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SPRING 2026
PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH FILMSCENE
Academy Award nominated and Emmy winning director Connie Field is a pioneering social documentary filmmaker. Before getting involved in film she worked as an organizer in many social and human rights organizations where she established her commitment to progressive social change which she has carried into her film career. Many of her films focus on hidden histories, stories that had not been told before which should be an important part of our collective memories. Her work has been broadcast in over 30 countries including Japan, Brazil, South Africa, Britain, Australia, Denmark, Germany, France, Spain, England, and in the US. She is a recipient of the John Grierson Award as most outstanding social documentarian, and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Democracy Noir provides a sweeping account of one of the most consequential regimes of this century. It paints an incisive portrait of how Viktor Orbán used a free and democratic election to install authoritarian rule in Hungary, enjoying widespread approval from Hungarian nationalists as well as global conservatives inclined to his illiberal views. He changed the constitution, took over the courts, dismantled the rule of law, and took over the media. Revered by Donald Trump and the Heritage Foundation, Orban's influence helped shape Project 2025 and the current policies of the Republican Party. The film is a timely lesson on how the rise of autocratic politicians around the world, and an increasingly emboldened far right politic, pose dire consequences for us all.
Democracy Noir:
A Chilling Expose of Far-Right Authoritarianism
in Hungary... and America
SUNDAY, MARCH 8, 2026
12 pM - 2:30 PM
FILMSCENE AT THE CHAUNCEY
Hosted by ICFRC Executive Director Peter Gerlach
PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE IOWA CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY AND UI DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
Renewed attention to Greenland and its strategic importance has sparked debate about U.S. national security, America’s relationships with its allies, and the future of cooperation within NATO. Join us for a timely community conversation with former U.S. Ambassador Ron McMullen, examining U.S.–Danish relations, America’s strategic interests in Greenland, his view of the future of the transatlantic alliance, and what these developments mean for NATO and global stability. At a moment when international relationships are being tested and questions abound, this conversation offers an opportunity for insight, context, and dialogue.
Ron McMullen is the University of Iowa’s Ambassador in Residence and teaches a variety of courses on comparative politics, diplomacy, and international politics. He is a former career diplomat with over 30 years of experience as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, including serving as ambassador to the State of Eritrea. He has lived, worked, or traveled in 105 countries. In Burma he worked closely with Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and pro-democracy groups. While posted in Fiji he helped prevent civil conflict after an armed takeover of parliament. He was shot at during a riot in Sri Lanka and helped train mongooses to detect heroin. He survived a voodoo curse in the Dominican Republic and took Hillary Clinton on a tour of South Africa’s Robben Island with Nelson Mandela.
Between foreign assignments, Ron served for three years as Visiting Professor at the Military Academy at West Point, where he taught international relations and comparative politics. He was Diplomat-In-Residence at the University of Texas at Austin 2010-2012. He has authored many scholarly works, is a three-time recipient of the State Department’s Superior Honor Award, and holds the U.S. Army’s Outstanding Civilian Service Medal.
A native of Northwood, Iowa, he earned his doctorate in political science from the University of Iowa.
Greenland and the Future of the Trans-Atlantic Alliance
TUESDAY, MARCH 31, 2026
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
IOWA CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY
ALSO STREAMING ONLINE: CLICK HERE FOR STREAMING LINK
Hosted by ICFRC Board Member Thais Winkleblack
PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE IOWA CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY AND UI SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION
Journalism remains essential to holding power accountable and repelling autocratic trends. At a time of global democratic erosion, journalism confronts multiple challenges — economic precarity, political pressures, lack of trust, precarious work conditions, and a dwindling ability to command public attention amid (dis)information abundance. But democracies do not have an alternative institution to do what journalism does on any given day, despite its shortcomings and limitations. The fact that autocrats fear and persecute journalism is a telling sign that journalism is still relevant to scrutinize power, bring public awareness to important matters, and spark actions by other democratic institutions. In this talk, Prof. Waisbord will interrogate the global role of journalism as authoritarianism and populism gain ground and civil society faces escalating crises.
