Arthur Fergenson is keeping us both connected as a Class, and busy:
"Please put these dates on your calendar for Casual Conversations. These dates are subject to change, and new guests are likely to be added. As always, the goal is to bring classmates together for an interesting and sometimes challenging discussion. The range of topics is intentionally broad, from history to science to the performing and fine arts and beyond. We have hosted discussions with two quantum physicists, both women, and an optics professor whose specialty in invisibility requires a grounding in quantum theory, and, who knows, there may be more. I am looking to obtain a cosmologist for a future discussion. The two I have in mind are both women.
As of today, here are the names, dates and times. All times are Eastern (US). DO NOT EMAIL ME NOW WITH YOUR RSVP TO ANY OF THESE. WAIT UNTIL THE ANNOUNCMENTS COME OUT. IF YOU EMAIL ME WITH AN RSVP NOW, I WILL BOTH IGNORE YOU AND BE ANNOYED.
- Wednesday, October 30 at High Noon: Sue Leavitt, spouse of Dartmouth ’69 classmate John Leavitt, will once again grace us with a lunchtime piano recital. This will be the second time that she will regale us on Zoom with a display of her considerable musical talents. If you were with us the first, you will want to attend; and if you some how managed to miss it, don’t make the same mistake twice! Her program will be announced shortly before the performance.
- Sunday, November 10 at 3 pm Eastern: Angela Ranzini, M.D., spouse of Dartmouth ’69 classmate Chris Hu. Dr. Ranzini has clinical expertise in the areas of Complex Pregnancy and Delivery and Maternal/Fetal Medicine (High-Risk Obstetrics), and is a Professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. In August she reports: “Hopefully, I'll be on the summit of one of the 46 High Peaks in the 'Daks as a volunteer Summit Steward educating folks about the Arctic alpine terrain up there.”
- Sunday, November 17 at 3 pm Eastern: Dartmouth ’69 classmate Paul R. Pillar will be returning in a Casual Conversation to focus on his most recent book, Beyond the Water’s Edge: How Partisanship Corrupts U.S. Foreign Policy (Columbia University Press 2023). Paul “examines how and why partisanship has undermined U.S. foreign policy, especially over the past three decades.” Francis Fukuyama writes that Paul’s book “presents an ominous warning from one of the country’s most respected former national security officials, chronicling the way that domestic polarization has progressively undermined American foreign policy and weakened the United States.” Next January, a new American president will be in office with her or his national security and foreign policy teams. This will certainly be an important moment to discuss with our classmate the issues presented in his book.
- Sunday, December 15 at 3 pm Eastern: Paula Kurman, widow of Jim Bouton, and author of The Cool of the Evening: A Love Story (RosettaBooks 2024). Our classmate Chip Elitzer writes: “Paula's book about their [to wit, hers and Jim Bourton’s] life together, "In the Cool of the Evening" has just been published. In a way, it's the completion of a trilogy, following Jim's classic, "Ball Four", and his recounting of our adventure together in Pittsfield [MA], Foul Ball Part II.” We have hosted several sports related Casual Conversations, including with classmate Sandy Alderson, and with prolific author and Dartmouth graduate Peter Golenbock (The Bronx Zoo). Make this your next sports session with your classmates and Ms. Jurman.
- Sunday, December 22 at 3 pm Eastern: Classmate and attorney Doug Reynolds and Kevin Cox, a law firm colleague of classmate Bruce Alpert’s son Jeremy, will be discussing with us estate planning and administration. Doug was recruited by classmate Clint Harris. This session was suggested by classmate Peter Beekman, a retired trust officer, who has stories of his own: I am suggesting where perhaps things didn’t quite work out. I’m suggesting that the unexpected occurred. I’m suggesting the grandchild beneficiary of a trust who is a convicted felon. I’m suggesting the sisters who fought over a rhododendron bush that cost $1M in legal expenses. I’m talking about the family that possibly disagreed so much that they forfeited over $25M.At one level, if things go-to-hell-in-a-handbasket you won’t be around to see the mess. At another, you might want to try to protect your heirs and your hoped-for distribution of assets from your estate. The timing of this session is just right. The week following 12/22 will usher in three family-gathering holidays, Christmas (for the non-Orthodox), Chanukah (same day), and Kwanza (next day), followed in quick succession by secular New Years Eve and Day, and Orthodox Christmas. Check out your relations, and decide who gets what, when, and how, although I wouldn’t recommend following King Lear’s approach with his three daughters. Also, you could try to trick one of your family to take on the job of being your executor. See: “Grief, Then Paperwork: The Messy, Thankless Job of an Estate Executor: The role can entail family drama and tracking down heirs” by Ashlea Ebeling (WSJ June 29, 2024).
- Sunday, January 12, 2025 at 3 pm Eastern: Ehud Eilam, Ph.D., suggested by classmate Jay (“Yogi”) Glaser as a Casual Conversation sponsored by the Jewish Culture Group, which classmate Bruce Alpert chairs. Dr. Eilam is a former member of and consultant to the IDF and the author of eight books on Israel’s strategic and military options and constraints, his most recent being Israel's New Wars: The conflicts between Israel and Iran, Hezbollah and the Palestinians since the 1990s (Peter Lang 2024). From a talk he gave at a small shul in Clinton MA: “Dr. Eilam will discuss the existential dangers confronting Israel from a purely military and not a political perspective. He will address its military strengths and weaknesses as well as those of its meany surrounding hostile neighbors; its fraught relationships with its military allies including the US; and the results of its recent efforts to suppress guerrilla and terror activity in the West Bank.”
- Sunday, February 2: Harry Freedman, a prolific author from the UK, on his new book Shylock’s Venice. Whether or not you have seen Venice’s Nuevo Ghetto or not (and I have and visited each of the three small synagogues there), and even if you have not seen a production of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (and I have, at least ten times), you will want to have a chance to speak with Mr. Freedman. You want even want to subscribe for free to his fascinating and deeply informative substack feed that focuses on history: https://harryfreedman.substack.com/about
- Sunday, February 16: Professor Mary Fulbrook, also from the UK, returns to discuss her important book Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest For Justice: “to reveal the disparity between the extent of inhumanity and later attempts to int6erpret and rectify wrongs . . ..” She spent a deeply informative and moving several hours wi9th us earlier to discuss her book Bystander Society: Conformity and Complicity in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. If you attended the fi9rst session with Prof. Fuklbrook, you will come back. If you missed it, don’t make the same mistake twice.
- Sunday, March 2: Professor Thomas H. Cox at Sam Houston State University, and Senior Lecturer Gregory R., Witkowski, Nonprofit Management Programs at Columbia University. They co-authored “Heart of Dartmouth: Charity, Corporations, and the Supreme Court” in the Journal of Supreme Court History. The essay is a deep dive into the Dartmouth College Case: the history that led to the lawsuit, its treatment in the U.S. Supreme Court, and its life thereafter. There is far more to it than “It is the case not merely of that humble institution, it is the case of every college in our land! . . . It is, sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet . . ..”
- Monday, March 24: Professor Jeremy DeSilva, Chair of Dartmouth’s Anthropology Department. His expertise is how humans came to stand on two legs. He was also quoted liberally in an article in NewScientist (UK) about the reduction in size of human brains and the possible explanation for it.
- Sunday, April 27: Professor Adam Mendelsohn wrote Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War: The Union Army. “Adam directs the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Cape Town.” Professor Mendelsohn will be our first guest from South Africa, but he may speak to us from any of the many places in the world where he visits and works, including Tulane University.