Holocaust Historian to Speak

The following talks at Yale University March 2-8 are free and open to the public, unless noted otherwise.

French-language novelist will give talk at Humanities Center

French-language novelist Maryse Conde will present a lecture in French on Tuesday, March 3, at 4 p.m. in Rm. 208 of the Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St. The talk, titled “Les Voyages d un ecrivain caribeen” (“The Travels of a Caribbean Writer”), is being organized by the Graduate Association of French Students and is made possible by support from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.

The author of more than a dozen major works, Conde is also a literary critic and a professor of French and francophone literatures at Columbia University. Born and raised on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, Conde completed her education in Paris, then spent time as a teacher in Ivory Coast, Guinea, and Ghana. Her first novel, “Heremakhonon,” published in 1976, tells the story of a young woman from Guadeloupe who, like Conde, traveled to a newly independent African country in search of her roots. The novel has become one of the canonical texts of Caribbean francophone literature.

“Among Conde’s other novels are “Segu,” “The Children of Segu,” “Tree of Life,” and “I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem.” Her works have earned her the Grand Priz Litteraire de la Femme, the Priz de l Academie Francaise and, most recently, the Priz Carbet for “Desirada.”

Lecture will explore advertising geared toward gays/lesbians

Alexandra Chasin, director of the Program in American Studies and assistant professor of English at Boston College, will present a talk on “Interpenetrations: The Gay/Lesbian Movement Meets the Gay/Lesbian Niche Market” on Tuesday, March 3, at 4 p.m. in the romance languages lounge, on the third floor of 82-90 Wall St. The event is sponsored by the Fund for Lesbian and Gay Studies.

Through her research, Chasin has concluded that advertising to gays and lesbians promotes assimilation by offering private consumption as a route to full citizenship, in much the same way that advertising to ethnic minorities earlier in the century served as a mechanism for “Americanizing” them. Chasin is author of the forthcoming book “Selling Out: The Gay and Lesbian Movement Goes to Market.” She has served as cochair of the board of directors of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and is a member of the advisory council of the Global Fund for Women.

Talk to focus on university-based technology incubators

Jonathan Gorham, managing partner of Gorham Associates, will be the next speaker in the Yale-New Haven Biotechnology Enterprise Forum series. His talk, titled “University Based Technology Incubators and Venture Funds,” will be presented Tuesday, March 3, 4:30-6:30 p.m. in Bass Hall at the Bass Center for Molecular and Structural Biology, 266 Whitney Ave.

Gorham, who received his master’s degree in public and private management from Yale, founded Gorham Associates in 1997. His firm specializes in economic development consulting and management of innovation centers. He and his team have played a leading role in the establishment of several such centers, including the Center for Design Innovation at F.I.T. in New York City, and Mass Ventures, a technology incubator on the campus of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Prior to his current position, Gorham was co-founder and managing partner of Science Park Associates, a consulting firm affiliated with Science Park in New Haven, where he helped raise more than $6 million and developed a nationally acclaimed job-creation project for neighborhood residents. He has been a consultant for more than 50 colleges, universities, cities, states and economic development organizations, including Yale Medical Center Inc.

For more information, call the Yale Office of Cooperative Research at (203) 432-5446.

Johnson & Johnson CEO is next Gordon Grand Lecturer

Ralph Larsen, chair and CEO of Johnson & Johnson, will present the Gordon Grand Lecture, “Marketing Challenges in a Global Economy,” Wednesday, March 4, 11:45 a.m.-1 p.m., in the General Motors Room of Horchow Hall, 55 Hillhouse Ave. The event is presented by the Office of External Affairs at the School of Management.

Larsen assumed his current responsibilities at Johnson & Johnson, a diversified international health care company, in 1989. Previously he served as vice chair of the Executive Committee and chair of the Consumer Sector.

Hired as a manufacturing trainee with the Johnson & Johnson Domestics Operating Company in 1962, Larsen advanced through a series of increasingly responsible assignments in manufacturing and distribution. He was named vice president of marketing for the McNeil Consumer Products Company in 1980. Larsen left Johnson & Johnson for two years to serve as president of Becton Dickinson’s Consumer Products Division and returned to Johnson & Johnson as president of its Chicopee subsidiary in 1983.

Larsen was elected to the Johnson & Johnson board of directors in 1987. He also serves as a member of the board of directors of Xerox Corporation, The New York Stock Exchange and AT&T Corp. He is a member of The Business Council and the Policy Committee of The Business Roundtable.

Human rights advocate to give Law School’s Dean’s Lecture

“Equality, Liberty and Due Process: The Insularity of American Law” is the title of a talk being presented on Wednesday, March 4, by Anthony Lester, Lord Lester of Herne Hill Q.C., a constitutional and human rights lawyer. His talk will begin at 12:10 p.m. in Levinson Auditorium of the Law School, 127 Wall St.

