Naomi Klein, the author of “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate,” addressed the Amherst community at the annual DeMott Lecture on Wednesday, Sept. 30. Her book was this year’s required reading for incoming first-year and transfer students. After the event, Divest Amherst held a rally to urge the college’s board of trustees to divest from all fossil fuel industries.
Elaine Scarry, a professor of English and American literature at Harvard, spoke in Beneski’s Paino Lecture Hall on March 5. The respected scholar attracted a crowd of Amherst College community members as well as local and national peace activists. Scarry’s lecture, entitled “The Abolition of Nuclear Weapons,” argued that that nuclear weapons may violate constitutional rights and undermine democracy.
Eric Lander, who helped lead the Human Genome Project and author the earliest publication of the sequence of the human genome, spoke to students in Stirn Auditorium on Nov. 9. Lander is a biology professor at MIT and the founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
Biology professor David Ratner organized and introduced the talk, which was titled “Secrets of the Human Genome.”
This week the newly formed student group Black Lives Matter launched its first campaign to raise awareness and facilitate conversations about issues relating to police brutality.
