Reimagining Global Health

Description

The COVID-19 pandemic reminds us that no country acting alone can respond effectively to health threats in a globalized world. Global governance is necessary to coordinate the global health response.

The core book “Reimagining Global Health” provides a comprehensive, original and compelling introduction to the field of global health. It evaluates the history and underlying philosophy of global health, from its colonial times through the present. In addition to evaluating successful and failed programs, it offers an overview of how our thoughts of reasonable expectations and limitations have changed.

 The book examines creative ways of conducting programs pioneered by Partners in Health and other organizations and replicated to help populations treat HIV, TB, etc. Their interdisciplinary approach is multifaceted and requires an all hands-on deck approach that is geographically broad and historically deep.

Given the historic opportunity to reimagine global health governance in the age of COVID-19, it’s critical that our global society explore where we go from here, both philosophically and practically.

Weekly Topics

1. A Biosocial Approach to Global Health

2. Unpacking Global Health: Theory  and Critique

3. Colonial Medicine and Its Legacies

4. Health for All? Competing Theories and Geopolitics

5. Redefining the Possible: The Global Aides Response

6. Building an Effective Rural Health Delivery Model in Haiti and Rwanda Haiti, Rwanda, Uganda: Comparison of Health Delivery Models

7. Scaling Up Effective Delivery Models Worldwide

8. The Unique Challenges of Mental Health and MDRTB: Critical Perspectives on Metrics of Disease

9. Values and Global Health

10. Taking Stock of Foreign Aid

11. Global Health Priorities for the Early Twenty-First Century

12. A Movement for Global Health Equity
    

Bibliography

Reimagining Global Health by Paul Farmer

Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe 10 weeks

Description

As we look at the governments of the various countries of Europe today, we see, not surprisingly, a great variety.  Some, such as the United Kingdom, France, and Germany have reasonably robust democracies.  Others, such as Hungary, have a form of populism that borders on authoritarianism.  Illiberal democracy is often used to describe the governments of Poland and Turkey. 

Our S/DG will study how these and the other major countries of Europe arrived at their current state.  (For this S/DG Europe will stop at the border of the former Soviet Union.)  To guide us in our study, we will read Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe by Sheri Berman, a professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University.  The subtitle of the book, From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day, gives the historical time periods covered.  The chapter titles, shown in the weekly topics below, give an excellent idea of the topics covered.  In week 10 we will read and discuss an article (to be provided) by Sheri Berman and a colleague.

For each of the countries and time periods covered, our book gives us the political, economic, and social conditions that help us understand why that country went the way it did at that particular time.  Berman believes that the ultimate goal for any country is “consolidated liberal democracy,” with elections, the rule of law, individual liberties, and minority rights.  That is a rare, and hard-won achievement.  A step forward is often followed by a step back.  We will see why democracy is so difficult to achieve.  

In our study of liberal democracies, we will explore the tension between democracy—rule by the people that can slide into repression of minority views, and liberal—respect for each individual.

In a sentence with a lot of long words, Francis Fukuyama well says: “Sheri Berman is one of the best comparativists going, providing an encompassing framework for understanding the historical development of modern institutions.”

I don’t think we have to worry about not having enough to talk about every week.

Weekly Topics

1. Ch. 1.  Questions about Political Developmen / Ch. 2.  The Ancien Régime

2. Ch. 3.  English Exceptionalism / Ch. 4.  The French Revolution

3. Ch. 5.  1848 / Ch. 6.  The French Third Republic

4. Ch. 7.  Italian Unification / Ch. 8.  German Unification

5. Ch. 9.  The Struggle for Democracy in Interwar France / Ch. 10.  English Exceptionalism II

6. Ch. 11.  The Collapse of Democracy and the Rise of Fascism in Italy / Ch. 12.  The Collapse of the Weimar Republic and the Rise of National Socialism in Germany

7. Ch. 13.  Political Development in Spain / Ch. 14.  The Consolidation of Democracy in Western Europe

8. Ch. 15.  The Transition to Communist Dictatorships in East-Central Europe / Ch. 16.  The Transition to Democracy in Spain

9. Ch. 17.  The Transition to Democracy in East Central Europe

10. Ch. 18.  Lessons from Europe Sheri Berman and Maria Snegovaya.  "Populism and the Decline of Social Democracy.” Journal of Democracy, July 2019.

Bibliography

Sheri Berman, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day.  Oxford University Press, 2019

Sheri Berman & Maria Snegovaya, "Populism and the Decline of Social Democracy," Journal of Democracy (July 2019), 19 pp.

