The Conference on World Affairs is hosted annually, around the second week of April, at the University of Colorado

University of Colorado at Boulder

The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...

 in Boulder, Colorado

Boulder, Colorado

Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...

.

History

The Conference was founded in 1948 by Howard Higman

Howard Higman

Howard Higman was an American sociologist notable as the founder of The World Affairs Conference in 1948.-References:...

, a professor of Sociology

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

 at the University. He ran the conference until he retired, shortly before his death in 1995. The Conference resumed in 1996, and is currently directed by Professor James Palmer

James Palmer

James Palmer may refer to:*Herbert James Palmer , of Prince Edward Island, Canada*Sir James Frederick Palmer , of Victoria, Australia*James Palmer, director of the Conference on World Affairs...

.

Content and panelists

The conference started out as a forum on international affairs

International relations

International relations is the study of relationships between countries, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations , international nongovernmental organizations , non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations...

, but, under Higman, morphed into a discussion on a multitude of topics. The core of the conference consists of panel discussions, usually with 3-6 panelists, on topics such as music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

, art

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

, literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

, environmental activism, business

Business

A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...

, science

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

, journalism

Journalism

Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...

, diplomacy

Diplomacy

Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...

, technology

Technology

Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...

, spirituality

Spirituality

Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...

, the film industry

Film industry

The film industry consists of the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking: i.e. film production companies, film studios, cinematography, film production, screenwriting, pre-production, post production, film festivals, distribution; and actors, film directors and other film crew...

, pop culture, visual arts

Visual arts

The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...

, politics

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

, medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

, and human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

. Half of a panel typically consists of experts on that panel's subject, and half with people having no professional connection to the topic, who could fresh insights. Only a one-line topic for the panel is announced two or three weeks before the conference. The panelists are given no other direction or guidance about what they should say.

Each year the conference hosts over 100 panelists, and conducts over 200 sessions. The panels are free and open to the public (except for a $1 service fee for ticketing of the jazz concert due to overflow demand) and are held in rooms varying in capacity according to anticipated popularity, from 50 seats to 2000. The total annual attendance of all the events at the 62st Conference on World Affairs (in April, 2010) was estimated to be over 92,000. Numerous distinguished people have served as panelists over the years, including Patch Adams

Patch Adams

Hunter Doherty "Patch" Adams, M.D. is an American physician, social activist, citizen diplomat and author. He founded the Gesundheit! Institute in 1971...

, Betty Dodson

Betty Dodson

Betty Dodson is an American sex educator, author, and artist. Dodson held the first one-woman show of erotic art at the Wickersham Gallery in New York City in 1968. She left the art world to teach sex to women...

, Buckminster Fuller

Buckminster Fuller

Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....

, Adam Hochschild

Adam Hochschild

Adam Hochschild is an American author and journalist.-Biography:Hochschild was born in New York City. As a college student, he spent a summer working on an anti-government newspaper in South Africa and subsequently worked briefly as a civil rights worker in Mississippi in 1964...

, Arianna Huffington

Arianna Huffington

Arianna Huffington is a Greek American author and syndicated columnist. She is best known as co-founder of the news website The Huffington Post. A popular conservative commentator in the mid-1990s, she adopted more liberal political beliefs in the late 1990s...

, Molly Ivins

Molly Ivins

Mary Tyler "Molly" Ivins was an American newspaper columnist, populist, political commentator, humorist and author.-Early life and education:Ivins was born in Monterey, California, and raised in Houston, Texas...

, Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger

Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...

, Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman

Paul Robin Krugman is an American economist, professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, and an op-ed columnist for The New York Times...

, George McGovern

George McGovern

George Stanley McGovern is an historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election....

, Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....

, Yitzhak Rabin

Yitzhak Rabin

' was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77 and 1992 until his assassination in 1995....

, Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...

, Studs Terkel

Studs Terkel

Louis "Studs" Terkel was an American author, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for The Good War, and is best remembered for his oral histories of common Americans, and for hosting a long-running radio show in Chicago.-Early...

, and Ted Turner

Ted Turner

Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...

.

Panelists travel to the conference at their own expense, and are paid no fees for coming. They are housed as guests in the homes of Boulder residents who volunteer to take them in. In addition to the panels, there is a keynote plenary address kicking off the conference on Monday at 11:30 a.m. and a Tuesday evening jazz concert.

Cinema Interruptus

The most popular event of the conference is the Cinema Interruptus, hosted for many years by film critic Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert

Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

. Ebert selected one movie and showed it late afternoon at the beginning of the week, in a normal, uninterrupted way. Then, for a total of 8 hours spread over the following four afternoons, the movie was dissected almost on a frame-by-frame basis. Ebert, or anybody else in the audience, could pause the movie at any point, and comment about any aspect: plot points, acting or directing techniques, camera movement, frame composition, etc.

