Each year the Mershon Center organizes speaker series, conferences, symposia, and workshops that bring together scholars, government officials, and business leaders from around the world to discuss the latest research in national and international security affairs.
See below for a description of all the different types of Mershon Center events that are held throughout each year.
The Mershon Center hosts a weekly lunch for conversation among our affiliates and interested others. Mershon Mondays are intended primarily as opportunities for Ohio State researchers in different disciplines, career stages, and professional networks to share ideas and perspectives on global security questions. Through regular, informal interaction, we aim to broaden the context and sharpen the focus for individual research as well as to lay the ground for research collaborations.
This weekly space gives us flexibility for last-minute opportunities, so there will be occasional guest presentations or panels on current events. We'd like to prioritize the work of our own affiliates, however: discussions of work in progress, presentation of recent projects or publications, and brainstorming sessions are all welcome. If you have an idea for a Mershon Monday, please get in touch with Dorry Noyes.
A light lunch will be served to attendees: given healthy attendance, we are now requesting advance registration.
The Mershon Center's Edgar S. Furniss Book Award commemorates the founding director of the Mershon Center and is given annually to an author whose first book makes an exceptional contribution to the study of national and international security. The award will consider any work that makes a theoretical and policy impact on our understanding any of the following themes:
- The use of force and diplomacy
- The ideas, identities, and decisional processes that affect security
- The institutions that manage violent conflicts.
The winning author is invited to address the Mershon Center community to discuss their book.
Each year the Mershon Center selects one lecture in honor of Joseph J. Kruzel, an Ohio State faculty member in political science who served in the U.S. Air Force as well as other posts in the federal government. Kruzel was killed in Sarajevo, Bosnia, in 1995 while serving as deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO affairs.
Past Kruzel Memorial Lectures include:
2016-17
Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, "The Crisis of Liberal Democracy"
2014-15
Henry Nau, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, "Conservative Internationalism: Armed Diplomacy Under Jefferson, Polk, Truman, and Reagan"
2013-14
Aaron Friedberg, professor of politics and international affairs, Princeton University, "A Contest for Supremacy: China, America and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia"
2012-13
Christopher Hill, Dean, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, and former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, "Trends in American Foreign Policy: What the Next Administration Will Face"
2010-11
Edward L. (Ted) Warner III, secretary of defense representative to New START and senior advisor for arms control and strategic stability, "New START Treaty and Beyond"
2008-09
Joseph Nye, Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations at Harvard University, "The Powers to Lead"
2007-08
Strobe Talbott, president, Brookings Institution, "Election of the Century: The American Presidency and the World"
2006-07
William Perry, Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor at Stanford University and former Secretary of Defense
2004-05
Eliot Cohen, Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at The Johns Hopkins University, "Armchair Killers"
2003-04
Walter Slocombe, former director of national security and defense, Coalition Provisional Authority, Iraq, and former undersecretary of defense for policy, "Future Security for Iraq"
The Mershon Center has long been a home for academic speaker series that brings scholars from other universities and government roles to Columbus to share their recent research and experiences with us.
The Mershon Center has been sponsoring a Citizenship Speaker Series since 2003. Here is a list of who has spoken at the center as part of this lecture series.
2018-19
Carol Graham
Brookings Institution
October 30, 2018
Geoff Sayre-McCord
University of North Carolina
November 16, 2018
Sally Haslanger
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
February 22, 2019
Richard John
University of Southern California
March 18, 2019
2017-18
Jenann Ismael
University of Arizona
March 30, 2017
Lori Fisler Damrosch
Columbia Law School
February 12, 2018
2016-17
Tommie Shelby
Harvard University
January 13, 2017
Colin Camerer
California Institute of Technology
November 28, 2016
2015-16
Cristina Bicchieri
University of Pennsylvania
February 19, 2016
Gary King
Harvard University
October 22, 2015
David Schmidtz
University of Arizona
September 25, 2015
2014-15
Richard Zeckhauser
Harvard University
March 11, 2015
Eldar Shafir
Princeton University
September 18, 2014
2013-14
Lance Bennett
University of Washington
April 7, 2014
Douglas MacLean
University of North Carolina
October 25, 2013
Orlando Patterson
Harvard University
October 1, 2013
2012-13
Elizabeth Anderson
University of Michigan
March 29, 2013
Rae Langton
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
February 25, 2013
Charles Griswold
Boston University
October 19, 2012
Rebecca Scott
University of Michigan
September 14, 2012
2011-12
Colleen Murphy
University of Illinois
February 10, 2012
Christopher Gelpi
Duke University
October 11, 2011
2010-11
Jim Glassman
University of British Columbia
May 10, 2011
Christine Korsgaard
Harvard University
April 1, 2011
Geoffrey Brennan
UNC-Duke
February 18, 2011
John Ferejohn
New York University
October 28, 2010
2009-10
Chris Bobonich
Stanford University
May 26, 2010
Susan Wolf
University of North Carolina
May 7, 2010
Susan Stokes
Yale University
October 9, 2009
2008-09
Jeff McMahan
Rutgers University
October 29, 2008
2007-08
Richard Bauman
Indiana University
April 4, 2008
Dennis Thompson
Harvard University
November 9, 2007
Seana Shiffrin
University of California-Los Angeles
October 26, 2007
2006-07
Tommie Shelby
Harvard University
May 4, 2007
Robert Adams
Oxford University
April 27, 2007
Charles Beitz
Princeton University
February 2, 2007
Michael Doyle
Columbia University
October 19, 2006
Theda Skocpol
Harvard University
September 25, 2006
2005-06
Thomas Hurka
University of Toronto
May 5, 2006
Danielle Allen
University of Chicago
April 7, 2006
Michael Blake
University of Washington
February 10, 2006
James C. Scott
Yale University
November 9, 2005
2004-05
Sam Scheffler
University of California, Berkeley
May 9, 2005
Jane Mansbridge
Harvard University
April 29, 2005
J. Donald Moon
Wesleyan University
January 14, 2005
Vaughan Lowe
Oxford University
November 4, 2004
T.M. Scanlon
Harvard University
October 29, 2004
Iris Marion Young
University of Chicago
October 21, 2004
2003-04
Rob Kroes
University of Amsterdam
April 23, 2004
Mathias Risse
Harvard University
April 16, 2004
Philip Allott
Cambridge University
March 30, 2004
Judith Butler
University of California, Berkeley
March 29, 2004
Julia Annas
University of Arizona
November 21, 2003
Democracy, Citizenship and Legitimacy: A Citizenship Mini-Conference
Melissa Williams, University of Toronto
David Estlund, Brown University
John McCormick, University of Chicago
October 24, 2003
2002-03
Elizabeth Kiss
Duke University
May 16, 2003
Barbara Herman
University of California-Los Angeles
May 5, 2003
Malcolm Schofield
Cambridge University
April 4, 2003
Martha Craven Nussbaum
University of Chicago
March 14, 2003
