November 4, 2008
Today is Election Day. Don't forget to vote!
In this issue
- Coming up at the Mershon Center
- Mershon Center opens annual grant competition
- Rangel Fellowship Program taking applications
- Dirksen Center offers congressional research grants
- New class on Central Asia offered winter quarter
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Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Matthew Fehrs
"Are You Talkin' to Me? The Domestic Politics of Government Signaling in International Conflicts"
Noon, Mershon Center for International Security Studies, 1501 Neil Ave.
Matthew Fehrs received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Duke University. His project explores three puzzles in international relations theory: What causes a country to have or perceive incomplete information and lead states to war? Why, despite high levels of transparency and freedom of information, are democracies likely to be attacked? What is the role of opposition groups in military crises? To answer these questions, Fehrs developed a theory that focuses on the unity and hawkishness of the government in democratic states. He hypothesizes that the more unified a government, the less likely it is to send mixed signals to potential challengers. Likewise, the more hawkish a country, the more likely it is to use military posturing and harsh rhetoric. Read more and RSVP
Friday, November 7, 2008
Carol Anderson
"Bourgeois Radicals: The NAACP and the Struggle for Colonial Liberation, 1941-1960"
Noon, Mershon Center for International Security Studies, 1501 Neil Ave.
Carol Anderson is associate professor of history at the University of Missouri and will be joining the faculty in African American Studies at Emory University in January 2009. Anderson focuses on public policy, particularly the ways domestic and international policies intersect through the issues of race, justice, and equality in the United States. She is the author of Eyes off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955, published by Cambridge University Press and awarded both the Gustavus Myers and Myrna Bernath Book Awards. In her forthcoming book, Bourgeois Radicals: The NAACP and the Struggle for Colonial Liberation, 1941-1960, Anderson uncovers the long-hidden role of the nation's most powerful civil rights organization in the fight for the liberation of peoples of color in Africa and Asia. Read more and RSVP
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Richard Holbrooke
2008 Joseph J. Kruzel Memorial Lecture
"A Foreign Policy Agenda for the Next President"
4 p.m., Room 1008 Evans Laboratory, 88 W. 18th Ave.
Richard Holbrooke served as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, where he was also a member of President Clinton's cabinet from 1999 to 2001. He played a central role in the development of U.S. policy toward the United Nations, the Balkans, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and humanitarian crises such as AIDS. As Assistant Secretary of State for Europe from 1994-96, Holbrooke was chief architect of the momentous 1995 Dayton peace agreement that ended the war in Bosnia. From 1993-94 he was U.S. Ambassador to Germany. Holbrooke has written numerous articles and two books: To End a War (Modern Library, 1999), a memoir of the Dayton negotiations, and, as co-author, Counsel to the President, Clark Clifford's memoir, as well as a volume of the Pentagon Papers. He is currently Vice Chairman of Perseus, a leading private equity firm, and writes a monthly column for The Washington Post. Read more and RSVP
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Allan Millett
"They Came From the North: The War for Korea, 1950-51"
Noon, Mershon Center for International Security Studies, 1501 Neil Ave.
Allan Millett is director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies and Stephen E. Ambrose Professor of History at the University of New Orleans since 2006, and the Raymond E. Mason Jr. Professor Emeritus of Military History at The Ohio State University. He specializes in the history of American military policy and 20th century wars and military institutions. In the past decade, Millett has become a specialist of international stature on the history of the Korean War. He began his work on the war as a Fulbright Distinguished Professor at Korean National Defense University in 1991, and a fellow of the Korea Foundation in 1996. The first volume of The War for Korea, entitled A House Burning: The War for Korea 1945-1950, was published by the University Press of Kansas in 2005. He will speak about the second volume, forthcoming from University Press of Kansas, which covers 1950-51. Read more and RSVP
Friday, November 21, 2008
Caroline Elkins
"British Colonial Violence and the End of Empire"
Noon, Mershon Center for International Security Studies, 1501 Neil Ave.
