DATE: Feb. 6-7, 2007

EVENT: The University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities and the Center for International and Comparative Studies will consider “The Poorest of the Poor” from the perspectives of philosophy, business, public health, public policy, population studies and higher education.

This is the second conference in the “Crossing the Diag: Humanities in Dialogue” series and is offered in conjunction with U-M’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts Citizenship Theme Year.

A panel entitled “Measurement Techniques and Poverty” will bring together U-M political science and other experts from across the nation. A team of panelists from U-M’s Ross School of Business and William Davidson Institute will present “Doing Business at the Base of the Pyramid: Poverty Alleviation and Business Innovation.”

Public health experts will offer a panel on “Health, Hope and Despair.” Daniel Herwitz, director of U-M’s Institute for the Humanities, will chair a discussion on “Poverty in the United States: Up and Down the Class Ladder,” while Sheldon Danziger, co-director of U-M’s National Poverty Center, will discuss “America’s Persisting Poverty Problem.”

U-M Provost Teresa Sullivan will discuss “The Hidden Poor: Middle Class Bankruptcy in the United States.” The last panel of the conference will address “The Place of the Poor in the Theory of Justice”and includes a philosophical exploration of theories of justice and poverty.

Two related photography exhibitions will be on display at the Institute for the Humanities: “Texas Death Row: Executions by Lethal Injection” and “Portraits of the Homeless.”

PLACE: Forum Hall, Palmer Commons, 100 Washtenaw Ave., Ann Arbor.
For a map, visit: http://www.umich.edu/~palmcomm/contacts/maps.html

SPONSORS: U-M Institute for the Humanities and the Center for International and Comparative Studies. The conference is underwritten by Richard A. and Susan Mayer.

CONTACT: For more information, contact (734) 936-3518 or email [email protected], or visit the Web at www.lsa.umich.edu/humin/

Complete schedule of eventsCitizenship theme