Today it is not ideology but the promise of privileged access to resources and infrastructure that shapes geostrategic maneuvering in Central Asia. In fact today, nothing tells us more about the future of geopolitics in Central Asia than tracing infrastructure plans on the ground. For landlocked countries of Central Asia , connectivity is strategy. As for China, its strategy isn’t to formally occupy these Asian countries but to ease passage across them. It wins the new Great Game by building the new Silk Roads.

Foreign intervention played a decisive role in Libya's revolution. What lessons should be learned and what can be done by foreign powers now? How did oil contribute to Libya's fragmentation and can it now bring the country back together? Why are Libya's post-revolution governments so ineffective?

CLS provides funding for immersive summer study in one of thirteen critical languages in a host country. Depending on the language, programs are offered at beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels. Students of diverse disciplines and majors are encouraged to apply. U.S. citizenship is required. Deadline is November 16, 2016.

Drop-in advising sessions for applicants will be held on the 37th floor of the Cathderal of Learning at the following times:

Friday, November 4, 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM

The Global Studies Center and the Humanities Center invites the university community to participate in this year’s lecture series: Empire and Imperialism.

Throughout the year, we bring internationally-renowned scholars to campus to speak to our theme from their own (inter)disciplinary perspectives. Each of our guests presents a public lecture on Thursday afternoon at 5pm. This year’s seminar features four visitors:

Laura Doyla is Professor of English at UMass Amherst. Her research explores the dynamic intercultural formation of literary texts: the ways that they are written and read within an uneven, volatile, geopolitical field of relations; the ways that literary genres and traditions often intimate the long history of these writing conditions; and the ways authors and readers imagine positions at odds with the geopolitical field.

Sumatra Ramaswamy is Professor of History at Duke University. She is a cultural historian of South Asia and the British Empire and her research over the last few years has been largely in the areas of visual studies, the history of cartography, and gender. She is also pursing new research on the cultures of learning in colonial and postcolonial India.

Frederick Cooper is a Professor of History at NYU. His interests include slavery and labor in the 19th- and 20-th century East Africa, the shifting nature of colonial thinking and practices, and the relationship of social change and conflict to decolonization in French and British Africa. His work seeks to counter both the national and the modern bars of most historical studies through the study of empires.

Jeanne Morefield is a Professional Fellow at Australian Catholic University and a Professor of Politics at Whitman College. Her scholarship works at the intersection of political theory, history, and international relations, examining a variety of topics including the relationship between the contemporary and historical rhetorics of imperialism and the conflict between democracy and sovereignty.

The Global Studies Center and the Humanities Center invite applications from faculty to participate in this year’s faculty development seminar: Empire and Imperialism. The purpose of this seminar is to bring colleagues from the humanities and the social sciences (as well as cognate professional schools) together for a series of lectures and workshops in which they will jointly explore questions that highlight the urgency of thinking globally about the humanities and humanistically about globalization. (Advanced Ph.D. students who are ABD and writing on related topics may also apply.)