ACE Festival – ��ݮ�� Podcast

ACE Festival Keynote: Douglas Abrams

Kate Szambecki — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 18:54:01 +0000

Two Truths and Three Lies About Hope and Humanity
ACE Festival Keynote featuring Douglas Abrams, one of the authors of The Book of Hope, EMU’s 2023-24 Common Read.

In a world that seems so troubled, how do we hold on to hope? New York Times-bestselling author Doug Abrams will examine this most sought-after and least-understood element of human nature. He will explore the importance of hope in our lives and how to cultivate it personally and collectively when we need it most. Through sharing little-known truths and confronting the widespread lies about the future of humanity, Doug invites the listener to see hope not as a passive or weak response, but as an act of resistance that challenges the status quo. The talk will draw on his work writing The Book of Hope with Jane Goodall, as well as his collaborations with the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Stephen Hawking, Nelson Mandela, Bryan Stevenson, and many other leading spiritual teachers, activists, and scientists.
Doug Abrams is a multiple New York Times-bestselling author, as well as an editor, literary agent, and film producer. He is the founder and president of Idea Architects, a creative book and media agency helping visionaries create a wiser, healthier, and more just world.

He co-wrote The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World with the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu which inspired the film MISSION: JOY, now on Netflix. Doug served as the interviewer in the film as well as an Executive Producer. Doug also co-authored The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times with Jane Goodall. (The Book of Hope is EMU’s Common Read selection for 2023-24.) He has also written many other bestselling non-fiction books and has written two novels, The Lost Diary of Don Juan��Ի��Eye of the Whale, which together have been translated into over thirty languages.

Books and films he has developed have been credited with convincing then-President Bill Clinton to stop the genocide in Kosovo (THE BRIDGE BETRAYED), for launching the modern anti-slavery movement (DISPOSABLE PEOPLE), for helping to expand a mass incarceration reform movement (JUST MERCY, a book by Bryan Stevenson and film starring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx), and for helping to address our environmental crisis (THE FUTURE WE CHOOSE, TWO WORLDS, which inspired a near future grounded sci-fi feature film being developed with the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions for Netflix).

ACE Festival Keynote: Luisa A. Igloria

Kate Szambecki — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 17:58:58 +0000

What Poetry Offers: More than Feeling

ACE Festival 2023 welcomes Luisa A. Igloria as our keynote speaker.

Especially in these last few years of the pandemic and other experiences of global upheaval, there has been a rededicated interest in the public role of poetry and its relationship to social change. And while it’s true that literature and the arts could be said to have empathy as their cornerstone, what they give us, really, is more than a capacity to feel deeply or to empathize with others. Writer Jenny Boully says: “Can you give to someone else what has been? That’s the task of the poet.” It seems that “giving to someone else what has been” has to do with a generosity that exceeds any moment filled with feeling, no matter how lavish the catharsis it might deliver. Besides feeling, there is also work: ways in which we can use language, technique, practice, and revision. This work enables us to nudge the poem toward what comes beyond the moment of its outburst, articulation, and perception. The poem must also ask: what remains of our attention and witnessing? How will our conversations and creations change, after the poem?

ACE Festival Keynote

piperj — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 23:30:00 +0000

The ACE Festival 2021 Keynote, featuring Rabbi Niles Goldstein

Dreams, Drama and Dogma: Spiritual Writing Through the Centuries

This presentation will explore the rich and diverse legacy of writing and writers within the context of the Abrahamic faith traditions. It will highlight several works from antiquity to modernity, examining their content, style and purpose, as well as the personal lives of the writers behind them. What have been some of the literary forms of spiritual writing over the centuries? Do the texts function as transmitters of doctrine, or rather as expressions of the writer’s inner life and/or vocation? Can writing itself be a spiritual and devotional activity?

Rabbi Niles Elliot Goldstein is the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Shalom of Napa Valley. Rabbi Goldstein, an experienced and dynamic Reform rabbi and educator, is also the award-winning author or editor of ten books, including Gonzo Judaism and God at the Edge. He was the founding rabbi of The New Shul, an innovative and independent synagogue in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, which he served for over a decade. He is also a founder of the Napa Center for Thought & Culture. Prior to his arrival at CBS Napa, Rabbi Goldstein worked in a variety of congregational, interfaith and academic settings while based in his native Chicago.

Additional information about Niles can be found on the ACE Festival Keynote page.

Chapel Talk-Back with Fania Davis

admin — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 14:45:07 +0000

/now/is/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/04.20.18-FaniaDavisClosingChapel.mp3

ACE Festival Forum chapel talk-back with Fania Davis

“ACE Festival Keynote Presentation” – Dr. Fania E. Davis

admin — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 00:41:01 +0000

/now/is/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/04.18.18-FaniaDavisACEKeynote.mp3

ACE Festival 2018

Fania E. Davis
Social Activist, Restorative Justice Scholar, Civil Rights Attorney

Fania E. Davis is co-founder and director of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY). Disparately impacting youth of color, punitive school discipline and juvenile justice policies activate cycles of youth violence and incarceration. RJOY works to interrupt these cycles by promoting institutional shifts toward restorative approaches that actively engage families, communities, and systems to repair harm and prevent re-offending. RJOY focuses on reducing racial disparities and public costs associated with high rates of incarceration, suspension, and expulsion. Davis’ close childhood connection to victims of the 1963 Sunday School bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, set her career path early in life. She is a long-time social justice activist, restorative justice scholar, and civil rights attorney. Davis earned a JD from the University of California, Berkeley and a PhD in indigenous studies from the California Institute of Integral Studies. She has taught restorative justice and indigenous peacemaking at the graduate and undergraduate levels. She has received the Ubunti Service to Humanity award, the Maloney award, and World Trust’s Healing Justice award. The Los Angeles Times named Davis a new civil rights leader of the 21st century.

Fania E. Davis will be on campus for the week of April 16-20 interacting with members of our campus community as a visiting fellow through the Council of Independent Colleges’ Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellows program.