Lester has argued many important cases before the European Court of Human Rights, the European Court of Justice, British courts and courts across the Commonwealth. His best-known cases have concerned free speech and discrimination. He has also argued some recent cases concerning “the right to die” and medical ethics. He is the president of Interights (The International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights). He is the author of “Justice in the American South,” about the civil rights struggle in the early 1960s, as well as “Race and Law” and “Constitutional Law and Human Rights.” The first person to campaign for a British Bill of Rights nearly 30 years ago, Lester continues to be at the center of a constitutional reform program in England.

Law School event will explore the function of independent counsels

The Knight Journalism Fellows at the Law School will present a program on “Independent Counsels: From Watergate to Whitewater, and Beyond” on Wednesday, March 4. Participants will include current and former independent counsels, as well a former White House special counsel and the author of a book on federal special prosecutors. The event will begin at 5:30 p.m. in Rm. 127 of the Law School, 127 Wall St.

The program participants are: Donald Smaltz, an independent counsel who since 1994 has been investigating former Secretary of Agriculture Michael Espy on charges relating to illegal gratuities; Lanny Davis ‘67, T70 LAW, a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Patton, Boggs and who is former special counsel for the Clinton White House, where he was responsible for handling the administration’s response to campaign finance investigations; Mark Tuohey III, former deputy independent counsel (1994-95) for the Whitewater investigation who is now a partner in the Washington, D.C. firm of Vinson & Elkins; and Katy Harriger, associate professor of politics at Wake Forest University and author of “Independent Justice: The Federal Special Prosecutor in American Politics.”

For more information, contact Michael Doyle via e-mail at Michael.Doyle@Yale.edu or Matthew Heimer at Matthew.Heimer@Yale.edu.

Expert on Florida flora will speak in series on water restoration

George Gann, director of the Institute for Regional Conservation and president of Ecohorizons Inc., will be the next speaker in the semester-long series “The Restoration Agenda: Water!” presented by the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. His talk, “Extirpation Rates: Lake Okeechobee to the Keys,” will be given on Wednesday, March 4, 11:30 a.m. -1 p.m. in Bowers Auditorium of Sage Hall, 205 Prospect St.

An open forum follows from 1 to 2 p.m. during an informal luncheon. Brown-bag lunches are welcome; hot beverages are provided. The series is free to all Yale students, faculty, staff and alumni. Community members are welcome; there is a registration fee. For information, contact Aimlee Laderman at 432-3335 or via e-mail at aimlee.laderman@yale.edu.

Gann currently serves as chair of the Society for Ecological Restoration, which has a membership of nearly 2,500 worldwide. As director of The Institute for Regional Conservation, he has conducted extensive field research on the native and exotic flora of south Florida, including rare and endangered species. His testimony to the Endangered Plant Advisory Council contributed to the proposed listing of some 80 additional species of native plants to the Florida endangered and threatened species list. As president of Ecohorizons Inc., Gann has completed more than 200 projects throughout south Florida, including preparing inventories and management plans for flowering plants, and designing and implementing ecological restoration projects.

‘Faith and social action’ is topic of talk by former Yale trustee

Paul Moore, a retired Episcopal bishop and a former member of the Yale Corporation, will speak on “Faith and Action” on Thursday, March 5, at 4 p.m. in the common room of Dwight Hall, 67 High St. His talk is sponsored by the Magee Fellowship and the Dwight Hall Leadership Institute.

Moore, who served in the ministry since 1949, was the 13th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. His books have dealt with such issues as modern cities, the ordination of women and homosexual liberation. He has been an active advocate of human and civil rights and was a member of the Governor’s Council on AIDS. Chosen as a successor trustee in 1964, he served for many years on the Yale Corporation and was also a trustee of the Berkeley Divinity School.

Scholar of medieval history to discuss the first millennium

R.I Moore, professor of medieval history at the University of Newcastle, England, will lecture on “The First European Revolution: The Contribution of Millennialism” on Thursday, March 5, at 4 p.m. in Rm. 203 of Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Ave. He is visiting the campus as part of the semester-long series on Millennialism held in conjunction with the Mellon-Sawyer Seminar Series sponsored by the Council on Middle East Studies and the Yale Center for International and Area Studies.

Moore, a noted authority on popular religion and social change in western Europe in the 10th-12th centuries, will explore whether the course of European history changed so sharply after 1000 A.D. that it could be called a “revolution,” and whether the changes that took place could be associated with the anxieties and expectations associated with the millennium. Moore is the author of “The Birth of Popular Heresy,” “The Origins of European Dissent” and “The Formation of Persecuting Society: Power and Deviance in Western Europe, 950-1250.” He is currently working on a volume titled “The First European Revolution,” which is part of the “Making of Europe” series edited by Jacques Le Goff for the “Blackwell History of the World.”