Roger Ebert moderated Cinema Interruptus from 1969-2006. In 2008, he shared an explanation on the program's beginnings:

"This all began for me in about 1969, when I started teaching a film class in the University of Chicago's Fine Arts program. I knew a Chicago film critic, teacher and booker named John West, who lived in a wondrous apartment filled with film prints, projectors, books, posters and stills. "You know how football coaches use a stop-action 16mm projector to study game films?" he asked me. "You can use that approach to study films. Just pause the film and think about what you see. You ought to try it with your film class."

I did. The results were beyond my imagination. I wasn't the teacher and my students weren't the audience, we were all in this together. The ground rules: Anybody could call out "stop!" and discuss what we were looking at, or whatever had just occurred to them. A couple of years later, when I started doing shot-by-shots at the Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the conference founder, Howard Higman, described this process as "democracy in the dark." Later he gave it a name: Cinema Interruptus. Perhaps it sounds grueling, but in fact it can be exciting and almost hypnotic. At Boulder for more than 30 years, I made my way through a film for two hours every afternoon for a week, and the sessions had to be moved to an auditorium to accommodate attendance that approached a thousand."

While Ebert was recovering from cancer surgeries in 2007 and 2008, RogerEbert.com founding editor and CWA participant, Jim Emerson, stepped in to moderate during his absence. Ebert returned for 2009 and 2010, but mainly as a contributor, using his computer as his voice in order to participate. In 2011, Ebert announced that he would not be returning, and Emerson would carry on as moderator.

The Cinema Interruptus film-viewing process started in 1975 and continues to the present.

