CPU Newsletter

November 14, 2005

CPU ANNOUNCEMENTS: "Religion and Politics: New Dangers and Old Threats" with Elisabeth Sifton, Senior VP of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, and daughter of Reinhold Niebuhr (Tuesday, 11/15)

CPU EVENTS/ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1. "RELIGION AND POLITICS: NEW DANGERS AND OLD THREATS" with
ELISABETH SIFTON, Senior VP of Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux (Tuesday,
11/15, 7:45pm, Lerner 569)

2. DEBRA LIANG-FENTON, Executive Director, U.S. Committee for Human
Rights in North Korea (Wednesday, 11/16, 8PM, 310 Fayerweather)

3. CPR Available Now! (Distributed on campus)

OTHER EVENTS:

4. "EMINENT DOMAIN: PRIVATE DEVELOPMENT FOR PUBLIC GOOD?": Civil
Liberties Lawyer Norman Siegel on the Manhattanville Expansion
(TODAY, 6pm, Lerner E569)

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1. The CPU "Philosophy, Culture, and Society Series": "RELIGION AND
POLITICS: NEW DANGERS AND OLD THREATS"

Speaker: ELISABETH SIFTON, Senior VP of Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux,
and daughter of Reinhold Niebuhr

Date: Wednesday, 11/15
Time: 7:45pm
Location: W569, Alfred Lerner Hall

Description: ELISABETH SIFTON is Senior Vice President of Farrar
Straus and Giroux and Editor-at-Large of Hill and Wang. She is also
the author of The Serenity Prayer: Faith and Politics in Times of
Peace and War. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. describes the book as "a
major contribution to the intellectual history of modernity."

(For a full description of The Serenity Prayer, please visit:
http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/fall04/032662.htm.) A New York
Times Notable Book.

A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Harvard University
Press Board of Directors, and the Freedom to Read Committee of the
Association of American Publishers, Mrs. Sifton has also served on
the board of directors of Union Theological Seminary and the
French-American Foundation, and the board of advisers to the Beacon
Press.

Writers whose books Elisabeth Sifton has edited and published
include Neal Ascherson, Isaiah Berlin, John Brewer, Frederick
Brown, Vladimir Dedijer, Andrew Delbanco, Ann Douglas, Ronald
Dworkin, Susan Eisenhower, Philip Gourevitch, Gerald Gunther, James
Hershberg, Stanley Hoffmann, Michael Howard, Michael Ignatieff, Roy
Jenkins, Stanley Karnow, John Keegan, Sunil Khilnani, Nicholas
Lemann, J.R. MacArthur, Robert MacNeil, Avishai Margalit, Ernest
May, Edward Mendelson, Newton Minow, Dan Morgan, Victor Navasky,
Michael Novacek, Fintan O’Toole, Sydney Schanberg, Jonathan Spence,
Stella Tillyard, Lewis Thomas, Adam Ulam, and Jules Witcover.
Poets, novelists and critics she has published include John
Ashbery, Bruce Chatwin, Robertson Davies, Don DeLillo, Stuart
Dybek, Leslie Forbes, Carlos Fuentes, William Gaddis, Allan
Gurganus, Richard Howard, Frank Kermode, Peter Matthiessen, J.D.
McClatchy, Péter Nádas, R.K. Narayan, Richard Poirier, Gregor von
Rezzori, Charles Rosen, William Trevor, Marina Warner, and Geoffrey
Wolff.

Ms. Sifton is also the daughter of Reinhold Niebuhr.

The CPU thanks The Blue and White and the Columbia Journal of
Literary Criticism for their co-sponsorship.

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2. The CPU Proudly Presents: Debra Liang-Fenton, Executive Director,
U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea

Date: Wednesday, 11/16
Time: 8pm
Location: 310 Fayerweather

Description: Debra Liang-Fenton is the Executive Director of the
U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. She is responsible
for conceptualizing and coordinating all projects undertaken by the
Committee. A broad domestic and international grassroots initiative
on the issue of human rights in North Korea will be executed under
her guidance.

Debra has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the
subject of North Korean refugees and the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee on life inside North Korea. She is a regular participant
in Congressional hearings and working groups on human rights in
North Korea. She is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations focus
group on North Korean refugees, and the China task force sponsored
by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Debra
also regularly advises policymakers in the State Department and the
Agency for International Development.

Working in partnership with U.S.-based and international NGOs, Debra
has helped to bring about the European Union resolution on North
Korea this year at the UN Commission on Human Rights. She was the
keynote presenter at Amnesty International's Annual General Meeting
in April 2003. Her work with the media has included appearances on
CNN and Fox; and work with NBC News, CBS News, ABC Primetime, PBS,
NPR, the BBC, ITN Britain, The New York Times, The Washington Post,
The Wall Street Journal, The Far Eastern Economic Review, The
Christian Science Monitor, U.S. News and World Report , Newsweek,
and other international print, television, and radio outlets.

Before joining the Committee, Debra directed the U.S. Institute of
Peace's first Human Rights Implementation Program. She is the
editor of Implementing U.S. Human Rights Policy: Agendas, Policies
and Practices. Debra was a founding editor of the Journal of
Democracy, where she served as Production Editor for three years,
and was Project Officer for the National Endowment for Democracy's
International Forum for Democratic Studies for four years before
joining the Peace Institute. Debra holds a B.A. in political
science from Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, and an M.A. in
politics specializing in Southeast Asia from the University of
London's School of Oriental and African Studies.

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3. Columbia Political Review - Available Now! (On campus)

The preeminent journal of political commentary is now available on
campus. Pick up your copy today!

For more information about the magazine and to find out how to get
involved, please email: cpureview@columbia.edu .

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4. A CPU Co-sponsored Event: "Eminent Domain: Private Development
for Public Good?": Civil Liberties Lawyer Norman Siegel on
Columbia's Expansion

Date: Monday, 11/14
Time: 6:00pm
Location: Lerner E569

Description: Come hear renowned civil liberties attorney Norman
Siegel talk about eminent domain abuse and Columbia's expansion
into West Harlem. Mr. Siegel is representing businesses in the
Manhattanville expansion area that Columbia's planned displacement
is threatening to displace.

The Student Coalition on Expansion and Gentrification is a
university-wide coalition that works to ensure that community
concerns about Columbia's expansion are heard on campus.

Cosponsored by: the Columbia ACLU, Students for Environmental and
Economic Justice, the Columbia Urban Studies Students, and the
Columbia College Libertarians, and the Columbia Political Union
(CPU).

For more information: sceg@columbia.edu.

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