Elena Ferrante: The Furies & Visceral Pleasures of Italy's Greatest Living Novelist

Description

Set mostly in postwar Southern Italy, Elena Ferrante's four-part novel about the discordant yet loving trajectories of two female friends from childhood to adulthood has gained widespread acclaim. The HBO series My Brilliant Friend is based on her work. Ferrante is that rarest of authors—one who is equally adept at depicting both sides of the romance and not-so-romantic transactions between men and women. 

This SDG covers the first half of the Neapolitan Quartet, My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name. The New Yorker review loudly proclaims: “…the sensation...a hungry, relentless urge to keep going, the same feeling that drives you to borrow all someone’s clothes, or pinch them as hard as you can when they don’t understand you. Ferrante shows us the friction that generates human heat—she reminds us what the experience of liking is like.”

Ferrante's gift, one critic argues, is her "unflinching willingness to lead us toward 'the mutable fury of things'" —in particular, toward the passion and bitterness between women and men, and women and women. Ferrante's novels explore the recesses and limits of intimacy: "How many words," one of her heroine's asks, "remain unsayable even between a couple in love?"

Weekly Topics

1. My Brilliant Friend (2011), pp. 19 - 79

2. My Brilliant Friend, pp. 79 - 125

3. My Brilliant Friend, pp. 125 - 182

4. My Brilliant Friend, pp. 183 - 223

5. My Brilliant Friend, pp. 233 - 287

6. My Brilliant Friend, pp. 287 - 331

7. The Story of a New Name (2012), pp. 15 - 73

8. The Story of a New Name, pp. 73 - 131

9. The Story of a New Name, pp. 132- 188

10. The Story of a New Name, pp. 189- 247

11. The Story of a New Name, pp. 247- 303

12. The Story of a New Name, pp. 303 – 362

13. The Story of a New Name, pp. 362 - 419

14. The Story of a New Name, pp. 419 - 471

Bibliography

I will make the HBO series My Brilliant Friend available to all members via encrypted website. We may want to draw on this for reference. Watch the official Trailer:

For rabid devotees such as myself, I recommend The Days of Abandonment (2005). At 188 pages, this is a short novel in which Ferrante lays out her major themes in her mature style. Her husband, also a widely successful Italian writer, penned the book Ties (2017), which is the flip side of The Days of Abandonment, see this New York Times article 

Core Books

1. Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend (2011) Europa Editions, Edizioni E/O, 331pp

2. Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name (2012) Europa Editions, Edizioni E/O, 471pp

Recommended Readings

In addition to the novels listed above, here are a few readings (one by Ferrante herself) that are worth looking at:

• Ferrante, Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journal (2017), 400 pp.

• Sarah Chihaya et al., The Ferrante Letters: An Experiment in Collective Criticism. Columbia University Press, 2020. 

• Rachel Vorona Cote,"In 'My Brilliant Friend,' Companionship and Survival Are Forever Linked," Bitchmedia (February 1, 2019).

• James Wood, "Women on the Verge," New Yorker (January 14, 2013).

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Description

All of us remember Dwight Eisenhower.   We know he led the D-Day invasion and served as president for eight years.  Most of us remember attitudes that developed around Ike’s presidency.  Now that 76 years have passed since D-Day and 60 years have passed since he left office, there has been time to appraise Ike and his leadership of the D-Day invasion and his presidency.  Not surprisingly, books have been written in the last 20 years which do just that.  Ike served during a crucial period which included World War II, the recovery of Europe, the dominance and robust economy of the U.S. and early days of the Cold War.  

The principal purposes of this SDG will be to (1) study Ike’s background,  family, education and time at West Point, (2) look at the difficulties inherent in the D-Day invasion and how crucial it was and how it was conducted, (3) study Ike’s leadership of the invasion and how he made the tough decisions, (4) see how Ike decided to run for president and (5) view the actions of Ike and his administration on important domestic and international issues of the day.   We will try to look at the issues Ike faced with the information he had, as well as appraising his decisions and actions with the benefit of hindsight.  It is impossible to understand the years since Ike’s presidency without understanding how Ike’s presence and actions prepared the way for them.  It will be interesting to see how the impressions of Ike which all of us carry jibe with recent scholarship.

