Women's Project Presents
HOW THE WORLD BEGAN by Catherine Trieschmann
directed by Daniella Topol
SPECIAL POST SHOW DISCUSSIONS
Thursday, January 12th With special guest Dr. Anne Klaeysen Dr. Anne Klaeysen is a clergy leader at the New York Society for Ethical Culture and religious life adviser for the Ethical Humanist Chaplaincy at Columbia University and Barnard College. A graduate of the Humanist Institute, she also co-mentored a class and is now co-Dean of the institute. Dr. Klaeysen was Leader of the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island from 2002 to 2008, and served as the first Humanist Chaplain at Adelphi University in Garden City, NY. She holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from Hebrew Union College, Master's degrees in Business Administration from New York University and in German from the State University of New York at Albany, and studied at the University of Wuerzburg in Germany. Dr. Klaeysen lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with her husband Glenn Newman, President of both the New York City Tax Commission and Tax Appeals Tribunal. They were married at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, where they became members and served on the Board of Trustees. Their children Andrew and Emily graduated from the Children's Sunday Assembly program at the Brooklyn Society and, now all grown up, consider themselves humanists.
Thursday, January 19th With special guests Dr. Robert Berson, Matthew LaClair, and Dr. Holly Moore
Dr. Robert J. Berson is the Leader of the Ethical Society of Northern Westchester and a clinical psychologist. Born in the Bronx, he graduated from the Ethical Culture Schools (Fieldston) and from Harverford College and earned doctoral degrees from both Teachers College and the City University of New York. He has taught, worked in college counseling services, and maintains a private practice in Manhattan.
Matthew LaClair is a public speaker, host of “Equal Time for Freethought” on WBAI 99.5FM and a senior attending Eugene Lang College in the New School. He became known as a student activist after challenging his public high school U.S. history teacher for proselytizing during class. He has appeared in numerous media outlets, such as the New York Times, National Public Radio, Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN, BBC radio and has written pieces including an Op-Ed for the Los Angeles Times. He is also the subject of a new documentary film by Vic Losick called “In God We Teach”, which centers around the controversy that emerged in his hometown of Kearny, NJ.
Dr. Holly Moore is a neuroscientist at Columbia University and The New York State Psychiatric institute whose research focuses on the disruption of neural circuitry in schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. Her perspective is the brain evolved to solve problems that our environments throw at us, and that many animals face the same basic problems as humans do in the course of survival, and engage similar neural circuits in solving these problems. Holly grew up in rural Ohio and has born-again and conservative Christians in her family who receive Holly’s evolutionary perspectives with varying levels of skepticism. It makes for a challenging but rich conversation about the forces governing human behavior.
Thursday, January 26th With special guests David Berreby and Christiana Z. Peppard
David Berreby is the author of "Us and Them: The Science of Identity.” He has written about human behavior and other science topics for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Slate, Smithsonian, The New Republic, Nature, Discover, Vogue and many other publications. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Paris, a Science Writing Fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory, a resident at Yaddo, and in 2006 was awarded the Erving Goffman Award for Outstanding Scholarship for the first edition of "Us and Them." David can be found on Twitter at @davidberreby and reached by email at david@davidberreby.com.
Christiana Z. Peppard is Assistant Professor of Theology & Science in the Department of Theology at Fordham University, Lincoln Center campus. Her current research and book projects focus on valuing fresh water in an era of economic globalization; the value of water and the Catholic imagination; and points of divergence and convergence in the concept of nature through scientific, theological, environmental, and ethical lenses. Dr. Peppard received her Ph.D. from Yale University (2011, with distinction), an M.A.R. in Ethics from Yale Divinity School (2005), and a B.A. in Human Biology from Stanford University (2001). Her dissertation, “Valuing Water,” explores the ascription of value to fresh water in an era of economic globalization and charts a fresh water ethic from resources in moral anthropology and Catholic social teaching. With Andrea Vicini, S.J., she is co-editor of a volume in preparation, entitled Just Sustainability: Technology, Ecology, and Resource Extraction (under contract with Orbis Books). Dr. Peppard serves as a lay member of the Board of Directors of America magazine.
Matthew LaClair is a public speaker, host of “Equal Time for Freethought” on WBAI 99.5FM and a senior attending Eugene Lang College in the New School. He became known as a student activist after challenging his public high school U.S. history teacher for proselytizing during class. He has appeared in numerous media outlets, such as the New York Times, National Public Radio, Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN, BBC radio and has written pieces including an Op-Ed for the Los Angeles Times. He is also the subject of a new documentary film by Vic Losick called “In God We Teach”, which centers around the controversy that emerged in his hometown of Kearny, NJ.
Dr. Holly Moore is a neuroscientist at Columbia University and The New York State Psychiatric institute whose research focuses on the disruption of neural circuitry in schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. Her perspective is the brain evolved to solve problems that our environments throw at us, and that many animals face the same basic problems as humans do in the course of survival, and engage similar neural circuits in solving these problems. Holly grew up in rural Ohio and has born-again and conservative Christians in her family who receive Holly’s evolutionary perspectives with varying levels of skepticism. It makes for a challenging but rich conversation about the forces governing human behavior. 
David Berreby is the author of "Us and Them: The Science of Identity.” He has written about human behavior and other science topics for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Slate, Smithsonian, The New Republic, Nature, Discover, Vogue and many other publications. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Paris, a Science Writing Fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory, a resident at Yaddo, and in 2006 was awarded the Erving Goffman Award for Outstanding Scholarship for the first edition of "Us and Them." David can be found on Twitter at @davidberreby and reached by email at david@davidberreby.com.
Christiana Z. Peppard is Assistant Professor of Theology & Science in the Department of Theology at Fordham University, Lincoln Center campus. Her current research and book projects focus on valuing fresh water in an era of economic globalization; the value of water and the Catholic imagination; and points of divergence and convergence in the concept of nature through scientific, theological, environmental, and ethical lenses. Dr. Peppard received her Ph.D. from Yale University (2011, with distinction), an M.A.R. in Ethics from Yale Divinity School (2005), and a B.A. in Human Biology from Stanford University (2001). Her dissertation, “Valuing Water,” explores the ascription of value to fresh water in an era of economic globalization and charts a fresh water ethic from resources in moral anthropology and Catholic social teaching. With Andrea Vicini, S.J., she is co-editor of a volume in preparation, entitled Just Sustainability: Technology, Ecology, and Resource Extraction (under contract with Orbis Books). Dr. Peppard serves as a lay member of the Board of Directors of America magazine. 
