The conference fee is $1,575 and includes all seminars below plus additional events. You may take every class — i.e., there will be no overlap as only one class will be going on at any one time. Classes are only offered when we’re at sea, between 8:30am and 7:30pm.
Military leaders have been celebrated as heroes over the last decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. But has a largely adoring public helped create a culture of hubris and entitlement in the top ranks, leading to today’s scandals of sex, sexual abuse and malfeasance? Elisabeth Bumiller considers.
Unmanned drones are not only revolutionizing the American way of warfare, they are changing in profound ways the lives of the people who fly them. Elisabeth Bumiller looks at the strange, secret world of remote drone pilots — and the disconnect of fighting a telewar with joysticks and throttles from military bases in American suburbia.
The United States military officially bans women from serving in combat, but side-steps by “attaching” women to all-male infantry units. Elisabeth Bumiller talks about her experiences embedding with Marine “female engagement teams” sent out on combat patrols in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, to try to win over the rural Afghan women culturally off-limits to American men.
The Obama administration says its new focus on Asia and the Pacific is not a “contain China” strategy, but an American military buildup in the region is underway. Elisabeth Bumiller reviews the troop increases, ship deployments, expanding military exercises and tensions with China, which asserts territorial claims that would give it vast control over oil and gas rights in the East and South China Seas.
We have in our national parks, national forests, wildlife refuges and monuments a shared space nearly as large as France. But it nearly didn’t happen. This seminar will look at Teddy Roosevelt’s audacious experiment, and how it plays out now, from Yosemite to the cliff-dwelling Anasazi sites of the Southwest.
The Ken Burns film, which I was significantly involved with, to air this fall, will bring the topic of the Dust Bowl to a wide audience for the first time. In this class I will talk about the largest environmental disaster in our history and the lesson in human resilience it teaches, and well as the fable-like warning about climate change. With the Dust Bowl, we did change the climate, unintentionally of course — much foreshadowing about today.
This class is based on a book Tim Egan wrote about the photographer of American Indians — Edward Curtis — who spent 30 years pursuing an obsession: to document the lives and cultures of all Native American people still living by the old ways. One part Indiana Jones, one part Annie Liebovitz, Mr. Curtis hobnobbed with President Roosevelt and J.P. Morgan while pursuing this great work. During class Tim will also include a wonderful slide presentation of Mr. Curtis’ pictures.
In this seminar we will explore how a younger, more diverse, more urban electorate will determine electoral outcomes for the next decade — at least!
President Obama has vowed to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, declaring that it would not be possible to contain an ambitious, nuclear-armed Iranian theocracy, or keep other nations in the Middle East from racing for a bomb. But that vow has run headlong into his determination not to let another another war break out in the world’s most volatile region. David Sanger discusses the Iran dilemma and talks about Olympic Games — the secret American cyberwarfare program that the U.S. and Israel unleashed to slow the Iranian program.
Why do the country’s news organizations regularly publish classified information, and can they do their job of informing the American public without crossing that line? David Sanger describes how and why this clash between the government’s interest in secrecy and the public’s interest in disclosure are balanced in day-to-day reporting on the most sensitive national security issues.
Second Presidential terms are unusual creatures. Unburdened by the need to run for public office ever again, presidents are free — in theory — to pursue their own agendas. But the realities are more complex. President Obama critics on the left wondered what happened to the President’s agenda for climate change, energy and nuclear disarmament; his critics on the right accused him of socialism, but were surprised at how he adopted many of George Bush’s weapons of covert war. Will the next four years be a continuation of the past four?
No one saw the uprisings coming — certainly not American intelligence agencies. And few foresaw that what began with such democratic promise in Tahrir Square and downtown Tripoli would turn into the nightmare of the Syrian war and the rise of many freely-elected but illiberal governments. David Sanger explores the challenge that the spreading revolutions posed for Washington, and how they may play out in coming years.
Is the United States the democratic republic that our Founders envisioned when they wrote the U.S. Constitution? What would the Founders have to say about the current struggle over war powers between the executive and congressional branches? What would their views be on gun control, gay marriage, the role of religion in civil and political life and how would they view the societal changes brought on by advances in technology? This class explores the ideas and beliefs that influenced key actors in our nation’s founding and assesses the state of American democracy today in light of their expectations. We will explore the writings of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
Here are the slides (1mb file).
If you were asked to assess the Obama Presidency what criteria would you use? This class will provide an overview of the American Presidency, from the individual who occupies the oval office to the structural underpinnings of the executive branch of government. This class will delve deep into the components of successful and failed presidencies, including presidential personalities, use of executive power, partisanship, fiscal policy, public opinion and electoral strategies.
Here are the slides (1mb file).
The America of 2013 reflects significant changes in the underlying fabric of our society, with changes in the composition of our population, our social and religious attitudes and economic structure. In the last 100 years we have seen period of great social and political change, from the women’s suffrage movement to the labor movement to civil rights. We are in the midst of another period of political and social transition. In assessing the future of American society, we have to once again push the reset button on defining equality and how we achieve it in both the private and public spheres of life. This class will take on the hard questions, starting with the debate about equality of opportunity versus equality of outcomes. How much can we guarantee equality of opportunity in political, educational and economic life? Can we guarantee equality of outcomes, and if so, under which circumstances? And if we cannot guarantee equality, what does America stand for?
Here are the slides (1mb file).
Is Congress equipped to govern in the 21st century? Is it possible that the size and growth of the nation now requires a different legislative structure at the federal level? The House and Senate are very different institutions and understanding those differences is vital to understanding how Congress works, and evaluating whether it works. This class will delve deep into the halls of Congress and take participants from the personal offices of members to the back rooms of committees to the House and Senate floors themselves. We will also examine changes to the House and Senate over time, from internal rules to constitutional amendments, and make an assessment as to whether even more radical change is necessary to produce a more responsive and effective Congress.
Here are the slides (1mb file).
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