week on "The Ethics of Dissent."

Ralph Young's July 23 lecture in the Amphitheater:

• Video and audio: online.chq.org/…
• Coverage in The Chautauquan Daily: chqdaily.com/…

On today's episode we hear from Alina Polyakova, the David M. Rubenstein Fellow at the Foreign Policy Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, where she specializes in Russian foreign policy, radical-right movements in Europe, and far-right populism and nationalism. Alina presented an Amphitheater lecture during Chautauqua's week on "Russia and the West," on Thursday, July 19.

Alina previously served as director of research and senior fellow for Europe and Eurasia at the Atlantic Council, overseeing the Ukraine-in-Europe Initiative and co-authoring the Atlantic Council’s investigative report “Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin’s War in Ukraine.” She has also authored the book The Dark Side of European Integration. Alina is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Swiss National Science Foundation senior research fellow, and has had fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, National Science Foundation Eurasia Foundation, among a number of others. She earned her bachelor’s degree in economics and sociology from Emory University, and her master’s and doctoral degrees in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Follow Alina on Twitter at @apolyakova.

Alina Polyakova's July 19 lecture in the Amphitheater:

• Video and audio: online.chq.org/…
• Coverage in The Chautauquan Daily: chqdaily.com/…

On today's episode Chautauqua's Director of Literary Arts, Atom Atkinson, speaks with author Victor LaValle. LaValle's most recent book, The Changeling, is a captivating retelling of a classic fairy tale that imaginatively explores parental obsession, spousal love, and the secrets that make strangers out of the people we love the most. LaValle presented The Changeling for the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle on Thursday, July 12.

LaValle is also the author of six previous works of fiction: three novels, two novellas, and a collection of short stories. His novels have been included in best-of-the-year lists by The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Nation and Publishers Weekly, among others. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Key to Southeast Queens. Follow him on Twitter at @victorlavalle.

On today's episode we feature two conversations: First is a discussion with Jill Vialet, founder and CEO of Playworks, who opened Chautauqua's week of lectures on "The Art of Play" on July 9. Then, Chautauqua Theater Company Artistic Director Andrew Borba sits with playwright Chelsea Marcantel and champion air guitarist Matt "Airistotle" Burns. Chelsea's newest play, Airness, is about air guitar competitions — CTC's production of Airness runs July 14 to 29 on the Bratton Theater stage.

Jill Vialet is founder and CEO of Playworks, a nonprofit that operates on a belief “in the power of play to bring out the best in every kid.” From its beginnings in two schools in Berkeley, California, Playworks has grown to a staff of 700 and now reaches about 900,000 students in 23 regions around the United States, and is present within 1,800 schools and organizations. During the 2015–16 school year, Jill was an Education Fellow at Stanford’s d.school — very familiar to us at Chautauqua — where she launched a new project called Substantial, re-designing the way we recruit, train, and support substitute teachers. Prior to Playworks, Jill founded, and was the executive director for nine years, of the Museum of Children’s Art (MOCHA) in Oakland, California. Follow her on Twitter at @jillvialet, and read The Chautauquan Daily's recap of her Amphitheater lecture here: http://chqdaily.com….

Chelsea Marcantel is the playwright behind Airness, and also Everything is Wonderful, Ladyish, Devour and Tiny Houses, which CTC produced as part of its New Play Workshop in 2016. Airness was recently honored with the 2018 Elizabeth Osborn New Play Award by the American Theatre Critics Association. Matt Burns is a special guest at Chautauqua this week — he is a waiter and world-class competitive air guitarist living in New York City. Matt decided to try air-rocking almost a decade ago when he saw the documentary Air Guitar Nation, and has since become a two-time champion at Air Guitar World Championship. Follow them on Twitter at @AChelseaDay and @aYo_MattBurns.

CTC produces Airness from July 14 to 29 in Bratton Theater — click here to purchase tickets.

On today's episode we feature two conversations with presenters from Week Two of the Chautauqua season, themed "American Identity." First is a discussion with James and Deborah Fallows, who took the Amphitheater stage on the Fourth of July to present on their new book, Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey Into the Heart of America. Then, Taína Caragol, who opened the week of lectures on July 2, joins us at the 47:00 mark to expand upon her work as a curator at the National Portrait Gallery.

For the last five years, Jim and Deb have been traveling across America in a single-engine prop airplane and reporting on the people, organizations and ideas re-shaping the country. As part of their “City Makers: American Futures” project in partnership with The Atlantic and APM’s “Marketplace,” the Fallowses visited smaller and medium-sized cities, meeting civic leaders, factory workers, recent immigrants, and young entrepreneurs to take the pulse and understand the prospects of places that usually draw notice only after a disaster or during a political campaign. Our Towns is the story of their journey — and an account of a country busy remaking itself, despite the challenges and paralysis of national politics. Jim is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and was editor of the US News & World Report. He has also authored several books himself, including China Airborne and National Defense, which won the American Book Award for nonfiction. Jim also worked as the chief White House speechwriter for Jimmy Carter for two years. Deb is a linguist who speaks six languages, and the author of A Mother’s Work and Dreaming in Chinese: Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love, and Languages. Before her travels abroad she was an assistant dean at Georgetown University and wrote about education, travel, work and women in publications such as The Atlantic, National Geographic and Newsweek. Follow them on Twitter at @JamesFallows and @FallowsDeb, and read The Chautauquan Daily's recap of their Amphitheater lecture here: http://chqdaily.com….

