The Port Huron Statement at 50

University of California-Santa BarbaraFebruary 2-3, 2012
We invite you to attend a conference which brings together historians, social theorists, contemporary student activists, and Port Huron veterans to discuss the origins, historical impact, and contemporary relevance of the New Left’s founding manifesto. (conference website)

Keynote speeches by: Michael Kazin and Tom Hayden
and:
Paul Booth
Charles McDew
Joshua Freeman
Lisa McGirr
Grace Hale
James Miller
Gianpaolo Baiocchi
Alice O’Connor
Richard Flacks
Charles Payne
Daniel Geary
Bob Ross
Nelson Lichtenstein
Vivian Rothstein
Ben Manski
Michael Vester
Jane Mansbridge
Howard Winant
Steve Max
Eric Olin Wright

3:00 p.m. CONFERENCE WELCOME
Richard Flacks, Professor of Sociology emeritus, UCSB , “What Happened at Port Huron”
Harrison Weber, President, UCSB Associated Students,”Why students should care about Port Huron”

3:30 p.m. KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Tom Hayden, principal drafter of the Port Huron Statement

4:45 p.m. PORT HURON AS AN EPISODE IN OUR LIVES: PARTICIPANTS REFLECT ON LEGACIES AND LESSONS
Chair: Richard Flacks

Chuck McDew, founding chair of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Bob Ross, professor of sociology , Clark University
Paul Booth, Vice President of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers
Michael Vester, Professor of Political Science, emeritus, University of Hanover, Germany
Maria Varela, pioneering Latino organizer (not confirmed)

7:00 p.m. DINNER AT THE FACULTY CLUB
SPEAKER: Michael Kazin . Professor of History, Georgetown University; Co-Editor of Dissent,
“Two Cheers for Utopia: Port Huron and the Fate of the Not-so-New Left”

Friday February 3 at Miller McCune Conference Room, Humanities and Social Science Building

9:30 a.m. THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Chair, Joshua Freeman, Department of History, City University of New York.

Lisa McGirr, Professor of History, Harvard University, “The Worldwide New Left in the Early 1960s.”
Dan Geary, Senior Lecturer in History, Trinity College, Dublin, “How the New Left Transformed American Liberalism”
Grace Hale, Professor of History and American Studies, University of Virginia, “The Romance of Rebellion”
Nelson Lichtenstein, MacArthur Foundation Chair in History, UCSB, “Why were the Students for a Democratic Society
Meeting at a United Auto Workers Summer Camp?”

12:00-1:00 p.m. LUNCH

1:30 p.m. THE FATE OF PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY
Chair: Howard Winant, Professor of Sociology, UCSB

James Miller, Professor of Politics and Liberal Studies, New School for Social Research, “Is Democracy Still in the Streets?”
Erik Olin Wright, Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, “Envisioning Real Utopias”
Jane Mansbridge, Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, “Beyond Adversary Democracy.”
Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Associate Professor of International Studies, Brown University, “Participatory Democracy in Brazil’

3:30 p.m. GENERATIONS OF ORGANIZERS: VETERAN ORGANIZERS IN DIALOG WITH A NEW GENERATION
Chair: Alice O’Connor, Department of History, UCSB.

Steve Max, Midwest Academy
Ben Manski, Madison Wisconsin, Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution
Charles Payne, Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor, School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago
Vivian Rothstein, Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy

PANELISTS WILL LEAD BREAKOUT CIRCLES WITH CURRENT STUDENTS
6:00 p.m. CLOSING RECEPTION

Sponsored by Dissent, The Nation and the
UCSB Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy

hm 1/16/12