Silvio Waisbord is a Professor at the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. He is President and Fellow of the International Communication Association. He is Editor of the International Journal of Communication. He is the author and editor of twenty books, as well as articles on journalism and politics, communication studies, media policy, and communication for social change. His most recent book is Introduction to Journalism: Thinking Globally (Polity). He served as Director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University (2020-2023). Also, he is the former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Communication and the International Journal of Press/Politics. Waisbord received a Licenciatura in Sociology from the Universidad de Buenos Aires and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, San Diego.
Hope and Fears:
Why Journalism Remains Essential in a Time of Global Democratic Erosion
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2026
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
IOWA CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY
ALSO STREAMING ONLINE: CLICK HERE FOR STREAMING LINK
Hosted by ICFRC Board Member Ted Powers
PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE IOWA CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY, UI INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS, IOWA GLOBAL HEALTH NETWORK, AND PROTEUS
What can Iowa learn from the struggles of mineworkers in South Africa? This panel discussion connects the global story of dust, disease, and dignity to the realities of Iowa’s fields, factories, and immigrant workforce. Through powerful parallels, it highlights how protecting vulnerable workers is not only a matter of health, but also of justice and resilience. Understanding the nexus between work and community and the commonalities between people here and in South Africa is one important step in the global effort to finding solutions to ease the too-often invisible burden shouldered by vulnerable working populations.
Dr. Claudia Corwin is a Clinical Associate Professor on the faculty of the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. As both a surgeon and occupational medicine physician, she has broad clinical experience that informs her public health practice. Her public and global health interests are focused on the occupational health and well-being of vulnerable working populations, including mobile, migrant and immigrant populations, as well as our lowest paid health care workers. Her research includes work related to the immigrant experience in the U.S. workers’ compensation system, barriers to engaging migrant farmworkers in research, and healthcare utilization by the lowest paid health care workers. Her programmatic work has focused on migrant farm workers’ health and safety.
Dr. Vanessa Govender is a South African Specialist in Occupational Medicine with over 30 years of experience across clinical practice, public health, academia, and consulting, and particular expertise in mining health, occupational lung diseases, and health-risk policy, strategy and communication. She is the Director of Masakhane Strategic Health Consulting (Pty) Ltd, an advisor to the Tshiamiso Trust (South Africa’s enhanced compensation system for former gold mineworkers), and an Honorary Lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand School of Public Health, where she completed her medical and postgraduate training. Her work focuses on the prevention and diagnosis of dust-related lung disease, the translation of global classification systems into practice, and the responsible integration of artificial intelligence into occupational health systems. She is the author of From Suspicion to Submission: Occupational Lung Diseases in the South African Mining Industry (2024), a Harvard Medical School AI in Healthcare programme finalist (2025), a guest lecturer with the International Labour Organization, and a collaborator on international research examining early biomarkers of silicosis.
Dr. David Bedell is a Professor of Clinical Family Medicine and has been with the U of I College of Medicine for 31 years. His clinical practice has been at the Universities’ Lone Tree and Riverside clinics, both considered rural. He speaks fluent Spanish after working for 8 ½ years in El Salvador. Around 40% of his patients have been Spanish speakers. His practiced full spectrum family medicine from obstetrics and newborn care to nursing home and end of life care. He is a civil surgeon so performs “immigrations physical exams” for immigrants applying for permanent U.S. residency. Many of his patients work at West Liberty Foods, Tyson Foods and local hog, chicken and egg farms/facilities and he has cared for many seasonal farm workers. He has taught global health to undergraduate, and medical students, and resident physicians and has worked with them in Russia, Niger, Ecuador, and Guatemala.
