February 4, 2008
In this issue
- Coming up at the Mershon Center
- Other events
- Bhutanese monk to create sand mandala at Ohio State
- Featured group: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
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Friday, February 8, 2008
Melvyn Leffler
"For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War"
Noon, Mershon Center for International Security Studies, 1501 Neil Ave.
Melvyn Leffler is Edward Stettinius Professor of American History at the University of Virginia. He is author most recently of an analysis of the Cold War, For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War. Drawing on extensive research in American and Soviet archives, Leffler offers an account of the forces that constrained Soviet and American leaders in the second half of the 20th century. The book examines four crucial episodes when American and Soviet leaders considered modulating, avoiding, or ending hostilities and asks why they failed: Stalin and Truman devising new policies after 1945; Malenkov and Eisenhower exploring the chance for peace after Stalin's death in 1953; Kennedy, Khrushchev, and LBJ trying to reduce tensions after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962; and Brezhnev and Carter aiming to sustain detente after the Helsinki Conference of 1975. Read more and RSVP
Monday, February 11, 2008
Marc Warren
"Legal Support in Wartime: Reflections of a Judge Advocate"
Noon, Saxbe Auditorium, Moritz College of Law, 55 W. 12 Ave.
Marc Warren is the former Staff Judge Advocate for Combined Joint Task Force 7/Multi-National Forces in Iraq, V Corps in Iraq and Germany, and the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). In this capacity, he served as the top legal advisor for Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition forces in Iraq in 2003-04. This was the first full year of the Iraq War, when American forces set up the Iraqi constitution and captured Saddam Hussein, and when the counterinsurgency took root and the Abu Ghraib scandal became public. In his talk, Warren will reflect on the wide range of legal issues and problems he faced during this critical period. Read more
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Gen. John P. Abizaid
"Strategic Challenges in the Middle East"
3:30 p.m., Film Video Theater, Wexner Center for the Arts, 1871 N. High St.
Gen. John P. Abizaid is former Commander of United States Central Command (CENTCOM), which directs the operations of 250,000 American troops in a 27-country region that includes the Horn of Africa, Arabian Peninsula, South and Central Asia, and much of the Middle East. He is currently the Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Abizaid, who led CENTCOM from 2003-07, will discuss strategic challenges in the Middle East, including the rise of Islamic extremism, Iran’s development of nuclear power, the corrosive effects of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the global reliance on oil. Read more
Edgar S. Furniss Book Award Winner
Monday, February 25, 2008
Jacques E.C. Hymans
"The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy"
Noon, Mershon Center for International Security Studies, 1501 Neil Ave.
Jacques E.C. Hymans is Assistant Professor of Government at Smith College. He is author of The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy (Cambridge, 2006), which received not only the Edgar S. Furniss Award from the Mershon Center, but also the Alexander L. George Award from the International Society of Political Psychology. In this book, Hymans explores why few states have acquired nuclear weapons even though dozens have long been capable of doing so. He finds that the key to this surprising historical pattern lies not in externally imposed constraints, but in state leaders' conceptions of the national identity. Read more and RSVP
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Super Tuesday with the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
7-10 p.m., Ohio State University Faculty Club, 181 S. Oval Drive
Sponsored by the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences Alumni Society
Come watch Super Tuesday primary returns with Ohio State political experts Paul Beck and Herb Asher. Beck, Professor of Political Science and Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Asher, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, will offer live commentary and analysis, and answer your questions as primary results roll in. Admission is $10 with all proceeds going to the SBS Alumni Society Student Scholarship Fund. Check or cash only please. Reserve your space now by e-mailing Jennifer Storm, SBS Alumni Society President, at Jennifer.Storm@xerox.com.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Disability in Kenya: A Collaborative Initiative
2 p.m., Humanities Institute, George Wells Knight House, 104 E. 15th Ave
Sponsored by the Center for African Studies
Professors Philip Armstrong (Comparative Studies), Nina Berman (Comparative Studies), Brenda Brueggemann (English), Marian Lupo (English), and R. Brian Stone (Industrial, Interior and Visual Communication Design) are involved in "Disability Rights in Kenya: Networks, Practices, and Resources," a collaborative initiative between Ohio State and Kenyan researchers designed to study disability issues in Kenya. This collaboration began in early 2005 and is entering its second phase. The long-term goals are a general assessment of the cultural, social, economic, and political aspects of disability in Kenya; enabling the Kenyan collaborators to conduct research on U.S. disability initiatives during a stay at Ohio State; and developing collaborative research projects to study disability-related issues in Kenya. For more information contact livingston.28@osu.edu.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Are Unions Destroying American Education?
