Journalist

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Joyce Kryszak is an award-winning journalist, producer, and feature writer who has reported for NPR, the BBC, Voice of America, the Environment Report, the Buffalo News, and others. Her freelance work appears regularly in Down East Magazine. Joyce has received more than three-dozen Associated Press Awards, as well as an Edward R. Murrow Award. 

Joyce’s journalism regularly examines the environment, education, poverty, racial disparities, and culture. As an interviewer, she has spoken with hundreds of notable people, among them: Jane Goodall, Bob Woodward, Lilly Ledbetter, Salmon Rushdie, Alec Baldwin, and Marcel Marceau.

Talks

Reporting from the Front Line of a Singapore Classroom

An Inconsistent Truth: Finding Truth’s Through-line

What the Hell Does This Have to Do with Me? – Putting a Human Face on the Story

Associate Professor of East Asian Studies, Colby College

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Dr. Hong Zhang teaches both Chinese language and Chinese culture courses. Her research interests include changing family life and marriage patterns, gender and intergenerational relations, impact of one-child policy and new eldercare patterns, the development of civil society and NGOs and the politics of satire and humor in contemporary China. 

She has published book chapters and top-tier peer-review articles in Signs, China Quarterly, China Journal, Journal of Contemporary China, Asia Anthropology and Journal of Long Term Home Health Care.

Talks

China’s One-Child policy

Globalization

Women’s Rights and Women’s Legal-Aid NGOs in China

Politics of Satire in Authoritarian China

Professor in Philosophy, Social Theory, and Peace Studies, College of the Atlantic

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Gray Cox is a professor of political economics, history and peace studies at College of the Atlantic where his teaching includes courses designed to prepare students to collaborate effectively in interdisciplinary projects dealing with human ecological problems in a wide variety of complex contexts and cross-cultural settings.

Cox has collaborated in a variety of projects in community organizing, peace work, election observation and sustainable development. His most recent research has focused on developing conflict resolution approaches to the problems of ethics and addressing the national security and environmental threats posed by potential breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence. 

Talks

​​Nonviolent Alternatives in National Struggles and International Relations 

Since their initial use in South Africa and India in the early 20th Century, nonviolent methods of struggle and social change have developed in a variety of forms and have brought about dramatic transformations in Eastern Europe, Latin America, the United States, the Middle East and elsewhere.

What does current research suggest are the strengths and limitations of such methods compared with violent methods of social change and military methods of settling international disputes — and what roles may they play in the future?

Artificial Intelligence: Making ‘Smart Systems’ Wiser

How can our local and global systems of defense, health, food, education, etc. become resilient, secure, life enhancing and wiser amidst the rush to ever “smarter” and relentless pursuit of limited goals like military dominance, profit, or high test scores?

Threats to National Security Posed by Artificial Intelligence and Robotics 

Entrepreneur Elon Musk has said: “I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that." Scientist Stephen Hawking has noted: “success in creating AI could be the biggest event in human history,” but cautioned that “it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks,” warning before long this technology may be “outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand”. He commented further, with others, in a HuffPost column that: “If a superior alien civilization sent us a text message saying, “We’ll arrive in a few decades,” would we just reply, “OK, call us when you get here — we’ll leave the lights on”? Probably not — but this is more or less what is happening with AI. Although we are facing potentially the best or worst thing ever to happen to humanity, little serious research is devoted to these issues outside small non-profit institutes . . . “What are the range of security issues at stake and how can they best be addressed?

Professor of Religion and Philosophy, Maine College of Art

Dana Sawyer is the author of two critically acclaimed spiritual biographies, of Aldous Huxley (2002) and Huston Smith (2014), and has written on a wide range of topics related to consciousness expansion, Tibetan Buddhism, Hindu mysticism, psychedelic experience, and alternative philosophies. 

Besides teaching at the academic level, Prof. Sawyer is a popular speaker on the lecture circuit, having taught workshops at the Esalen Institute, the Kripalu Institute, and other centers of psychological, spiritual and philosophical inquiry. 