Naomi Marroquín works at Proteus, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting agricultural workers and their families through job training, educational assistance, and affordable healthcare services. For over five years, Naomi has worked on the healthcare side of the organization, helping provide primary care services and coordinating mobile clinics across the state to serve farmworker communities. Naomi studied Global Health Studies at the University of Iowa, with a minor in Latinx Studies, and is passionate about advancing equitable healthcare access for marginalized populations.
Worker Resilience
From South Africa’s Mines to Iowa's Farms, Fields and Meatpacking Plants
THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 2026
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
IOWA CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY
ALSO STREAMING ONLINE: CLICK HERE FOR STREAMING LINK
Hosted by ICFRC Board Member Rick Dobyns
PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE ENGLERT THEATRE, PRAIRIE LIGHTS BOOKS, AND IOWA PUBLIC RADIO
The wealthy and powerful few have dominated the masses throughout most of human history. This is starkly visible now more than ever—today, the gulf between oligarchs and the average citizen is larger than any gap that existed during European serfdom or the slave society of Imperial Rome. We have arrived at the most blatant version of oligarchy that most modern states have endured, with politicians bought and paid for across the political spectrum.
The strange thing is: we aren’t in open revolt against this system. In fact, we keep voting to prop it up. Why?
In this discussion of The Blind Spot, political scientist Jeffrey Winters, with Iowa Public Radio host Ben Kieffer, delivers an urgent, incisive account of how we reached this era of in-your-face oligarchy, exposing how modern democracy was developed to protect the interests of the ultra-rich. By tracing the evolution of oligarchy across the globe and through modern history, he demonstrates how the rule of the wealthy isn’t just a flaw in our democracy, it has been built into its very foundations. Now, in an extraordinary paradox, we exist in a state of “participatory inequality”: a world in which 99.99% of us participate openly and freely—democratically, even—in our own ongoing exclusion and disenfranchisement.
But powerful change can begin when we have a clear understanding of where we are, and where we deserve to be. As well as shining a light just how bad our political reality has become, The Blind Spot introduces bold ideas for how we might shift the balance of power. While the rich and powerful do not cede power quietly, this period of shocking inequality is, Winters shows, an opportunity for transformation.
Dr. Jeffrey Winters is a professor of political science at Northwestern University and the Director of the Equality Development and Globalization Studies Program at Northwestern’s Buffett Institute for Global Affairs. Over the past three decades, Winters has gained an international reputation for his pathbreaking work on oligarchs and elites. His influential 2011 book Oligarchy reintroduced the term to modern audiences and was awarded the prestigious 2012 Luebbert Prize. In addition to specializing on rich industrial countries like the United States, Winters is also an expert on the region of Southeast Asia, and he has lectured extensively in Europe, Latin America, Asia, and the US. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New Yorker, National Public Radio, ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, PBS, and hundreds of other television, radio, print, and online media venues.
Ben Kieffer is the longtime host of River to River on Iowa Public Radio, a role he has held since 2007. Known for thoughtful, incisive interviewing, he brings a wide-ranging curiosity about news and politics, scientific research, history, and literature to help Iowans better understand their state and the wider world. A multi-award-winning host and reporter, Kieffer previously hosted IPR’s weekly live music and talk show Java Blend from 2000 to 2017 and began his public radio career in the mid-1980s as a student announcer on WSUI. He has created and hosted notable series and segments including “Leaving Afghanistan,” “Politics Wednesday,” “Big Brain,” “News Buzz,” and “Groove into the Weekend.” Over the years, he has interviewed major candidates and elected leaders including Terry Branstad, Tom Vilsack, Kim Reynolds, Tom Harkin, Chuck Grassley, Joni Ernst, Hillary Clinton, and Kamala Harris.
The Blind Spot:
How Oligarchs Dominate Our Democracy
THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2026
6:30 PM - 9:30 PM
THE ENGLERT THEATRE
6:30 pm:
Doors open / Reception with invited guests
7:30 pm:
Program starting with a reading from the book and ending with Q&A
8:30 pm:
Book signing with author
Hosted by ICFRC Executive Director Peter Gerlach