Lieutenant Ben Pariser ’06
Lieutenant Ben Pariser ’06 Nearly ten years after graduation, Lieutenant Ben Pariser spoke with students as the 2015 Veterans Day Speaker. Mr. Pariser graduated from Brandeis University in 2010, before earning his commission as a second lieutenant in the United States Army Reserve. From 2011 to 2013, Mr. Pariser served with the 443rd Civil Affairs Battalion as a battalion human resources officer and a civil affairs team chief. In 2013, he was assigned to the Headquarters, United States Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command,...
read moreCarlos Andrés Gómez
Carlos Andrés Gómez Award-winning poet, actor and author Carlos Andrés Gómez challenged students to be their authentic selves and interrogate stereotypes of manhood. Mr. Gómez was this year’s guest speaker at the Latino Association assembly. He is the author of the coming-of-age memoir Man Up: Reimagining Modern Manhood. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize and named Artist of the Year at the 2009 Promoting Outstanding Writers Awards, he co-starred in Spike Lee’s film Inside Man. Mr. Gómez has been featured on NPR, TEDx, Upworthy, MSNBC,...
read moreSteven Tejada
Steven Tejada Actor, writer and educator Steven Tejada performed his monologues for students as this year’s Multiculturalism/Community Development speaker. The stories, which combine comedy, drama and real emotions, are reflections on his personal journeys from the streets of the South Bronx to the boulevards of exclusive worlds. Mr. Tejada has performed and spoken at venues throughout the country. He is currently dean of diversity initiatives at the Noble and Greenough School. He also serves on the board of directors of De La Salle Academy...
read moreTracy K. Smith
Tracy K. Smith As the Bingham Visiting Writer, poet Tracy K. Smith read from her powerful, sometimes haunting, work during the Martin Luther King Assembly. Ms. Smith is the director of Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program and the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Ordinary Light, shortlisted this fall for the National Book Award in Nonfiction, and three books of poetry. Her collection Life on Mars won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize and was selected as a New York Times Notable Book. Ms. Smith’s Duende won the 2006 James Laughlin...
read moreDaniel Swinton
Daniel Swinton Daniel Swinton challenged students’ notions of what constitutes sexual assault by presenting a court case, and asking them — the jury — how they would rule. Mr. Swinton visited campus as the 2015 Talbot Speaker. Mr. Swinton is managing partner of the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, a multidisciplinary risk management consulting firm based in Malvern, Pennsylvania. A specialist in Title IX, bystander intervention, and sexual assault policy and law, he is the author of several peer-reviewed...
read moreLove the Stranger, by Jay Deshpande ’02
Love the Stranger by Jay Deshpande ’02 YesYes Books, November 2015 Through the wide-eyed study of beauty and the eerie stations of the erotic, Love the Stranger maps the body in its struggle with desire and absence. The poems treat love, kinship and loss as instruments of our own awakening — tools that can help us encounter our own mysteriousness and touch new ground. As they peer into childhood memory, the end of an affair, dream dismemberments, and even Kim Kardashian, the lyrics in Love the Stranger guide us toward the truths hidden...
read moreCan China Lead? Reaching the Limits of Power and Growth, by F. Warren McFarlan ’55
Can China Lead? Reaching the Limits of Power and Growth by Regina M. Abrami, William C. Kirby and F. Warren McFarlan ’55 Harvard Business Review Press, February 2014 A lack of accountability, transparency, and ease of operation in China — combined with growing evidence of high-level corruption — has made domestic and foreign businesspeople increasingly wary of the “China model.” These issues are deeply rooted in Chinese history and the country’s political system. The authors contend that the country’s dynamic private...
read moreWar in the Shallows: U.S. Navy Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam 1965–1968, by John Darrell Sherwood ’85
War in the Shallows: U.S. Navy Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam 1965–1968 by John Darrell Sherwood ’85 Naval History and Heritage Command, October 2015 At the height of the U.S. Navy’s involvement in the Vietnam War, the Navy’s coastal and riverine forces included more than 30,000 sailors and over 350 patrol vessels ranging in size from riverboats to destroyers. These forces developed the most extensive maritime blockade in modern naval history and fought pitched battles against Viet Cong units in the Mekong Delta and elsewhere....
read moreF*ck Feelings: One Shrink’s Practical Advice for Managing All Life’s Impossible Problems, by Michael I. Bennett, M.D. and Sarah Bennett ’96
F*ck Feelings: One Shrink’s Practical Advice for Managing All Life’s Impossible Problems by Michael I. Bennett, M.D. and Sarah Bennett ’96 Simon & Schuster, September 2015 A veteran psychiatrist and his comedy writer daughter present the antihero of the self-help section, the cut-to-the-chase therapy session people have been waiting for. Most people choose therapy to try changing something they don’t like about themselves or to figure out a way to change another person. The Bennetts argue that goals like these are impossible to...
read moreAcrostic Woodstock, by Will Nixon ’75
Acrostic Woodstock by Will Nixon ’75 Bushwhack Books, December 2015 In more than 70 poems, Will Nixon offers a portrait of Woodstock, New York, a village of beloved shops, free spirits, artistic traditions, spiritual refuges, and unexpected moments of humor and grace. Poems recall Levon Helm’s “Midnight Ramble” or the night Jimi Hendrix played the Tinker Street Cinema. There are elegies to famous painters now in the Artists Cemetery. There are odes to the hardware store and pizza parlor. All sides of Woodstock life find their way into...
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