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spring 2013
You, the jury
clark alumni magazine
12
Todd Logan ’75 writes plays that he hopes will remain vivid for audience members after they leave the theater and get into their cars. That ride home, he explains, can be a magical time, when the emotions stirred by what they’ve just witnessed will spark discussions of the play’s themes, its performances, and the lingering questions about the characters’ fates beyond the script’s confines. Logan brought that magic to Clark University in September when he presented two performances of his play “Defamation” in Michelson Theater during Parents Weekend. The play centers on a court case involving an African-American woman from Chicago’s South Side accused by a white real estate developer from the suburbs of stealing his watch. She sues for defamation, and both sides square off in the courtroom. Once the trial is concluded, the judge hands the case to the audience, whose members are left to debate their own assumptions about race, class, and justice while faced with the additional burden of divining the truth in the he said-she said case. Logan led those discussions following the Clark performances. He knew the deliberations would be lively and thoughtful. “The format provides a powerful platform for dealing with hot-button issues that continue to divide our society today,” he said. “I want ‘Defamation’ to contribute to addressing difficult issues through civil discourse, which generates empathy and greater tolerance.”
Man of la hora Clark professors have written countless books over the years, but how many can say a book has been written about them? Graduate School of Geography Professor Richard Peet laid claim to that honor when “Richard Peet: Geography Against Neoliberalism” was published last year in Spain. Núria Benach, professor of geography at University of Barcelona, visited Clark University in the autumn of 2010 to interview Peet and gather content for the book, which is the third in the series “Espacios Críticos” (Icaria Editorial). The series highlights prominent scholars and aims to make geographical radical thought more available to a Spanish-speaking audience worldwide. “Richard Peet: Geography Against Neoliberalism” includes an anthology of texts written by Peet, as well as interviews, seven of his previously published essays translated into Spanish, and some of his new work on the global economic crisis. The book was launched in October with public lectures given by Peet in the Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona and at the Catalan Geographical Society. “When we radicals moved geography from studying crops and barn types to urban problems and development, it turned out that the available stock of geographic theories couldn’t explain very much,” writes Peet. In Spain, Peet lectured on austerity and class struggle. His timing couldn’t have been better. He recalls walking on La Rambla in Barcelona and encountering a massive demonstration against the austerity measures imposed by the European Union — “and it was the police who were demonstrating!”