Lecture

Keynote Interview - Disability under Socialism: To be Seen, Helped, and Heard

Type: 
Friday, March 26, 2021 - 2:00pm
Event Location: 
Zoom

Disability activism developed in the second half of the twentieth century in a world divided by the Cold War. While the history of how Western activists learned to speak in the language of civil rights is well documented and publicly celebrated, the legacies of activists from the socialist countries have been largely erased after the collapse of the communist governments in 1989-1991.

U.S. National Security Decision-Making: The Structure and the Impact of Presidential Leadership

Type: 
Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - 10:00am to 11:30am
Event Location: 
Zoom

This presentation will explore the structure of decision-making on national security issues as established in the National Security Act of 1947 and as practiced today. While established by law, the US National Security Council is designed to advise the president; most decisions are ultimately up to him.

Irrigation, Cotton-Growing, and the Environment in Central Asia, 19th-21st Centuries

Type: 
Tuesday, March 16, 2021 - 11:30am
Event Location: 
Zoom

Studying water infrastructure is an excellent entry point to examine the nexus between the utilization of natural resources and technologies on the one hand, and of politics and everyday life on the other. The talk will first address important findings of a study on irrigation systems and cotton cultivation in Central Asia. Here, the Russian colonizers of the nineteenth century implemented ideas of modernity and transformation that lived on in the Soviet context.

Navalny and Next: Possibilities, Prognosis and Perceptions in Russia

Type: 
Monday, March 15, 2021 - 10:00am

After a botched attempt to poison Alexei Navalny in August 2020, the Kremlin has decided to sentence him to over two years in prison upon the oppositionist’s return to Russia in January. Navalny responded with a bombshell video about the corruption around “Putin’s Palace.” Unsanctioned, mass protests filled the two capitals and tens of provincial cities resulted. The protesters were met with mass, indiscriminate arrests, and police violence. The political ante in this back-and-forth has certainly risen but to what end?

A Model of US Foreign Policy: Capitalist Liberal Exceptionalism

Type: 
Monday, March 22, 2021 - 10:00am to 11:30am
Event Location: 
Zoom

The talk will present an American foreign policy model--capitalist liberal exceptionalism--that accounts for the US behaviors around the world. Most importantly, the model integrates multiple factors, including the international system and domestic politics, into the analysis, delivering a concise interpretation of US foreign policy over time since the foundation of the nation.