Peace prevailed on campus the week it ended in Iraq, but a close look revealed reactions that covered the spectrum — from student and faculty participation in a community war protest to remarks at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in support of the U.S.-led attack by national policy analyst Dinesh D’Souza.

Related stories:

March 22: A letter from President Hansen to the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College community

March 21: Advisory from the Chaplain’s Office

March 21: Off-Campus Study update

March 21: ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Alumni on the War

According to one estimate, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ people constituted two-thirds of the roughly 140 participants in Thursday’s antiwar demonstration at the Longley Bridge, connecting downtown Auburn and Lewiston. This latest in a series of community protests at the bridge was also the most contentious. Passing drivers shouted insults at the group and 17 demonstrators were arrested for failing to disperse and obstructing a public way. Eight ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students were among those arrested. (The Lewiston Sun Journal has more about the protest.)

Five ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students were also arrested Wednesday, along with 16 other protesters during an anti-war rally in Portland. All of the arrested students in both cities had been released by Thursday night.

Also Thursday evening, the  Chapel was open as a place of emotional and spiritual refuge, with music, candlelight, readings and periods of silence among the comforts. The session extended a daylong welcome to those concerned, angered or seeking support on the first day of war.

A different kind of gathering took place during the day Thursday at Frye Street Union, which was opened as a place for reflection, thought, discussion and action. (“All opinions are encouraged and will be respected,” an e-mail announcement promised.) Students gathered throughout the day to watch war coverage on television and prepare for the evening protest walk.

The bridge demonstration was the latest in a six-month series of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ student and faculty responses to an Iraq invasion. Those events have included teach-ins (one as recently as March 17), the Feb. 10 Representative Assembly resolution condemning a pre-emptive attack, and a March 5 youth demonstration in Lewiston’s Kennedy Park that included about 100 students and faculty.

In addition, such ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ faculty members as James Richter, associate professor of political science, and psychology Professor Richard Wagner have offered expert commentary on issues around the war to news media including Maine Public Radio and The Associated Press.

A renowned conservative commentator supported the Bush administration’s actions toward Iraq during a visit to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ this week. , a Hoover Institute Fellow, domestic policy analyst in the Reagan White House and author of What’s So Great About America (Regnery Publishing), advanced the case for war Wednesday evening, literally minutes before the war’s official start. Before an SRO audience at the Mays Center, D’Souza suggested that intervention in another country’s internal affairs is justified if it brings about a greater good for the people of that country and the world as a whole.

In addition, “9/11 does show the logic of pre-emption,” D’Souza said. “If we had known three months in advance of 9/11, wouldn’t we have done something?”

In essence, the theme common to both sides of the debate on both sides was action. Inside the Frye Street Union on the war’s first day, the students making signs for the evening rally included Gene Stewart ’05, of Harrington, Maine, who had been jailed in Portland.
One of the protestors who had blocked a Portland intersection by lying in the street, some cocooned in body bags, he was released on bail the evening of the arrest. The demonstration had targeted the office of U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, which was locked and staffed by security guards during the protest. Stewart had no regrets.

“It was totally worth it,” he said. “I was where I wanted to be just before war was declared.”

“In a democracy we all bear responsibility for the war,” Stewart added. Considering the sacrifices others will make because of the war, he said, spending four hours in jail is “the least I could do.”

Hoover Institute Fellow and best-selling author Dinesh D’Souza, known for his challenges to the politically liberal academic establishment, speaks at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 19, in the Benjamin Mays Center, 95 Russell St.

A book signing and reception will follow. The event is free and open to the public.

has argued that, more than any other country, America allows people the chance to “write the script to their own lives.” Born and raised outside Bombay, India, as an American immigrant D’Souza realizes the advantages of individual freedom in U.S. culture. This ideal is explicitly expressed in his book What’s So Great About America (Regnery Publishing, 2002), which examines various critiques of America, including the “Islamic critique” and the “multicultural critique.” It makes the case for an intelligent patriotism, based on an understanding of what makes America unique in the world.

Ben Stein, host of television’s Win Ben Stein’s Money, described the book as “convincing, eye-opening and ultimately uplifting. Buy it, and consider yourself lucky.”

“I’m so excited about the opportunity to host Dinesh D’Souza at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½,” said first-year student Oliver Wolf of Pittsburgh, Pa., vice president of the and a major organizer of the event.

“This event is very much an effort for ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ to respect a different form of diversity — diversity of political thought,” says Wolf. “I see no better person in this effort for ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ than D’Souza, who is such a leading and articulate conservative speaker on campuses across the country.” As a Young America’s Foundation speaker, D’Souza has spoken at top universities and colleges across the country including Chicago, Colby, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke and Stanford.

D’Souza graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College in 1983 and served as senior domestic policy analyst at the White House during the Reagan Administration, from 1987 to 1988. His articles on culture and politics have appeared in Vanity Fair, Forbes, Harper’s, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post and The New York Times. He has appeared on such television programs as This Week With David Brinkley, Nightline, Crossfire, Firing Line, Good Morning America and Politically Incorrect.