We will use two core books:  (A) "Eisenhower in War and Peace" by Jean Smith, an excellent biography, particularly on the years through the end of World War II and (B) "Eisenhower: The White House Years" by Jim Newton, an excellent account of Ike's presidency.  Both books offer sufficient detail to get a good "feel" for the subject, as well as conclusions (both positive and negative) on Ike's actions.  Other works, including Ike's own books, are cited below.  In addition, there are literally hundreds of other sources, including books, on line articles and documentaries, and consulting them will be encouraged              

Weekly Topics

1. Background:  Family, education, West Point, early army years 

2. Rising through the ranks, including serving with MacArthur, Bradley, Marshall and other important officials

3. Participation in World War II before being selected to lead D-Day invasion, including North African landing and Italian invasion

4. Ike's leadership of the planning of D-Day, resolving disputes with  Allies as to place, date and methods 

5. D-Day invasion, liberation of France

6. Participation in the War after liberation of France,  leadership of NATO, Presidency of Columbia University

7. Presidential election of 1952:  Decision to run, political advisors, selection and retention of Nixon, selection of cabinet officers and other important officials  

8. East Asian policies, including ending Korean War, Indo China and Formosa (Quemoy & Matsu)

9. Middle East policies, including Suez, Lebanon and Eisenhower Doctrine

10. Domestic policies, including, civil rights and and school integration (Little Rock),  Interstate Highway System, space program, National Defense Education Act, St. Lawrence Seaway

11. Domestic disputes, including defeat of McCarthy, defeat of Bricker Amendment, attempts to reform GOP

12. Cold War actions and decisions to avoid military actions, including Guatemala and Iran

13. Dealings with USSR and China, including  protection of Europe, nuclear diplomacy, covert actions U-2 crisis 

14. Farewell Address on military industrial complex and appraisal of Ike’s presidency

Bibliography

Core Books

• Jean Smith, Eisenhower in War and Peace

• Jim Newton, Eisenhower:  The White House Years

Good References (among many)

• Dwight Eisenhower, Waging Peace

• Dwight Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe

• Dwight Eisenhower, The White House Years

• Jesse Smith (Basementia Publications), The Military Industrial Complex (full text of Farewell Address with commentary)

• Theatlantic.com—long article on the Eisenhower presidency

•  Millercenter.org—summaries of important events in Eisenhower’s career

•  Wikipedia—long article on the Eisenhower presidency

Mushrooms - Tasty, Facinating & Mind Expanding

Description

Using the core book “Mycophilia - Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms” and the documentary film “Fantastic Fungi”, we will explore the biology of mushrooms and the much larger systems that mushrooms support and that support mushrooms (ie, fungi), the different types of mushrooms (edible and poisonous), the worlds of mushroom gathering and mushroom gatherers, and the possibility or reality that mushroom systems and other plant systems have the capacities of sentient and sapient functions or communication and of responding to changes in their environments. We will additionally explore human uses of mushroom and mushroom systems in dealing with pollution, in manufacturing, in dealing with cancer and other diseases and other medicinal uses, and the uses of, consumption of, benefits of and histories of psychedelic mushrooms.

Weekly Topics

• Week One - Fantastic Fungi Documentary,  Mycophilia Introduction pp xi to xix and other Introductions

• Week Two - Forays and Festivals, pp  1 to 37

• Week Three - Conferences and Collectors, pp 38 to 63

• Week Four -  Mutualists, Decomposers, and Parasites,  pp 64 to 93

• Week Five - Hunters, Gathers, and Thieves,  pp 94 to 125

• Week Six -  The Exotics,  pp 126 to 139

• Week Seven - Truffles, pp 140 to 163

• Week Eight - All About Buttons, pp 164 to 182

• Week Nine - The New Superfood, pp 183 to 204

• Week Ten - Fungi That Make You Well and Fungi That Make You Sick, pp 205 to 235

• Week Eleven- Shrooms, pp 236 to 264

• Week Twelve- Mycotechnologies,  pp 265 to 282

• Week Thirteen- Edible Mushrooms & Poisonous Mushrooms of California

• Week Fourteen - Favorite Mushroom Recipes

Bibliography

• “Mycophilia / Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms” (2011) by Eugenia Bone

• Documentary ”Fantastic Fungi” (2019) Directed and Produced by Louie Schwartzberg

Additional voluntary readings:

• ”Fantastic Fungi / How Mushrooms Can Heal, Shift Consciousness & Save The Planet” (2019) Edited by Paul Stamets

• ”Entangled Life / How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures” (2020) by Merlin Sheldrake

American Mavericks, Mystics and Misfits

Description

In this stressful era, with uncomfortable government imposed health regulations and protestors marching on civic centers, I think an SDG on dissent in America would be very timely. There is a newly published book to serve as a perfect core book which author Arthur Hoyle has entitled  MAVERICKS,MYSTICS, AND MISFITS  -- AMERICANS AGAINST THE GRAIN . Hoyle supplies a gripping story of the lives of twelve people , from the earliest days of the country  to the present, who each in their own way have challenged and enriched the lives they were born into, some more publicly, some more privately, some through the arts. They have helped establish an American tradition for the sometimes conflicting voices of cooperation and the individual pursuing personal rights.  In so doing they have made important contributions to the culture and history of their times. Come join us in this celebration of their gifts.

