“Psychology and the New Heroism”

Beyond the Classroom Living & Learning Program

Critical Conversations on Civic Issues: “People Power” Series

presents the award-winning documentary:

“Psychology and the New Heroism”

  Monday, May 12, 2014, 7:00-9:00 pm

1102 South Campus Commons, Building 1

https://www.facebook.com/events/387367438074613/

This series on “People Power: Activism for Social Change” is sponsored by

Beyond the Classroom Living & Learning Program, Office of Undergraduate Studies,

at the University of Maryland, College Park

WWW.BeyondTheClassroom.umd.edu

Philip Zimbardo is professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University and creator of the renowned Stanford Prison Experiment. Daniel Ellsberg served in the Pentagon under Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and is best known as the whistleblower who released documents known as the Pentagon Papers to the public which detailed the secrets and lies that shaped three decades of American foreign policy in Vietnam. These two icons of progressive thought in America met for the first time to discuss a salient question for our times: Why are some people willing to take courageous nonviolent action in defense of ethical principles, even at personal risk to themselves? This film captures their conversation and calls for a new era of truth-telling by citizens privy to crucial and often classified information that the public deserves to know. They call for a new ethic of accountability by those leaders who govern the United States, its judiciary and its military. They challenge ordinary people to take calculated risks in the service of their conscience and their fellow citizens. This defines the New Heroism.

• "One of the finest films I've seen...about a man who in 1971 changes his own life and took on the U.S. government at the ultimate cost to his career." -- Oliver Stone, filmmaker.

• “Daniel Ellsberg, once again, speaks truth to power, this time in dialogue with Philip Zimbardo. Their conversation recasts citizen engagement in a new light, and their call for a new ethic of accountability is especially timely as a new generation of whistleblowers attempts to redress what they see as a lack of transparency and a compromised privacy in the post-9/11 world." – Professor Carl Maida, University of California - Los Angeles.