Guest Blog: Ideas

The world is visibly smaller while remaining more unequal, with less parity and greater inequity.  We communicate in megabytes and sound bites in one sequence of events.  These repeated patterns from the political, social, economic to the recreational arena are making learning a challenge or we can say they are challenging the methodologies and processes of learning as we know it.  It has become essential to be not just a student but an evolving student of the world, shaping plans, selecting approaches and creating adapted strategies to conform and progress in a dynamically evolving...

Now in early spring, cherry blossoms blooming in Wooster Square in New Haven, Connecticut transforms itself from the last vestiges of winter, but it was on one of those last cold and dreary days that I first visited Norfolk, CT, to stand by the grave of James Mars, one of the last slaves born and sold in Connecticut and a figure whom I had no knowledge of previously. Mars lived for ninety years from 1790 to 1880 and in his life saw unbelievable change take place. He also wrote a brief autobiography (that you can read here) that details his life in Connecticut, being separated from his family...

Historian and Scholar Michael Amico reflects on his experience at the recent Freedom's Journey event in Norfolk, Connecticut.

Standing in front of the grave of James Mars on March 30, 2011, I realized that writing history was partly a matter of the speed at which we look at the world and where we decide to rest our eyes. I arrived in Norfolk, Connecticut, for a site visit to Mars' grave after making a wrong turn and getting lost for an hour and a half. When I finally turned around, my first thought was of how much more time it had taken me to get to Norfolk than I had originally planned...

"Seeing the Light"
Zak Stone, SeeClickFix

Urban sustainability is often thought of in terms of large-scale, flashy projects, like rooftop gardens, green buildings, and solar panels. However, as conversations on SeeClickFix attest to, taking care of the nuts and bolts issues can have an enormous impact on sustainability as well as livability more generally. Consider the case of the Court Street Bridge.

Since SeeClickFix’s launch in 2008, there has been an outpouring of activism around the issue of the pitch-black Court Street Bridge that connects Wooster Square with Downtown (click here, here...

The International Festival of Arts & Ideas is filled with great Ideas panels (which are totally FREE). Helen Ibbitson Jessup, founder of Friends of Khmer Culture and specialist in the art and architecture of Southeast Asia and Cambodia, is a panelist in one of our upcoming events. We asked Helen to answer a few questions about her experience to pre-empt her participation in Ideas: Rebuilding Culture in Iraq & Cambodia: From Crisis to Recovery.

Q: How have the people of Cambodia reacted to American assistance in preserving Cambodian art and history?

A: The response has been extremely warm from...

Where else but the International Festival of Arts & Ideas could you find a sculpture of cows decorated with "Milagros" - copper images that symbolize prayers for health, a wall of Post-it notes encouraging you to share "secrets, promises, hopes and fears," Tibetan-inspired prayer flags, mother-child fitness classes and a healthy cooking demonstration? Community Interventions for Health, a new citywide effort to promote health and prevent disease in New Haven, brought together many of the cities' finest organizations to launch its program at the Festival during Village of Villages weekend....

Amy Butte
Co-Founder and CEO, TILE Financial

Today at TILE… Identity

Yesterday, I went to a large, global financial literacy summit in DC. It was attended by senior government officials, business people, and thought leaders. While it was inspirational to see so many people caring about financial education, the following thought kept coming to mind:
 
There is a lot of talk about financial literacy, but isn't it time we expand the conversation to include financial identity?
 
Financial literacy is about education and skill set. Obviously that is important. However, just like a traditional...

Lucille Bruce
Staff member at IRIS
Refugees in the '09 Festival This year, the Yale Summer Film Institute, International Festival of Arts & Ideas, and IRIS (Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services, a local non-profit), joined forces to produce The Future Will Be Possible: Documentary Films on Today's Refugees June 13-14 at the Whitney Humanities Center. As a staff member at IRIS, I'm working with Charlie Musser, Yale Film Studies professor and director of the Yale Summer Film Institute, and Festival staff on this series of powerful, thought-provoking films that tell a few modern-day refugee...