Mark - A Call to Action

Mark - A Call to Action documents the life and work of Mark Bookman, an expert on disability and accessibility in Japan. Mark’s experiences and professional work challenge society to improve access and create environments that support the disabled. The screening will be followed by a roundtable discussion between the director of the film, Ron Small, Mark’s father, Paul Bookman, and GW faculty Celeste Arrington and Richard Grinker.

The film will be screened with closed captions and there will be sign language interpretation for the roundtable discussion. Please contact the organizers with any concerns about accessibility for the screening.

Dr. Paul Bookman, the father of Dr. Mark and Rachel Bookman, is a dentist practicing in the Philadelphia suburb of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania since 1987. He is a graduate of Tulane University and University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine. Paul is beloved by his patients and is consistently voted “one of the Best Dentists" by Main Line Today Magazine and Philadelphia Magazine.

Prior to the passing of his son in December of 2022, and his daughter in July of 2024, Dr. Bookman was an avid outdoor enthusiast. He spent most of his free time bicycling, skiing, scuba diving, and taking care of his two dogs with his wife Dr. Wasna Dabbagh. Although he still enjoys these activities, he now devotes most of his energies to preserving the legacy and ideals of The GLIDE Fund of the Mark Bookman Foundation. Created by Mark, GLIDE stands for Global Leaders in International Disability Education.

As the father of two chronically ill and disabled children, Paul has spent the better part of 30 years dealing with hospitals, life threatening illnesses, and obstacles trying to make life easier for his two affected children. With the formation of the Foundation, he is now embarking on a new phase of his life. He plans to carry on the disability advocacy work of his son and daughter by making sure that the GLIDE Fund of the Mark Bookman Foundation grows internationally and provides financial assistance to disabled students interested in education exchange experiences to foster an inclusive society in which anyone can led an independent and self- determined life.

Ron Small began his media career in New Orleans during his pre-med studies at Tulane University, producing, directing and voicing nearly 1,000 local, regional and national TV and radio commercials before moving to Los Angeles for his real education. From these auspicious beginnings came a career spanning film, television, radio, infomercials, corporate videos, entertainment programs, podcasts and documentaries throughout the world.

Career highlights include:

• Opened the Faux Pas Comedy Club in New Orleans featuring stand-up and improv. His original headliner was a then-unknown Ellen DeGeneres.
• Formed the Holocaust Education Film Foundation to preserve the stories of Holocaust Survivors.
• In 2021 was awarded a Best Director Emmy for the National PBS release “I Danced for the Angel of Death,” featuring famed survivor, psychologist and author of the New York Times bestseller “The Choice, Dr. Edith Eva Eger.”
• Released in 2024, produced, directed, wrote and narrated “Mark – A Call to Action,” highlighting global Disability Advocate Dr. Mark Bookman,” a Fulbright Scholar and himself a fully-disabled individual who overcame insurmountable odds to earn a PhD from University of Pennsylvania, speak fluent Japanese and become a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Tokyo.

Professor Celeste Arrington is Korea Foundation Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at GW. She is the Director of the GW Institute for Korea Studies and Co-Director of the East Asia National Resource Center (2024-Present). She specializes in comparative public policy, law and social change, lawyers, and governance, with a regional focus on the Koreas and Japan. She is also interested in Northeast Asian security, North Korean human rights, and transnational activism. Her first book was Accidental Activists: Victim Movements and Governmental Accountability in Japan and South Korea (Cornell, 2016). She has published numerous articles and, with Patricia Goedde, she co-edited Rights Claiming in South Korea (Cambridge, 2021). Her next book, forthcoming in Cambridge’s Studies in Law and Society series, analyzes the legalistic turn in Korean and Japanese regulatory style through paired case studies related to tobacco control and disability rights. She received a PhD from UC Berkeley, an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and an AB from Princeton University. She has been a fellow at Harvard, the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. GW’s Office of the Vice President for Research awarded her the 2021 Early Career Research Scholar Award. Her article with Claudia Kim won the 2023 Asian Law and Society Association’s distinguished article award.

Dr. Richard Grinker is a cultural anthropologist specializing in ethnicity, nationalism, and psychological anthropology, with topical expertise in autism, Korea, and sub-Saharan Africa. He is also the director of GW's Institute for Ethnographic Research and editor-in-chief of of the journal .

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

The Elliott School of International Affairs (Lindner Family Commons), 1957 E St NW, Washington, United States