Weekly Topics

•  Week 1: Roger Williams  The First American   1603-1683 (Chapter 1, 24 pages)

• Week  2: Anne Bradstreet  The First American Poet   1612-1672 (Chapter 2, 20 pages)

• Week  3: Thomas Paine  The Voice of Revolution   1737-1809 (Chapter 3, 32  pages)

• Week  4: Josiah Gregg   A Wanderer on the Prairie   1806-1850 (Chapter 4, 30 pages)

• Week  5:William and Ellen Craft  Runaways to Freedom  W 1824-1900  E 1826-1897 (Chapter 5, 28 pages)

• Week  6: Thorstein Veblen   An Adam Longing for Eden  1857-1929 (Chapter 6, 28 pages)

• Week 7: Thomas Merton  The Restless Hermit   1915-1968 (Chapter 7, 32 pages)

• Week 8: Brummett Echohawk   Plains Warrior  1922-2006 (Chapter 8, 24 pages)

• Week 9: Judith Baca    Chicana  Muralist     1946- (Chapter 9, 20 pages)

• Week 10: Warren Brush and Cynthia Harvan-Brush   Revolution from the Ground Up    W  1965-   C 1969- (Chapter 10, 22 pages)

Bibliography

Hoyle, Arthur  (core book)  Mavericks, Mystics, and Misfits: Americans Against the Grain, Sunbury Press Inc., 2020

Alexander Hamilton

Description

Few figures in American history have been more hotly debated or more grossly misunderstood than Alexander Hamilton. The political and economic greatness of today’s America is the result of Hamilton’s countless sacrifices to champion ideas that were often wildly disputed during his time. We will recount Hamilton’s turbulent life: an illegitimate, largely self-taught orphan from the Caribbean, he came out of nowhere to take America by storm, rising to become George Washington’s aide-de-camp in the Continental Army, coauthoring The Federalist Papers, founding the Bank of New York, leading the Federalist Party, and becoming the first Treasury Secretary of the United States. Historians have long told the story of America’s birth as the triumph of Jefferson’s democratic ideals over the aristocratic intentions of Hamilton. Hamilton's legendary ambitions were motivated not merely by self-interest but by passionate patriotism and a stubborn will to build the foundations of American prosperity and power. His is a Hamilton far more human than we’ve encountered before—from his shame about his birth to his fiery aspirations, from his intimate relationships with childhood friends to his titanic feuds with Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Monroe, and Burr, and from his highly public affair with Maria Reynolds to his loving marriage to his loyal wife Eliza. This would all end in Hamilton’s famous and mysterious death in a duel with Aaron Burr in July of 1804.

In the first full-length biography of Alexander Hamilton in decades, Ron Chernow tells the riveting story of a man who overcame all odds to shape, inspire, and scandalize the newborn America. According to historian Joseph Ellis, Alexander Hamilton is “a robust full-length portrait, in my view the best ever written, of the most brilliant, charismatic and dangerous founder of them all.
Chernow’s biography is not just a portrait of Hamilton, but the story of America’s birth seen through its most central figure. At a critical time to look back to our roots, Alexander Hamilton will remind readers of the purpose of our institutions and our heritage as Americans.

Weekly Topics

1. Introduction, birth, childhood, education

2. Military education, early involvement with Washington, Valley Forge

3. Washington's staff, meeting Elizabeth Schuyler, early economic thinking, Yorktown

4. Young lawyer, birth of children, George Clinton,the Constitution

5. Publius writings, battle over the Constitution, Secretary of the Treasury

6. Thomas Jefferson, Philadelphia, Bank of the United States

7. Financial panics, feuds with Jefferson and Madison, rise of political parties, early feud with Aaron Burr

8. CItizen Genes, Washington's second term, yellow fever epidemic, investigation of the Treasury Department

9. Troubles with England and France, Whiskey Tax, Jay Treaty

10. Washington's Farewell address, John Adams, Callender expose

11. More troubles with France, General Hamilton, Burr feuds with Hamilton 

12. Confrontation with Adams, Federalist defeat in NYC, feud with Adams intensifies

13. Jefferson and Burr tie for President, involvement in New York governor race, Burr attempts New York comeback

14. Hamilton and Burr's attempted comeback, a duel is set, the duel, Burr after the duel, Eliza and aftermath

Bibliography

Alexander Hamilton. Ron Chernow. Penguin, 2004.