Year	Movie	When	Where	Series Title	Notes
1975	Citizen Kane Citizen Kane Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...	Mon-Fri	Boulder's Fox Theater	Persona
1976	Notorious Notorious Notorious is a 1946 American thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains as three people whose lives become intimately entangled during an espionage operation...	Mon-Fri, 4pm	Fox Theater	How to Read A Movie	first Uninterruptus/Interruptus
1977	The Third Man The Third Man The Third Man is a 1949 British film noir, directed by Carol Reed and starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, and Trevor Howard. Many critics rank it as a masterpiece, particularly remembered for its atmospheric cinematography, performances, and unique musical score...	Mon-Fri, 12pm	University of Colorado's Memorial Forum	Decoding a Movie
1978	8 1/2	Mon-Fri, 12pm	Memorial Forum	Analyzing a Film
1979	La Dolce Vita La Dolce Vita La Dolce Vita is a 1960 comedy-drama film written and directed by the critically acclaimed director Federico Fellini. The film is a story of a passive journalist's week in Rome, and his search for both happiness and love that will never come...	Mon-Fri, 12pm	Memorial Forum	Analyzing a Film	first of plan to study La Dolce Vita at least once every decade
1980	Amarcord Amarcord Amarcord is a 1973 Italian comedy-drama film directed by Federico Fellini, a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale about Titta, an adolescent boy growing up among an eccentric cast of characters in the fictional town of Borgo in 1930s Fascist Italy...	Mon-Fri, 12pm	Memorial Forum	Analyzing a Film
1981	Cries and Whispers Cries and Whispers Cries and Whispers is a 1972 Swedish film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan, Ingrid Thulin and Liv Ullmann. The film is set on a mansion at the end of the 19th century and is about two sisters who watch over their third sister on her deathbed, torn...	Mon-Fri, 12pm	Memorial Forum	Films
1982	Taxi Driver Taxi Driver Taxi Driver is a 1976 American drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film was nominated for four Academy...	Mon-Fri, 12pm	Memorial Forum	Analyzing a Film
1983	La Dolce Vita La Dolce Vita La Dolce Vita is a 1960 comedy-drama film written and directed by the critically acclaimed director Federico Fellini. The film is a story of a passive journalist's week in Rome, and his search for both happiness and love that will never come...	Mon-Fri, 12pm	Memorial Forum	Analyzing a Film	second of every decade study
1984	Day 2: God's Angry Man God's Angry Man God's Angry Man is a 1980 documentary film about Gene Scott, directed by Werner Herzog. The film was produced for television.The film consists of footage of Scott on the set of his television program Festival of Faith and interviews with Scott and Scott's parents conducted by Herzog...  & Huie's Sermon Huie's Sermon Huie's Sermon is a 1980 documentary film made for television by Werner Herzog. It consists almost entirely of a sermon delivered by Huie Rogers of the Bible Way Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Brooklyn....   Day 3: The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant is a 1972 German film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, based on his own play. This film has an all female cast and is set in the home of the protagonist, Petra von Kant. It follows the changing dynamics in her relationships with the other women...   Day 4: My Dinner with Andre My Dinner with Andre My Dinner with Andre is a 1981 film starring Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn, written by Gregory and Shawn, and directed by Louis Malle.-Plot:...   Day 5: Gates of Heaven Gates of Heaven Gates of Heaven is a 1978 documentary film by Errol Morris about the pet cemetery business. It was made when Morris was unknown and did much to launch his career.-Description:...  & Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe is a short documentary film directed by Les Blank in 1980 which depicts director Werner Herzog living up to his promise that he would eat his shoe if Errol Morris ever completed the film Gates of Heaven. The film includes clips from both Gates of Heaven and Herzog's...	Tues-Fri, 12pm	University of Colorado's Fiske Planetarium	Film(s)	Ebert did not arrive until Tuesday (Day 2)
1985	Casablanca Casablanca Casablanca is a city in western Morocco, located on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Grand Casablanca region.Casablanca is Morocco's largest city as well as its chief port. It is also the biggest city in the Maghreb. The 2004 census recorded a population of 2,949,805 in the prefecture...	Mon-Fri, 12pm	Memorial Forum	Film
1986	The Treasure of the Sierra Madre The Treasure of the Sierra Madre The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a 1927 novel by the mysterious German-English bilingual author B. Traven, in which two penurious Americans of the 1920s join with an old-timer, in Mexico, to prospect for gold...	Mon-Fri, 12pm	Memorial Forum	Film
1987	Three Women Three Women Three Women is a drama film starring May McAvoy, Pauline Frederick, and Marie Prevost, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, and based on the novel by Yolande Maree .A print survives in the George Eastman House archive.-Cast:...	Mon-Fri, 12pm	University of Colorado's Macky Auditorium	Analyzing A Film
1988	The Third Man The Third Man The Third Man is a 1949 British film noir, directed by Carol Reed and starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, and Trevor Howard. Many critics rank it as a masterpiece, particularly remembered for its atmospheric cinematography, performances, and unique musical score...	Mon-Fri, 12pm	Macky Auditorium	Analyzing A Film
1989	Out of the Past Out of the Past Out of the Past is a 1947 film noir directed by Jacques Tourneur and starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas. The film was adapted by Daniel Mainwaring , with uncredited revisions by Frank Fenton and James M...	Mon-Fri, 12pm	Macky Auditorium	Film
1990	Raging Bull	Mon-Fri, 12pm	Macky Auditorium	Film
1991	Citizen Kane Citizen Kane Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...	Mon-Fri, 12pm	Macky Auditorium	Analyzing A Film
1992	Silence of the Lambs	Mon-Fri, 4pm	Macky Auditorium	Film
1993	JFK JFK (film) JFK is a 1991 American film directed by Oliver Stone. It examines the events leading to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and alleged subsequent cover-up, through the eyes of former New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison .Garrison filed charges against New Orleans businessman Clay...	Mon-Fri, 4pm	Macky Auditorium	Analyzing A Film