Taína Caragol is the curator of painting and sculpture, and of Latino art and history, at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, where she and her colleagues tell the story of America through portraits of people who have shaped it. Regarding her role specific to Latino art and history, Taína has said, “When people are missing from a history museum, the visitor gets the sense that it’s because they haven’t made an impact on our history. My priority is to make sure that the Latinos who have had a significant role are well represented throughout our collections and in our exhibitions.” Among the many exhibitions Taína has curated are “Portraiture Now: Staging the Self,” and “One Life: Dolores Huerta,” which has been expanded and redesigned as a traveling exhibition this year. Taína previously worked as the curator of education at the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico, as consultant of art and archival collections for Lord Cultural Resources, and Latin American Bibliographer for the The Museum of Modern Art. She also co-curated an exhibition about the Young lords, Puerto Rican activists from the 1960s, for the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Follow her on Twitter at @Playacreciente, and read The Chautauquan Daily's recap of her Amphitheater lecture here: http://chqdaily.com….

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tyehimba Jess, author of 2018 Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle selection Olio, joins Atom Atkinson this episode to discuss his life, career and writing process. As part of a week at Chautauqua celebrating "The Life of the Written Word," Jess presented Olio to the Chautauqua Amphitheater audience, taught a master class titled “Show the Receipts: Historical Documentation in Poetic Form” and even heard a performance inspired by his work by the Chautauqua Opera Company.

Jess is an award-winning poet and teacher. Olio, his latest book, has received numerous accolades, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and The Midland Society Author’s Award in Poetry. Jess' previous works include African American Pride: Celebrating Our Achievements, Contributions, and Enduring Legacy, and leadbelly, which was published as one of five selections of the 2004 National Poetry Series. His honors include a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Chicago Sun-Times Poetry Award, and a Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Poetry Award. He has taught at the Juilliard School and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and currently serves on the faculty at the College of Staten Island in New York City. Follow him on Twitter at @TyehimbaJess.

Atkinson is a poet and serves as director of literary arts at Chautauqua Institution. Follow them on Twitter at @AtomAtkinson.

Dave Griffith, vice president and Emily and Richard Smucker Chair for Education at Chautauqua Institution, joins the podcast this episode to speak on his extensive background as a writer and teacher, what he's looking forward to in his first season at Chautauqua, plus a preview of 2018 programming in his areas of responsibility, including the literary arts, continuing-education and youth programming. See a full and up-to-date schedule of all 2018 programs at chq.org/2018.

Griffith is a writer and educator who before Chautauqua served as director of creative writing at Interlochen Center for the Arts. At Interlochen, Griffith is credited with dramatically reinventing the creative writing program, comprising a pre-professional arts boarding school and a summer arts camp for young people. Prior to his work at Interlochen, Griffith was an assistant professor of English at Sweet Briar College for six years, among other university posts, and director of creative writing at the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts. He is the author of the acclaimed book A Good War is Hard to Find: The Art of Violence in America, which received critical acclaim from, among others, The New York Times Book Review. He is completing his second book, Pyramid Scheme: Making Art and Being Broke in America. Follow him on Twitter at @poorerthandead.

Matt Ewalt, Chautauqua Institution chief of staff, joins the podcast this episode to speak on his work in overseeing Chautauqua's signature and historic 10:45 a.m. weekday Amphitheater lecture platform — the process of selecting themes and presenters, considerations of balance and representation, and a fulsome preview of each of the 2018 season's weekly themes. See a full and up-to-date schedule of all 2018 themes and lecturers at chq.org/2018.

Ewalt has served in several roles at Chautauqua since joining the Institution staff in 2006. For seven seasons he was the 16th editor of The Chautauquan Daily, the Institution's official seasonal newspaper, before becoming associate director of education and youth services. In 2017 he was appointed as chief of staff by President Michael E. Hill, tasked with the primary responsibility for Chautauqua's Amp lecture program. Before Chautauqua, Ewalt was a reporter for the Times Observer in Warren, Pennsylvania. Follow him on Twitter at @mjewalt.

Deborah Sunya Moore, vice president of performing and visual arts at Chautauqua Institution, joins the podcast this episode to share her unique path to Chautauqua — she first came as a guest artist in 1996 — and her department's important work in arts-integrated education in the local region, plus a preview of 2018 Chautauqua programming in opera, theater, visual arts, dance, orchestral and chamber music, and popular entertainment.

Moore is a percussionist and arts educator with a long history as an advocate of performing arts programs for youth and persons with disabilities. In addition to her appointment at Chautauqua, she is a National Workshop Leader for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Previously, Moore held the positions of arts education and community engagement specialist and associate professor of percussion at the University of Trinidad and Tobago; director of education and community engagement for the Louisville Orchestra; and artistic director and percussionist of Tales & Scales, a nationally touring instrumental quartet for youth. Follow her on Facebook at @deborahsunyamoorechq.

The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, vice president of religion and senior pastor at Chautauqua Institution, joins the podcast this episode to share his remarkable faith journey — including his path to being the first openly gay man to be elected bishop in the high church traditions of Christendom — and a preview of the Department of Religion's 2018 programs and initiatives in interfaith engagement.

Robinson is the former Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, and currently serves as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and Auburn Seminary. He is known as an activist in the area of full civil/human rights for the LGBT community, in the U.S. and abroad. Follow him on Twitter at @BishopGRobinson.

For more on Chautauqua's 2018 season, visit chq.org/2018.