Mazzocco Lecture

Mazzocco Lecture: The Black Struggle for Freedom, Feb. 4

February 1, 2019

William Chafe, emeritus professor of history at Duke University, presents this year’s Mazzocco Lecture on Distributive Justice on Monday, February 4, at 7:15 p.m., in Franz Hall room 120. In his talk, “The Black Struggle for Freedom: What Black Protest Has Achieved, Yet How Much Remains to Be Done,” Chafe will shine a light on how racism remains a powerful force in American society today, even though a great many Americans refuse to admit it.

Co-sponsored by the political science department and the Garaventa Center. For ADA accommodations or more information: garaventa@up.edu or x7702.

Annual Mazzocco Lecture in Distributive Justice: Robert S. Chang, March 8

March 2, 2018

The 2018 Mazzocco Lecture in Distributive Justice will take place on Thursday, March 8, at 5 p.m., in Franz Hall room 120. This year’s speaker will be Robert S. Chang, professor of law & executive director of the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at Seattle University School of Law. His lecture is titled “Law’s Distributive Force.”

Chang won the 2018 M. Shanara Gilbert Human Rights Award from the Society of American Law Teachers, and is the author of Disoriented: Asian Americans, Law and the Nation-State (1999) and co-editor of an original collection of articles, Minority Relations: Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation (with Greg Robinson 2017). He served as co-counsel representing high school students in Tucson who challenged the constitutionality of an Arizona statute that resulted in the termination of the Mexican American Studies Program in the Tucson Unified School District. The Korematsu Center has been active filing amicus briefs in the Muslim travel ban cases and the rescission of DACA cases. Students from his Civil Rights Clinic have assisted on these and other cases.

The Mazzocoo Lecture is an annual lecture made possible by a gift to the University to honor the memory William James Mazzocco ’37, and is presented by the political science department. This year, additional funding has been provided by the John Templeton Foundation though a grant from the Institute of Humane Studies.

For ADA accommodations or event information contact Bill Curtis, political science, at curtis@up.edu.

Annual Mazzocco Lecture in Distributive Justice, Feb. 23: David Schmidtz

February 17, 2017

Philosopher David Schmidtz will deliver “Markets in Education,” as the 2017 Mazzocco Lecture in Distributive Justice, on Thursday, February 23, at 5 p.m., in Shiley Hall 301. Schmidtz is Kendrick Professor of Philosophy and Eller Chair of Service-Dominant Logic at the University of Arizona, ranked as the top graduate program in the world in political philosophy. He is editor of Social Philosophy & Policy and is the Freedom Center’s founding director. He is the author of dozens of articles and several books, including: Rational Choice and Moral Agency, The Elements of Justice, and Environmental Ethics: What Really Matters, and What Really Works (with Elizabeth Willott).

For more information contact Bill Curtis, political science, at curtisw@up.edu.

William J. Mazzocco Lecture in Distributive Justice, Feb. 11

February 5, 2016

University of Notre Dame political science professor Christina Wolbrecht will present the 2016 William J. Mazzocco Lecture in Distributive Justice on Thursday, Feb. 11, at 6:30 p.m., in Shiley Hall Room 301. Her talk is free and open to all.

Wolbrecht is associate professor and director of the Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author of The Politics of Women’s Rights: Parties, Positions, and Change, which received the 2001 Leon D. Epstein Outstanding Book Award from the Political Organizations and Parties Section of the APSA, and co-editor (with Rodney E. Hero) of The Politics of Democratic Inclusion and (with Karen Beckwith and Lisa Baldez) of Political Women and American Democracy.

The William J. Mazzocco Lecture in Distributive Justice was established in 2006 to honor 1937 UP alumnus Bill Mazzocco, who had a long, distinguished career in military intelligence with various World War II assignments at diplomatic posts, and made significant contributions to the Marshall Plan. He credited his years at UP with giving him a solid moral foundation that guided his steadfast belief in the principles of equitable and fair distribution of wealth.

For more information or ADA accommodations contact the political science department at 7274 or polisci@up.edu.

2015 Mazzocco Lecture, Feb. 2

February 2, 2015

Hassan Abbas will present the 2015 William J. Mazzocco Lecture in Distributive Justice on Monday, February 2, at 7 p.m., in Mago Hunt Center Theater. His talk, titled “The Idea of Justice in Islam: Traditional & Contemporary Debates within Islamic Communities,” is free and open to all.

Abbas is professor and chair of the Department of Regional and Analytical Studies at National Defense University’s College of International Security Affairs in Washington, DC. He is also a senior adviser at the Asia Society. Previously, he served as the distinguished Quaid i Azam chair professor at Columbia University and a senior adviser at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. His latest book, The Taliban Revival (Yale University Press, June 2014), chronicles the Taliban’s survival and resurgence after 2001, through firsthand research and interviews in the area.

The William J. Mazzocco Lecture in Distributive Justice was established at the University in 2006 to honor 1937 graduate Bill Mazzocco, who had a long, distinguished career in military intelligence with various World War II assignments at diplomatic posts, and made significant contributions to the Marshall Plan. He credited his years at UP with giving him a solid moral foundation that guided his steadfast belief in the principles of equitable and fair distribution of wealth.

For more information contact political science at 7274 or polisci@up.edu.

2013 Mazzocco Lecture

February 18, 2013

The annual William James Mazzocco Lecture in Distributive Justice will take place on Wednesday, February 20, at 7:30 p.m., in Buckley Center room 163. Debra Satz (pictured left), the Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society at Stanford University, will present “Should Everything Be For Sale?” The lecture is free and open to all. Satz will explore the controversies around diverse goods (human organs, votes, sex, credit derivatives, etc.) and whether they should be treated as marketable commodities. She will draw much of her argument from her 2010 book, Why Some Things Should Not Be For Sale: The Moral Limits of Markets. Other works by Satz include Toward A More Humanist Justice: The Political Philosophy of Susan Moller Okin (2009) and Occupy the Future (2013). Her areas of academic specialty include the place of equality in a just society and theories of rational choice, and she is currently leading a multi-year research project which aims to clarify plausible interpretations of equality of educational opportunity and their implications for public policy.

The William James Mazzocco Memorial Lecture in Distributive Justice was established in 2006; Mazzocco earned his economics degree on The Bluff in 1937. A lifelong world traveler, Mazzocco had a long, distinguished career which included military intelligence assignments during World War II, diplomatic posts in Paris, Rome, Rio de Janeiro, and Abidjan, and significant contributions to the Marshall Plan. He credited his years at the University of Portland with giving him a solid moral foundation that would guide his life and work for the remainder of his 89 years, most notably his steadfast belief in distributive justice—the principles of equitable and fair distribution of wealth.

For more information contact Gary Malecha, political science, at 7452 or malecha@up.edu.