This event will explore the experiences of African-Americans who have studied, taught and conducted research in Russia or focusing on Slavic languages, literatures and cultures, an academic field in which they are seriously underrepresented. It will include interactive discussion among the speakers and audience on the unique challenges of studying and traveling, as part of an underrepresented minority, in a region of the world which has historically and recently had an uneasy relationship with racial diversity, despite official Soviet-era pronouncements on the “friendship of peoples.”

Sharon Kinoshita,works in Mediterranean Studies with Brian Catlos (History, UCSC), she co-directs the UCSC Center for Mediterranean Studies as well as the University of California Multicampus Research Project Initiative in Mediterranean Studies (http://mediterraneanseminar.org).

Songying Fang, Department of Political Science, Rice University and Randall W. Stone, Department of Political Science, University of Rochester

This lecture will be given by Martin Pudlik, Scientific Assistant at the Department of Geography RWTH Aachen University.

Lecture given by Cyryl Garus, Scientific Assistant at the Department of Geography RWTH Aachen University

Part of the Romanian Film Festival

Dr. V. Page Fortna

-Contrary to the conventional wisdom, terrorism is not a weapon of the weak, nor is it effective.

-Civil wars involving terrorism are harder to end.

-Terrorists do not win.

Panel presenters include:

Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, Asst. Prof. of English, St Olaf College--'Toward Truth and Reconciliation: Overseas Korean Adoptee and Unwed Mother Advocacy'

Eleana Kim, Asst. Prof. Anthropology, University of Rochester--'The Dry Eye of Adoption Politics: Testimony, Social Justice, and Representation Among Transnational Korean Adoptees'

Are Muslims friends or foes to America? How can we tell? Does Islam that unites Muslims divide them as well? How so? What does this mean to the U.S. foreign policy? These questions and others will be addressed by Professor Moataz Herzawi's talk in which he will dissect the phenomenon of Political Islamism from a Middle Eastern perspective. He will respond as well to several of the thorny questions that are haunting the American mind.

'The Vega Factor: Oil Volatility and Global Conflict', Kent F. Moors, Ph.D.

Kent Moors is Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Graduate Center for Social and Public Policy at Duquesne University, where he also directs the Energy Policy Research Group.