Talks

An Introduction to Hinduism

In this presentation, Prof. Sawyer covers the basics of Hindu theology and practice, outlining the place of temple worship, pilgrimage, meditation and home-centered offerings in the life of the everyday Hindu.  Slides of India and Hindu life will also be shown. 

An Introduction to Buddhism

Buddhism is a World Religion that has influenced culture and practice in dozens of countries. What are the major sects of Buddhism? What are their views and practices? How did Buddhism migrate from India to China, Japan, Thailand and other countries? These and other topics will be covered in this presentation. 

Assistant Professor of Arts and Sciences, Maine Maritime Academy

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Dr. Kingsbury joined the faculty of the Maine Maritime Academy 2018. His research interests include Asian Studies (especially Japan, contemporary northern Vietnam, and Mongolia), food and agriculture, wine and tea production, rural places, interpreting history from landscapes, locations of primary resource extraction, and geospatial technologies (including sUAVs or drones).

He serves as a research advisor for the Agriculture and Forestry Research & Development Center for Mountainous Regions in Vietnam, and has been involved in agricultural and/or development research in Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, Myanmar, Mongolia, Germany, Romania, Canada, and the United States. He has a PhD in geography from the University of Hawaii and was a U.S. Fulbright Scholar in Vietnam in 2021-2022.

Talks

Vietnam Today

Our perception of Vietnam remains linked to the Vietnam War of the 1960s and 70s. If we look to Hollywood, we continue to see storylines occurring in war-era Vietnam. This has furthered a progression of negative stereotypes and left many with antiquated views of a country undergoing considerable economic development and social change.

This presentation explores life in contemporary Vietnam, and focuses in particular on the northern part of the country. In so doing, it situates both former President Obama and President Trump’s policies on Vietnam in line with renewed American political, economic, and cultural interests in the country and region. 

What Can Rural America Learn from Rural Japan?

The United States and Japan are highly industrialized countries, yet both often struggle to maintain economically and socially viable rural communities. This presentation explores ‘rurality’ from the Japanese perspective. It takes a look at the Japanese countryside, from its stereotypical and terraced landscapes of rice paddies to its thatched villages in isolated mountain hamlets.

Within this setting, we will explore other realities, including Japan’s aging population and abandoned communities. With special attention paid to the people involved in Japanese agriculture, forestry, and coastal fisheries, we will try to see what we can learn from rural Japan to improve rural America. 

Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Maine

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Dr. Robert W. Glover is an Associate Professor of Honors and Political Science, a joint appointment in the Honors College and the Department of Political Science at the University of Maine. His research focuses generally on democratic theory, political engagement, and the politics of immigration.

He is a 2014 recipient of the Donald Harward Faculty Award for Service-Learning Excellence. In Glover has also been recognized by the Maine State Senate for his innovative work engaging undergraduates in policy research with local “community partners” such as municipal governments and non-profit organizations. 

Talks

A New Path: Inside Portugal’s Radical Drug Decriminalization

In the 1990s, Portugal was in the throes of a drug crisis, with a stunning percentage of their population addicted to heroin. In 2001, the country responded in a radically unorthodox way, decriminalizing drug possession for personal use and shifting resources towards public health and harm reduction.

This talk will examine what led the Portuguese to adopt such a radical shift in drug policy, how the Portuguese approach is working, and what lessons we can learn in the United States and Maine. 

Immigration in the 21st Century: How Immigration is Changing the American and the Global Political Landscape 

 Since 1990, the number of migrants living in the developed world has grown by over 65%. Yet these migrants do not exist in a social and political vacuum. They significantly shape the political landscape of the societies in which they live and, in many instances, can continue to impact the societies in which they were born.

This talk examines this dynamic in three respects: 1) the changing political demographics of the United States, 2) the role that diaspora and immigrants play in sustaining developing economies globally, and 3) the role that migrants can play in shaping the political trajectories of their home countries from abroad.