Caroline Elkins is Hugo K. Foster Associate Professor of African Studies in the Department of History at Harvard University. Her research interests include colonial violence and post-conflict reconciliation in Africa, and violence and the decline of the British Empire. Elkins's book, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya (Henry Holt, 2004), was awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. It was also selected as one of The Economist's best history books for 2005, was a New York Times editor's choice, and was a finalist for the Lionel Gelber Award. Imperial Reckoning draws on a variety of sources -- including extensive oral testimonies, archival evidence, and personal accounts — to construct an understanding of the Mau Mau uprising and Britain's policy of interning 1.5 million people of the Kikuyu tribe in detention camps from 1952 to 1960.
Read more and RSVP
Each year the Mershon Center for International Security Studies holds a competition for Ohio State faculty and graduate students to apply for research grant funds.
Grants may be used for a variety of research purposes including travel, seminars, conferences, interviews, experiments, workshops and more. Applications must be for projects that relate to one or more of the Mershon Center’s three areas of focus: the use of force and diplomacy; the ideas, identities and decisional processes that affect security; and the institutions that manage violent conflict.
For more information, including application forms and instructions, please see the Grants section of the Mershon Center web site. The deadline is January 30, 2009.
The Charles B. Rangel International Affairs Fellowship Program seeks to attract and educate outstanding young people who desire a career in the foreign service. Funded by the U.S. Department of State and managed by the Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center at Howard University, these fellowships prepare students to enter exciting and rewarding careers in public service as Foreign Service Officers.
Each year, the Rangel Program selects 10 outstanding Rangel Fellows in a highly competitive nationwide process. These fellows receive up to $32,500 annually in assistance for tuition, room, board and other related expenses for a two-year master’s degree in international affairs or a related topic. They also do internships at U.S. embassies overseas and on Capitol Hill. Each fellow is committed to a minimum of three years of service in an appointment as a Foreign Service Officer.
The Program includes two major elements:
- The two-year Charles B. Rangel International Affairs Graduate Fellowship for students preparing to enter graduate programs in international affairs and committed to a career in the U.S. Foreign Service. Application deadline: January 23, 2009.
- A six-week Summer Enrichment Program open to undergraduate students interested in an international affairs career. Application deadline: February 13, 2009.
The Rangel Program encourages members of minority groups and those with financial need to apply. For more information, please visit http://www.howard.edu/rjb/rangelprogram.htm.
The Dirksen Congressional Center invites applications for grants to fund research on congressional leadership and the U.S. Congress. A total of up to $30,000 will be available in 2009. Awards range from a few hundred dollars to $3,500.
The competition is open to people with a serious interest in studying Congress. Political scientists, historians, biographers, scholars of public administration or American studies, and journalists are among those eligible. The center encourages graduate students to apply and awards a significant portion of the funds for dissertation research.
All application materials must be received on or before February 1, 2009. Complete information about eligibility and application procedures may be found at the Dirksen Center web site.
Professor Morgan Liu
Wednesdays, 9:30 a.m. - 12:18 p.m.
Explore a little-known but globally significant region at the nexus of Islamic revival, post-communist democratization, Eurasian geopolitics and security, vast energy reserves, and millennia of historical connection with world markets and culture. Central Asia sits at the juncture of the Turkic, Persian, Russian, Chinese, and Indian worlds, but was almost unseen by outsiders before the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. It is the land of the "stans": Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Turkmenistan.
We will look at Central Asia under and after Soviet-Russian rule, focusing on 20th century through recent developments in culture, society, politics, and everyday life. Topics include its rapid modernization, experience under communism, changing role of women, the state creation of ethnicity, distinctiveness of its Islam, and recent post-Soviet trends in the region after 9/11 and the emergence of neighbor China.
The format is seminar, with lecturing. Course materials center around in-depth analyses of six books (including one novel), articles, and in-class films. All readings in English; no background in Central Asia or the Soviet Union is needed.
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