Noted cancer specialist/surgeon to speak at tea

Dr. Harold P. Freeman, who is considered a leading authority on the interrelationships between race, poverty and cancer, will be the guest at a tea and will inaugurate the Bouchet/Mellon Lecture Series during a visit to the campus on Thursday, March 5.

The tea will be held at 4:30 p.m. in the Calhoun College master’s house, 189 Elm St. Later, at 7 p.m., Freeman will deliver the Bouchet/Mellon Lecture on the topic “The Meaning of Race in Science and Society” in the Faculty Room of Connecticut Hall, 344 College St.

Freeman is the director of the department of surgery at Harlem Hospital Center in New York City and professor of clinical surgery at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. He is the chief architect of the American Cancer Society’s initiative on cancer in the poor. He has served since 1991 as chair of the President’s Cancer Panel, a post he was first appointed to by former President George Bush and was twice reappointed to by President Bill Clinton. In 1990, the American Cancer Society established the annual Harold P. Freeman Award in his honor, which is given to individuals who have made outstanding contributions in the fight against cancer in the poor.

Freeman is a former national president of the American Cancer Society and currently is chair of the Eastern Region of the Black Leadership Initiative on Cancer, a program of the National Cancer Institute. He also serves as medical director of the Breast Examination Center of Harlem. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine.

The Bouchet/Mellon Lecture Series is sponsored by the Edward A. Bouchet and Mellon Minority Undergraduate Program, which seeks to institute a cross-cultural, interdisciplinary dialogue amongst scholars, students and leaders on critical societal issues. The program, under the auspices of the Yale College Dean’s Office, also seeks to augment the representation of minorities in fields of scholarship and higher education.

Talk to explore work of American women missionaries in India

The complex motives of women physicians who traveled to colonial India as missionaries will be the focus of a talk on Thursday, March 5, by Maneesha Lal, visiting professor in the history of medicine at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Her talk, titled “Mission Impossible? American Medical Women in British Columbia,” will begin at 5 p.m. in the Beaumont Room in the Sterling Hall of Medicine, 333 Cedar St., sponsored by the Program for Humanities in Medicine.

Lal has researched such topics as conceptions of health and healing in Hindi-language publications, medical research in colonial India, and AIDS and epidemic disease in India. She has written about women’s medical missions and the politics of gender and medicine in colonial India, among other topics. Lal’s teaching interests include science, medicine and colonialism, disease in non-Western societies, comparative health and healing systems and scientific theories of race. Before teaching at the University of Wisconsin, she was a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her doctoral degree in 1996.

Lawyers to debate the collective bargaining rights in the NBA

The Yale Entertainment and Sports Law Association will sponsor a debate on the topic “The Balance of Power: Collective Bargaining Rights in the NBA” on Thursday, March 5, at 5 p.m. in Rm. 119 of the Law School, 127 Wall St. Panelists at the event include Jeffrey Mishkin, chief legal officer for the National Basketball Association, and James Quinn, a partner in the firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, outside counsel for the National Basketball Association Players Association. Their debate will focus on current labor struggles in the NBA and legal issues in professional sports.

Quinn heads Weil Gotshal’s litigation department and has counseled professional football, basketball and hockey player associations for nearly 20 years. Most recently he was the lead trial counsel in the NFL players successful antitrust challenge to the player restriction in the National Football League in the case McNeil vs. NFL. Mishkin has been executive vice president and chief legal officer of the NBA since 1995. For the past 20 years, he has been involved in every major legal decision made by the NBA league and has had a major role in collective bargaining negotiations between the NBA and the Players Association since 1976. He was one of the principal draftsmen for the NBA of the detailed rules governing the league’s salary cap that was created in 1983.

Ambassador to discuss prospects for long-term peace in Bosnia

Ambassador Robert Frowick, Bosnia mission chief for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) who headed the international effort to conduct democratic elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, will discuss the long-term prospects for peace in the region on Tuesday, March 10. His talk, titled “A Report from Sarajevo: The Future of the Bosnian Peace Process,” will take place 4-5:30 p.m. in Rm. 125 of the Law School, 127 Wall St.

Frowick, an American career diplomat, was appointed as Bosnia mission chief of the OSCE, a 54-member European-Russian security framework, in 1996. In mid-1996, he took the heralded step of excluding indicted war criminal and nationalist party chief Radovan Karadzic from the Bosnian national election process. Frowick has engaged in day-to-day negotiations with Croats, Serbs and Bosnians over steps toward democratization, including how to guarantee displaced persons the right to vote in the areas from which they were forced to flee. Frowick formerly headed the CSCE mission in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and served as chief of the political section in the U.S. Mission to NATO in Brussels. He has also served in Rome, Prague, Paris, Bucharest and Montreal. He was an Overbrook Fellow at Yale 1958-60.