Please note: you must register to attend this event. To register, e-mail [masked].

“A new era for politics is struck; a new method of thinking has arisen.” So proclaimed Thomas Paine in 1776, making the case for American independence.

But Paine did not stop there. For the next thirty-some years until his death in 1809, he continued to sound the call for change on both sides of the Atlantic: the eradication of hereditary government and privilege; enfranchisement for the common man; abolition of slavery; freedom from organized religion; a preliminary blueprint for Social Security; and, not least, an end to unnecessary wars. Fast forward two hundred years, from “We have it in our power to begin the world over again” to “Yes we can”: it is hardly surprising that Paine’s emphasis on change continues to reverberate in our nation--and that Barack Obama himself would tap into this spirit by citing lines from Paine’s first “American Crisis” paper in his inaugural speech. Yet, even with “change” on the national agenda, we are still left with that which Paine identified as the “curious phenomenon of a nation looking one way, and a government the other." The issues of poverty, inequality, questionable wars, torture and faith-determined legislation (to name only a few) remain as vexed as ever. This colloquium organized by Frances A. Chiu, Instructor in the Humanities and Social Sciences Departments at The New School, commemorates the 200th anniversary of the death of Thomas Paine held in conjunction with her course, “The Age of Paine: Radicalism, Revolution, and Reform,” reflecting upon Paine’s achievements, legacy and his relevance to the 21st century.

Admission is free and open to the public.

Colloquium Schedule
10:45 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Welcome by Frances Chiu, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

Lecture, “The exclusion of Paine from the canon of Founding Fathers,” by Susan Jacoby (Program Director of the Center for Inquiry and author of Freethinkers and Age of American Unreason)

12:00 p.m. to 1:15 p.m.

Lecture, “Thomas Paine in contemporary America: Liberal, Conservative, or Radical?” by J. Ward Regan, Professor of history and philosophy, New York University
1:15 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Independent lunch break

2:30 to 3:45 p.m.

Lecture, “THIS is the Age of Paine: How an 18th-century Thinker speaks most clearly in the 21st,” by John Nichols (Washington correspondent, The Nation)

3:45 to 5:00 p.m.

Lecture, “On the making of the documentary, The Thomas Paine Project,” by Karen Thorsen (producer of James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket and Joe Papp in Five Acts )

5:00-5:15 p.m.

Performance by Barbara and Graham Dean

Participants

Susan Jacoby is the author of nine books, including Moscow Conversations, Wild Jackie: The Evolution of Revenge (a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1984), Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism (cited in the Times Literary Supplement as an outstanding international book of 2004), the bestselling Age of American Unreason, and most recently, Alger Hiss and the Battle for History. She has published on a broad range of issues in American Prospect, AARP Magazine, Harper’s, Mother Jones, The New York Times Magazine, and Vogue. Currently the Program Director of The Center for Inquiry-NYC, she is also a regular panelist for On Faith, a website sponsored by The Washington Post and Newsweek.

Political folk performers Barbara and Graham Dean are an Anglo-American couple who rediscovered their passion for folk music in 2002 before releasing their debut CD, Tom Paine’s Blues: Common Sense Songs two years later. The Deans have worked with such folk luminaries as Kim and Reggie Harris, Bob Franko, Kate Campbell, and Joel Mabus. The Deans also have a folkmusic/political radio show, Common Sense Songs, streaming live at www.berkshireradio.org.

John Nichols writes about politics for The Nation magazine and is an editor of The Capital Times newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. He is the author and co-author of eight books, including The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders' Cure for Royalism (The New Press), a Paine-influenced history of struggles for executive accountability that was featured on PBS' "Bill Moyers' Journal." With Robert W. McChesney, his new book, The Death and Life of American Journalism: How the Coming Communications Revolution Can Begin the World Again (Basic/Nation), uses Paine as a reference point in arguing for the renewal of journalism and democracy.

J. Ward Regan earned a PhD in Labor and Cultural History from SUNY Stonybrook and teaches history and philosophy at New York University. He has also worked in off-Broadway theatre and independent film in New York, and is the producer of a one-man show, A Paranoid’s Guide To History.

After graduating from Vassar College, Karen Thorsen worked as an editor for Simon & Schuster, a journalist for Life Magazine, and a foreign correspondent for Time Magazine. In 1989, she wrote, produced and directed the feature-length award-winning documentary, James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket, which was premiered by PBS/American Masters. Along with segments of a series for The Learning Channel, a three-part series for The History Channel, and One Small Candle, a documentary film history of the Pilgrims, Thorsen has also produced Joe Papp in Five Acts which is scheduled to appear on PBS in 2010. She is currently at work on a documentary of Thomas Paine: The Thomas Paine Project.

Organizer

Frances A. Chiu has a Ph.D. in English Literature from Oxford University and teaches 18th-and 19th-century history and literature for the Humanities and Social Sciences departments at The New School. She has published articles in Charles Scribner’s British Writers’ Series, Eighteenth-century Life, Notes and Queries and Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net and presented papers at the American and British Society for 18th-century Studies, the 18th-and 19th century British Women’s Writers, and De Bartolo conferences. She has also produced the first scholarly modern editions of Ann Radcliffe’s Gaston de Blondeville and J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s Rose and the Key for Valancourt Books in 2006 and 2007. Chiu is presently completing an edition of Ann Radcliffe’s Journey made in the Summer of 1794 for Broadview Press while writing a book on politics, national identity, and horror.

This colloquium has been sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities departments, as well as by Thomas Paine Friends, Inc.

For a complete listing of New School events: http://www.newschool..... For information or to join the mailing list: [masked]; [masked].