D’Souza wrote The New York Times best seller Illiberal Education (1991), described by The Wall Street Journal as “a brisk, hard-hitting journalistic tour through the political land mines embedded these days in higher education.” He is also the author of The End of Racism (1995), Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader (1997), The Virtue of Prosperity: Finding Values in an Age of Techno Affluence (2000) and Letters to a Young Conservative (2002).

Introducing D’Souza at the lecture will be professor emeritus of political science Douglas Hodgkin. A Lewiston native, Hodgkin is active in the Republican Party and has held party positions at the local, regional and national levels. A member of the Lewiston, Androscoggin and 2nd District Republican committees, Hodgkin has chaired the Lewiston Caucus and served on the 2002 Maine state platform committee.

D’Souza’s ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ appearance is sponsored by the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Republicans and co-sponsored by the Muskie Lecture Series and the offices of the president and the deans of students and faculty. Co-sponsors include the departments of political science, history, anthropology, sociology and the following organizations: Young America’s Foundation, the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Representative Assembly, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Libertarians and the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Economics Society.

With the end of the winter semester coming into view, public events in the arts and humanities reach their peak in late February and March. To assist with your story planning,listed are the following highlights from the arts and humanities calendar through the end of March. Detailed press releases will precede most events.

Perhaps the most prominent event in the humanities in the weeks to come will begin March 14: Toward Harmony: Understanding a New Diversity in Lewiston-Auburn, a two-day conference involving faculty, civic leaders and members of the local Somali community.

Other events sure to interest your readers include speaking appearances by conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza and Roe v. Wade attorney Sarah Weddington; concerts by the Brentano String Quartet with guest Yuri Funihashi, a Maine pianist; a reading by poet Lorna Goodison; and the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ production of Eric Bogosian’s hard-hitting play subUrbia.

Here’s a summary of events by genre:

Humanities: Sponsored by the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Department of Philosophy and Religion, in collaboration with several local organizations and the Maine Humanities Council, the Toward Diversity conference is major news. Speakers include ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ President Elaine Tuttle Hansen, Stephen Wessler of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, and Heather Lindkvist, an ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ anthropologist who has worked with the local Somali community for more than a year. Performances end each day of discussions.

Also on the humanities calendar: the reading by noted Jamaican poet Lorna Goodison (March 6); a speaking appearance by Sarah Weddington, the attorney who successfully argued the Roe v. Wade case 30 years ago (March 12); the lecture What’s So Great About America by Dinesh D’Souza, the best-selling author and conservative commentator (March 19); and a discussion of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein by Marshall Brown, a scholar of gothic literature from the University of Washington (also March 19).

Music: A profile of pianist Frank Glazer, artist in residence at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, is timely, as this most enduring of Maine musicians performs twice in coming weeks. On Feb. 16 he devotes a program to composer Carol Maria von Weber. His March 14 program features work by Bach, Beethoven, Ravel and Chopin.

Another Maine pianist comes to Olin Arts Center Concert Hall about a week earlier. On March 8, Yuri Funahashi, adjunct professor at the University of Maine at Farmington and someone familiar to Maine audiences, is guest artist with the renowned Bretano String Quartet, resident quartet at Princeton University. This final entry in the 2002-2003 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Concert Series features music by Bach, Webern, Shostakovich and Dvorak.

Finally in music, it’s the season for a variety of student concerts. In addition to individual performances, the schedule includes the Choir’s rendition of Mozart’s Requiem, with orchestral accompaniment (March 21) and a joint performance, still being planned, by the college’s Indonesian-style gamelan ensemble and orchestra (March 28).

Visual Arts: Continuing through March are exhibits by premiere Maine abstractionist William Manning (Museum of Art) and Harvard photographer Kris Snibbe, showing images of Cambodian, Chinese, and Tibetan Buddhists in the United States (Chapel).

Meanwhile, the popular annual exhibition by Lewiston Middle School students opens March 6 and continues through the month. On that same day, Gary Green, assistant professor of art at the University of Southern Maine, comes to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ to discuss the photographs in his Landscape Diaries series.

The following evening, one of the nation’s foremost experts on the connections between African and New World arts — visual and performing — speaks at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. The topic of the lecture by Robert Farris Thompson, art history professor and master of Yale’s Timothy Dwight College, has yet to be confirmed.

Stage: In an annual tradition, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students perform Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues on Valentine’s Day, with donations at the door to benefit local charities. Another seasonal tradition is the senior thesis performance project, and March 21-23 it’s Thomas Kyd’s Elizabethan tragedy The Spanish Tragedy, produced by Dominick Pangallo, of Salem, Mass.

Meanwhile, March 7-16, the theater department offers six performances of subUrbia, Eric Bogosian’s semi-autobiographical exploration of alienated youth, set in a strip mall parking lot.

Finally, too many good dances to perform in one evening have led the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Modern Dance Company to offer two different programs in its annual spring concert, one of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ best-attended events. Directed by Marcy Plavin, who has run the dance program since the late 1960s (another good profile subject), each program is performed twice, March 20-23.

This release represents only the highlights of a jam-packed month. Full releases will detail many of these events, and others, in the coming weeks. For more information, interview availabilities and art, please contact Staff Writer Doug Hubley at telephone 207-786-6329 or e-mail.