1994	La Dolce Vita La Dolce Vita La Dolce Vita is a 1960 comedy-drama film written and directed by the critically acclaimed director Federico Fellini. The film is a story of a passive journalist's week in Rome, and his search for both happiness and love that will never come...	Mon-Fri, 4pm	Macky Auditorium	Analyzing A Film	third of every decade study
1995					no CWA this year
1996	Pulp Fiction Pulp fiction Pulp fiction may refer to:* pulp magazines, short stories presented in a magazine format, printed on cheaply made wood-pulp paper* Pulp Fiction, a 1994 film directed by Quentin Tarantino...	Mon-Fri, 7pm	University of Colorado's Muenzinger Auditorium	series titles stopped being used
1997	Fargo Fargo -Military:* Fargo, the ammunition compound next to the Royal School of Artillery* Fargo-class cruiser, ship design of the United States Navy** , the first ship of the Fargo-class cruisers...	Mon-Fri, 7pm	Macky Auditorium
1998	Dark City Dark City Dark City is a 1998 neo-noir science fiction film directed by Alex Proyas. It was adapted from a screenplay written by Proyas, David S. Goyer and Lem Dobbs. The film stars Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, and William Hurt. Sewell plays John Murdoch, a man suffering from amnesia...	Mon-Fri, 7pm	Macky Auditorium		film selection changed after the CWA program went to press - the program says Vertigo
1999	Vertigo Vertigo Vertigo is a form of dizziness.Vertigo may also refer to:* Vertigo , a 1958 film by Alfred Hitchcock**Vertigo , its soundtrack** Vertigo effect, or Dolly zoom, a special effect in film, named after the movie...	Mon-Fri, 7pm	Macky Auditorium
2000	Casablanca Casablanca Casablanca is a city in western Morocco, located on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Grand Casablanca region.Casablanca is Morocco's largest city as well as its chief port. It is also the biggest city in the Maghreb. The 2004 census recorded a population of 2,949,805 in the prefecture...	Mon-Fri, 4pm	Macky Auditorium
2001	Fight Club Fight Club (film) Fight Club is a 1999 American film based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk. The film was directed by David Fincher and stars Edward Norton, Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter. Norton plays the unnamed protagonist, an "everyman" who is discontented with his white-collar job...	Mon-Fri, 4pm	Macky Auditorium
2002	Mulholland Drive Mulholland Drive Mulholland Drive is a street and road in the eastern Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California. It is named after Los Angeles pioneer civil engineer William Mulholland...	Mon-Fri, 4pm	Macky Auditorium
2003	Floating Weeds Floating Weeds is a 1959 film by Yasujiro Ozu and shot in colour by Kazuo Miyagawa, one of Japan's most highly regarded cinematographers. It is a remake of Ozu's own black-and-white silent film A Story of Floating Weeds ....	Sun; Tues-Fri, 4pm	Macky Auditorium		Uninterruptus was on Sunday on Monday, the movie Tokyo-Ga Tokyo-Ga Tokyo-Ga is a 1985 documentary film directed by Wim Wenders ostensibly about filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu. However, only two scenes actually focus on Ozu—one where Wenders interviews Ozu’s regular cinematographer, Yuharu Atsuta, and another where he interviews Ozu’s favorite actor, Chishu Ryu. The rest...  was shown at 4pm
2004	The Rules of the Game The Rules of the Game The Rules of the Game is a 1939 French film directed by Jean Renoir about upper-class French society just before the start of World War II...	Mon-Fri, 4pm	Macky Auditorium
2005	La Dolce Vita La Dolce Vita La Dolce Vita is a 1960 comedy-drama film written and directed by the critically acclaimed director Federico Fellini. The film is a story of a passive journalist's week in Rome, and his search for both happiness and love that will never come...	Mon-Fri, 4pm	Macky Auditorium		fourth of every decade study
2006	The Long Goodbye The Long Goodbye The Long Goodbye may refer to:*The Long Goodbye, a 1940 one act play by Tennessee Williams*The Long Goodbye, a 1953 novel by Raymond Chandler*The Long Goodbye, a 1973 film by Robert Altman adapted from the Chandler novel...	Mon-Fri, 4pm	Macky Auditorium
2007	Chinatown Chinatown A Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people, although it is often generalized to include various Southeast Asian people. Chinatowns exist throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe. Binondo's Chinatown located in Manila,...	Mon-Fri, 4pm	Macky Auditorium		Jim Emerson moderated the discussion
2008	No Country for Old Men No Country for Old Men No Country for Old Men is a 2005 novel by U.S. author Cormac McCarthy. Set along the United States–Mexico border in 1980, the story concerns an illicit drug deal gone wrong in a remote desert location. The title comes from the poem "Sailing to Byzantium" by William Butler Yeats...	Mon-Fri, 4pm	Macky Auditorium		Jim Emerson moderated the discussion
2009	Chop Shop Chop Shop Chop Shop a.k.a. Scott Konzelmann, is a noise musician who has released recordings on Pure, RRRecords, Banned Production, V2_Archief and Generator Sound Art....	Mon-Fri, 4pm	Macky Auditorium		with guest director, Ramin Bahrani Ramin Bahrani Ramin Bahrani is an American director and screenwriter. Film critic Roger Ebert listed Bahrani's film Chop Shop as the 6th best film of the decade and hailed Bahrani as "the director of the decade." Bahrani was the recipient of the prestigious 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship, and was the subject of...
2010	Aguirre, the Wrath of God Aguirre, the Wrath of God Aguirre, the Wrath of God is a 1972 West German adventure film written and directed by Werner Herzog. Klaus Kinski stars in the title role. The soundtrack was composed and performed by German progressive/Krautrock band Popol Vuh...	Sun; Mon-Fri, 4pm	Macky Auditorium		with guest director, Werner Herzog Werner Herzog Werner Herzog Stipetić , known as Werner Herzog, is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and opera director.He is often considered as one of the greatest figures of the New German Cinema, along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner... Uninterruptus was on Sunday
2011	A Serious Man A Serious Man A Serious Man is a 2009 dark comedy written, produced, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. The film stars Michael Stuhlbarg as a Minnesota Jewish man whose life crumbles both professionally and personally, leading to questions about his faith...	Mon-Fri, 4pm	Macky Auditorium		Jim Emerson made official moderator

External links

• Official web site
• Roger Ebert on CWA 2009