5:30 p.m., Faculty Club Grand Lounge, 181 S. Oval Drive
Sponsored by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and John Glenn School of Public Affairs
Do teacher unions create more harm than good in the American education system? Peter Brimelow and Richard D. Kahlenberg will explore this topic at a public debate. Brimelow is a British American financial journalist, author, and founder of VDARE.com, an anti-illegal alien website. Brimelow has been the editor of many publications, including Forbes, the Financial Post, and National Review. His books include Alien Nation: Common Sense about America's Immigration Disaster, and The Worm In The Apple: How The Teacher Unions Are Destroying American Education. Kahlenberg is a Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation, where he writes about education, equal opportunity, and civil rights. He is the author of Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race and Democracy; All Together Now: Creating Middle Class Schools through Public School Choice; The Remedy: Class, Race, and Affirmative Action; and Broken Contract: A Memoir of Harvard Law School. This debate is free and open to the public, but seating is limited and reservations are required. Please visit http://glennschool.osu.edu/rsvp/ISI_debate.php by February 8, 2008.
Friday, February 29, 2008
TARGET: Getting to Global
8-10:30 a.m., Blackwell Inn, Fisher College of Business, 2110 Tuttle Park Place
Sponsored by the Center for International Business Education and Research
The international expansion of Ohio companies is key to the future of the state. Businesses and corporations are invited to use the Fisher College’s network of global experts and international students to grow their business by attending TARGET: Getting to Global, an opportunity to learn about practical tools to assess their readiness to expand in the global marketplace. Featured speakers include E. Gordon Gee, President of The Ohio State University, on "The Internationalization of Higher Education and What It Means to the State of Ohio." To reserve your spot, RSVP to Joana Ferreti-Meza at (614) 292-0845 or ferreti-meza_1@osu.edu by February 1, 2008.
A Bhutanese monk will create a sand mandala, a meditation tool used by Buddhists to advance a higher level of religious understanding, in the World Media and Culture Center in Hagerty Hall from Feb. 7-11.
The colorful sand mandala will be constructed by Kezang Dorjee, a Bhutanese monk from the Drukpa Mila Center in Boulder, Colo. Dorjee will work for about 20 hours over three days to create the 3-foot-wide mandala by placing colored sand, pinch by pinch, onto a flat surface.
The creation of the sand mandala is the focal point of the Himalayan Cultural Weekend, which also features special screenings of Tharchin (The Liberated), a film that focuses on the Buddhism of Bhutan as seen through the eyes of a novice monk.
The weekend of events is sponsored by the East Asian Studies Center, with support from the Film Studies Program, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, Foreign Language Center and World Media and Culture Center. All events are free and open to the public.
The art of making the sand mandala is a skill that selected monks are taught over a period of months to years. During the teaching process, monks learn the appropriate Buddhist texts that describe proportion and patterns of the diagram as it relates to deity.
From memory Dorjee will create the mandala of "The Wheel of Dharma," which signifies the teachings of the Buddha and the Buddha himself. The design will center on five colors of Buddhist significance: red, yellow, blue, green and white. Once the elaborate sand diagram is completed, it will be swept up and destroyed, a process meant to remind the viewer that life is fleeting and temporary.
For more information, contact Ariana Maki (maki.4@osu.edu) (614) 208-8221 or the East Asian Studies Center (easc@osu.edu) (614) 688-4253.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing cooperation between nations and promoting active international engagement by the United States. Founded in 1910, its work is nonpartisan and dedicated to achieving practical results.
Carnegie's general fields of study include the economic, political, and technological inputs that support global change. Carnegie's bimonthly publication, Foreign Policy, spotlights international politics and economics, and has become one of the world's leading magazines, with a readership that includes more than 120 countries.
In 1993, the Endowment launched the Carnegie Moscow Center, pioneering the idea that in today's world a think tank whose mission is to contribute to global security, stability, and prosperity requires a permanent international presence and a multinational outlook. The organization now has offices in Beijing, Beirut and Brussels.
Carnegie offers research and materials to support professors, students, librarians, and anyone doing research on international affairs. These include books for course adoption, papers for course packets, special rates for Foreign Policy magazine, and subscriptions to free e-newsletters.
Each year the Endowment offers eight to 10 one-year fellowships to graduating seniors and people who have graduated in the past academic year. They are selected from a pool of nominees from close to 300 colleges. Carnegie Junior Fellows work as research assistants to the Endowment's senior associates.
For more information, see http://www.carnegieendowment.org
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