Eternal Vigilance: The ACLU and the Expansion of Civil Liberties

Description

Rights are not self-executing; they need cases and controversies brought by individuals and organizations like the ACLU,  which was founded by Crystal Eastman and Roger Baldwin in the aftermath of World War I, the Palmer Raids and the Red hysteria. From its inception until today the ACLU has been at the forefront protecting and extending those rights and liberties enshrined in the Bill of Rights and the 14th amendment. 

The ACLU has been identified with issues that continue to divide the Supreme Court and the nation, including a woman's personal autonomy and limitations on her ability to compete equally with men, whether classifications in the law based on race, sex or sexual orientation are illegitimate, and the appropriate role of religion in the public square. But the two areas in which the ACLU has been most zealous, some would say over-zealous, are freedom of speech and the protection of the rights of criminal defendants.

This SDG will examine those issues associated with the ACLU and the milestone cases it fostered in the development of civil rights and civil liberties. In this endeavor we will be guided by the recently published Fight of the Century, a collection of essays written by some of our pre-eminent writers exploring the meaning and impact of those cases---a confluence of judicial opinion and social significance, allowing each of us to reflect on how these issues impact us.

Weekly Topics

1. The role of the Bill of Rights in the drafting and ratification of the Constitution; the significance of the Civil War amendments; the birth and growth of the ACLU

2. The ACLU and the Roberts Court

3. Political speech

4. Obscene and hate speech

5. Privacy and abortion rights

6. Criminal justice system

7. Money in politics

8. Classifications based on race

9. Classifications based on sex

10. The powers of the president

11. Classifications based on sexual orientation

12. Establishment and free exercise of religion

13. The constitutional guarantee of due process.

14. The Constitution in the schoolhouse

Bibliography

Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect on 100 years of Landmark ACLU Cases, edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman

Europe: a Natural History

Description

What exactly is Europe, and who or what counts as European? Contemporary Europe is not a distinct continent but an appendix—an island-ringed peninsula projecting into the Atlantic from the western end of Eurasia.

Europe is a place of mongrels—and Europeans are “very special bastards indeed”. There can be no more dangerous concept than the idea of racial or genetic purity. The emergence of modern Homo sapiens owed much to Europe, the global centrifuge where our forebears had one final opportunity to trade DNA with other members of the hominid line—before we moderns were the last ones standing.

Gene-sequencing studies have shown that people of European and Asian descent today carry a small amount of Neanderthal DNA, less than 2 percent of their total genome on average. It is not the same 2 percent from one person to the next: taken together, up to 40 percent of the Neanderthal genome lives on. Recent research links lingering Neanderthal DNA sequences to variations in hair and skin color, sleep patterns, moodiness, and susceptibility to illnesses like diabetes.

Weekly Topics

I – Tropical ( 100 to 34 million years ago)

• Week 1           Chapters 1-3                         pp.1-26          Destination Europe

• Week 2           Chapters 4-6                         pp.27-53        Origins of Europe

• Week 3           Chapters 7-12                       pp.54-80        New Dawn

II – Continental (34 to 2.6 million years ago)

• Week 4           Chapters 13-15         pp.81-101      La Grande Coupure

• Week 5           Chapters 16-18         pp.102-121   Europe’s Apes

• Week 6           Chapters 19-21         pp.122-144   Lakes and Islands

III – Ice ages (2.6 million to 38,000 years ago) 

• Week 7           Chapters 22-24         pp.145-167   Return of the apes

• Week 8           Chapters 25-28         pp.168-197   Neanderthals and Bastards

• Week 9           Chapters 29-31         pp.198-225   Ancestor’s drawings

Human Europe (38,000 years ago to the future) 

• Week 10         Chapters 32-34         pp.226-244   The domesticators

• Week 11         Chapters 35-37         pp.245-266   Survivors

• Week 12         Chapters 38-41         pp.267-292   New Europeans

• Week 13         Chapters 42-44         pp.293-315   Europe’s Spring

Bibliography

Text: Tim Flannery, Europe: a natural history, 2019, 357 pp.