FIC JUNE PROGRAMS
June 3, Monday Quarterback Luncheon – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. Palmer Hartl is our Quarterback.
June 6, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. Speaker is David Hyman. His topic – City Hall: A New Generation of Leadership
A surge of energy has stirred local government since Cherelle Parker took office in January and City Council elected Kenyatta Johnson as president. In the mayor’s first 100 days, she was building her team, making public appearances, and responding to the unexpected – amid launching efforts to fulfill her campaign promises, including improvements in public safety. David Hyman, who was part of the Parker transition team, will discuss the evolving relationship between Mayor Parker and Council President Johnson, the impact of progressive council members on public policy, and the standing of the local Republican party. And he will offer his perspective on the city’s political scene as the nation focuses on Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in this year’s presidential and senatorial election contests.
David Hyman served as a managing partner of the Center City law firm, Kleinbard LLC for 13 years, and he currently chairs Kleinbard’s government relations practice, which represents clients in matters where government presents an obstacle or an opportunity. He served on Mayor Parker’s transition team as a member of the Housing, Planning, and Development Subcommittee. Four previous mayors appointed him to serve on city boards, including the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development and the Philadelphia Gas Works. He also served as chief of staff to former council member George Burrell. For nearly 40 years, David has engaged with local and state elected and appointed officials on behalf of clients such as the Phillies, Volunteers of America, and chemical manufacturer AdvanSix.
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June 10, Monday Quarterback Luncheon – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. Patrick Keough is our Quarterback.
June 13, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Speaker is Lane Savadove. His topic – Retelling Ramayana: An Extraordinary Collaboration
For Lane Savadove, the Ramayana project has been a career-long dream. It becomes reality this month in a world-premiere production from Philadelphia’s EgoPo Classic Theater, Papermoon Puppet Theater of Java, and Kalanari Theatre Movement of Bali. The ancient epic tale of Rama’s life migrated from India throughout southeast Asia and into the Indonesian archipelago, where it has become a cultural touchstone in both traditional dance and a shadow puppet festival. This cross-cultural production retells the myth with larger-than-life puppetry, and contemporary Indonesian dance – under a tent at the Navy Yard, during a festival celebrating Philadelphia’s Indonesian community, one of the largest in the United States. Lane will discuss the production’s creative innovations and the story’s focus on the power of humans to bridge self- serving cultural divides.
Lane Savadove is the founding artistic director of EgoPo, now in its 30th season. As a Henry Luce Fellow in 1996, he served for a year as resident director of the National Cultural Center of Indonesia. He is a professor and head of acting and directing at Rowan University, with directing credits for more than 50 productions – local, regional, Off-Broadway, and on NPR. Notable productions include Beckett’s Company (NPR, Philadelphia Fringe Festival), Genet’s The Maids (EgoPo in collaboration with Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre), Wedekind’s Spring Awakening (Annenberg), Maeterlinck’s Bluebird (Mandell Theater), and the world premiere of John Guare’s Lydie Breeze Trilogy. His production of Chekhov’s The Seagull at EgoPo won the 2017 Barrymore Award for outstanding overall production of a play.
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June 17, Monday Quarterback Luncheon – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. Gresham Riley is our Quarterback.
June 21, Friday Club Dinner, starting at 5:30 p.m.
Speaker is Steven Conn. His topic – The Dubious, Durable Myths of Rural America
Nostalgia tells us rural America isn’t what it used to be. Insight tells us it never was – neither the pastoral haven of upstanding “real Americans” nor the backward culture of a people somehow left behind. Historian Steven Conn probed these myths in his newest book, Lies of the Land: Seeing Rural America for What It Is – and Isn’t (University of Chicago Press, 2023). He joins us to show that rural America is and has always been central to our history. Since the Civil War, it has been challenged by the social and economic forces that shaped the entire nation: military priorities, industrialization, corporate control, and the population shift to the suburbs. The contemporary claim that rural America is uniquely in crisis misses that point, and Steven presses for that understanding of the challenges facing our non-urban, non-suburban population.
In 2015, Steven Conn became the W. E. Smith Professor of History at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, teaching courses in American history. Prior to that, he had been on the history faculty at Ohio State University since receiving his PhD from Penn in 1994. He is the author of many articles, reviews, essays, and books – most recently The Lies of the Land and Nothing Succeeds Like Failure: The Sad History of American Business Schools (Cornell University Press, 2019). At OSU he created a combined BA/MA degree program in public history and the monthly on-line features magazine “Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective.” In 2021 he helped create a spin-off website in collaboration with Getty images called “Picturing Black History.” You can find it at picturingblackhistory.org/
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June 24, Monday Quarterback Luncheon – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. Roberta Kangilaski is our Quarterback.
June 25, Movie Night at the Inn – starting at 6:00 p.m.
- No charge for admission, or snacks and drinks – popcorn, chips, nuts, sodas, beer, and wine.
- Feature, starting at 6:30, TBA
June 27, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Speaker is Michael Weisberg. His topic – The Galápagos Islands: Stories of Suvival
We know the Galápagos archipelago for its giant tortoises and its diminutive finches, and for its identity as the laboratory of evolution. Michael Weisberg knows it as a challenging environment for its iconic wildlife. He will speak about remarkable behaviors that these beautiful, unique animals use to survive on the land and in the waters of the desert-like volcanic islands, where fresh water is always scarce, food can be hard to locate, and finding a good mate is a challenge because animal populations are so small. He will show us selection of photographs from his landmark book with coauthor, naturalist, and photographer Walter Perez, Galápagos: Life in Motion (Princeton University Press, 2018). Their studies captured Galápagos animals feeding, playing, fighting, courting, mating, building nests, giving birth, raising their young, and cooperating and clashing with other species.
Michael Weisberg is interim director of Perry World House at Penn, as well as Bess W. Heyman President’s Professor and chair of philosophy. He is a philosopher of science and senior negotiator at United Nations Climate Conferences, chief editor of Biology and Philosophy, director of the Penn Laboratory for Understanding Science, and director of the Galápagos Education and Research Alliance. In addition to coauthoring Galápagos: Life in Motion, he wrote Simulation and Similarity: Using Models to Understand the World (Oxford Academic, 2013), and was a contributing author to the Sixth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Michael also serves as senior adviser to the Maldivian Minister of Environment and advisor to the Maldivian Ambassador to the United Nations. His PhD and MA in philosophy are from Stanford, and he holds a BS in chemistry and BA inphilosophy with highest distinction from UCal San Diego.