February 11, 2008
In this issue
- Coming up at the Mershon Center
- Other events
- Herrmann receives university award for service
- Mershon-affiliated faculty in the news
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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
Friday, February 29, 2008
Christina Davis
"The Politics of Opening Markets: A Comparison of Bilateral and Multilateral Trade Negotiation Strategies"
3:30 p.m., Mershon Center for International Security Studies, 1501 Neil Ave.
Christina Davis is Assistant Professor at the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Her teaching and research bridges international relations and comparative politics, with a focus on trade policy. Her interests include the politics and foreign policy of Japan and the European Union, and the study of international organizations. She is currently doing research on a book about how domestic institutions influence the choice of trade negotiation strategies and adjudication cases at the World Trade Organization. Davis is author of Food Fights Over Free Trade: How International Institutions Promote Agricultural Trade Liberalization (Princeton, 2003).
Read more and
RSVP
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Symposium on Iraq and Afghanistan
12:30 p.m., Mershon Center for International Security Studies, 1501 Neil Ave.
Sponsored by the Middle East Studies Center
Tahir al-Bakaa, former Iraqi Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, will discuss the military occupation, social dynamics, and the views of Iraqi nationals on current events. Alam Payind, Director of the Middle East Studies Center, will speak about current domestic and international challenges to Afghanistan and the resurgence of the Taliban. Both will be providing a view of these situations from inside the country, based on recent field work and experience which will shed light on the nuances not often provided in the news. Lunch will be provided. Please respond to Cory Driver at driver.27@osu.edu.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Vesta Daniel
"Using Community-Based Art Education to Address Social Justice: an Evolving Project in Tshwane, South Africa"
Noon, 122 Oxley Hall, 1712 Neil Ave.
Sponsored by the Center for African Studies
In South Africa, higher education is restructuring to meet social, cultural and economic development needs of the new social order, and to establish a single coordinated national higher education system. Relative to that goal, the Tshwane University of Technology is developing a community-based art education strand for its arts education program. This will be a discussion of the unfolding of participatory research on this topic. Vesta Daniel is a professor in the Department of Art Education at Ohio State. Her areas of expertise include community-based art and art education, community-based curriculum development, issues of diversity, and multicultural education. Daniel is co-author of the 1998 grades 1-5 textbook Art Express. She is a recipient of The Ohio State University Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching and the 2007 Faculty Award for Excellence in Community-Based Scholarship.
Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee presented the Faculty Award for Distinguished Service to Richard Herrmann, Director of the Mershon Center for International Security Studies during a surprise visit to Herrmann's Political Science 757 class this morning.
Among those in attendance were Paul Beck, Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Herb Weisberg, chair of the Political Science Department.
In presenting the award, Gee cited Herrmann’s service to The Ohio State University not only as Director of the Mershon Center, but also as Chair of the Faculty Senate Steering Committee and Director of Academic Programs at the Office of International Affairs. In this role, taken on during the past year, Herrmann oversees programs and activities at Ohio State’s five area studies centers.
The Faculty Award for Distinguished University Service recognizes up to three faculty members annually whose contributions to the development and implementation of university policies and programs through non-administrative roles have been extensive and have made documentable impact on the quality of the university.
Previous winners include Gregory Travalio, Lawrence D. Stanley Professor at the Moritz College of Law; Ellen Mosley-Thompson, Professor of Geography and Research Scientist at the Byrd Polar Research Center; and Christian K. Zacher, Professor of English and Director of the Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities.
Stories about national security are never far from the front page, and faculty affiliated with the Mershon Center are often called upon to comment. Here are some excerpts from recent faculty appearances in the news media.
John Mueller, Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies, received a great deal of attention for his Jan. 20 review of the latest Rambo movie for the Los Angeles Times. In "Dead and Deader," Mueller measures the ever-rising death toll in the four Rambo films by charting such statistics as the number of bad guys killed by Rambo with his shirt on, number of bad guys killed by Rambo with his shirt off, and number of deaths per minute. Several national security and film blogs linked to the story, which was also quoted by Bill Goodykoontz, film critic at the Arizona Republic.
Mershon Associate Sean Kay was quoted in a Feb. 6 Reuters story about U.S. pressure on NATO allies to step up action in Afghanistan. "There are no clear indicators that the NATO countries, including the United States, are willing to invest a level of combat forces that would lead to success in southern Afghanistan," said Kay, chair of International Studies at Ohio Wesleyan University. Kay was also interviewed about this topic Feb. 7 by BBC Radio.
Peter Shane, Jacob E. Davis and Jacob E. Davis II Chair in Law, told William Fisher in a Feb. 4 story in The Huffington Post that President Bush's "signing statements" are an abuse of executive power. "Like the torture memo or the rationalizations for warrantless NSA wiretapping of domestic telephone calls, the Bush 43 signing statements embody both a disregard for the institutional authorities of the other branches -- especially Congress -- and a disregard for the necessity to ground legal claims in plausible law. They are best understood as an attempt to invent law, and as an exploitation of Congress's unwillingness, at least while in Republican hands, to allow the administration's more extreme theories of presidential authority to go unchallenged."
Mershon-affiliated faculty members, as well as Mershon speakers, also regularly appear on WOSU-AM’s Open Line with Fred Andrle. Recent guests include Melvyn Leffler, Richard Herrmann and Peter Hahn. Upcoming guests are Gen. John P. Abizaid, Jacques E.C. Hymans, and Gen. John Altenburg.
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