Events

To request special services, accommodations, or assistance for any events, please contact the Watson Institute at WatsonEvents@brown.edu or (401) 863-2809.

Events

To request special services, accommodations, or assistance for any events, please contact the Watson Institute at WatsonEvents@brown.edu or (401) 863-2809.

  • About the Event
     In August 2024, a mural reading “Palestina Livre: do Rio ao Mar” (Free Palestine, from the river to the sea) appeared at a major São Paulo intersection, igniting controversy amid the Israel-Gaza war. While critics condemned it as antisemitic, supporters framed it as solidarity with the Palestinian people. This incident highlighted Brazil’s deep entanglement with the Israel-Palestine conflict—an engagement that traces back not to May 1948 or October 7, 2023, but to a pivotal moment in 1979.

    In this talk Elmaleh determines and revisits 1979 as the year zero of this ongoing discourse in Brazil, with the arrival of Dr. Farid Sawan, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) representative to Brazil, and his demand to establish an official diplomatic office. Rapidly emerging as a flashpoint, a seemingly technical request turned what had once been a mostly distant geopolitical issue into a pressing domestic debate, sparking media polarization, diplomatic maneuvering and political divisions. Using theoretical framing of soft power and public diplomacy, this study explores how non-state and state actors shaped public opinion, revealing a critical episode in the intersection of transnational politics and diaspora activism under the Cold War ideological climate. More broadly, it triggers broader discussions on oil geopolitics, global power dynamics, and Brazil’s role within the evolving Global South.

    About the Speaker 
    Omri Elmaleh is a visiting assistant professor in Israel Studies at the Judaic Studies Program. He is a historian specializing in Latin America with deep expertise in Middle Eastern diasporas across the regions. His research examines the dynamic movements of people, goods, ideas and even animals between the Luso-Hispanic and Arab-Muslim worlds, uncovering overlooked connections that have shaped both geographies. By bridging Latin American and Middle Eastern studies, his work offers a transregional perspective on migration, identity, trade networks, international relations and cultural exchange.

  • Register Here

    About the Event

    The event will begin with a screening of the award-winning “Bring Them Home” documentary, which will last around thirty minutes. Then, Andrew and Rob will participate in a moderated panel discussion on the film and the deported veteran movement. Finally, audience members will have the opportunity to ask questions.

    About the Documentary

    “Bring Them Home” is a powerful award-winning documentary exploring the harrowing issue of deported veterans—a group who has honorably served yet finds themselves exiled by the very nation they defended. This gripping film reveals the harsh realities of non-citizen soldiers who confront the threat of deportation due to shifting immigration laws, intertwining personal sacrifice with national identity. Through intimate portraits, “Bring Them Home” spotlights the emotional and psychological battles these veterans face post-service—mental health struggles and moral injury—while they wage a larger fight for justice and re-entry into the U.S. It’s a stark examination of policy versus human cost, of citizenship entangled with service. Helmed by Tamara Jay and Rike Boomgaarden, Executive produced by Andrei Drei “Drei” Rosca, and Elaine Carmody and produced by Rob Young Walker, with Excuse My Accent and Dream Roots Creative, the documentary is a critical look at patriotism’s fine print, questioning who gets to call America home.

    About the Panelists

    Andrew Steinberg is an experienced grassroots organizer and researcher passionate about combining law, policy, and community organizing to create transformative change. He graduated magna cum laude with honors from Brown University, where his studies focused on the history of deported veterans and their advocacy. He is active in the deported veteran movement and served on the board of the Deported Veterans Support House, a shelter and community resource center for exiled ex-servicemembers in Tijuana, Mexico. He is currently completing a concurrent Juris Doctor degree at Georgetown Law and a Master in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

    Rob Young is an award-winning filmmaker, music artist, social entrepreneur, and humanitarian. As the founder of Excuse My Accent and CEO of Rob Young Productions, he focuses on creating platforms that invoke change through music, events, and film while uplifting inner cultural non-profit initiatives.

    Through his commitment to spreading awareness of social issues, Rob has been a formative speaker on DE&I and a creative visionary. His work ranges from an award-winning film about deported veterans, “Bring Them Home,” which was shown at the United States Capitol building, leading over 50 legislators to sign on to the Veteran Service Recognition Act. This marquee event was in partnership with prominent non-profits ImmDef, ACLU, and LULAC. This impactful documentary short spawned from his hit record “Excuse My Accent,” further showing his ability to utilize creativity in all facets to uplift impactful conversations. Rob is also a creative visionary working with many organizations, including the National Alliance of Mental Illness, the Washington State Department of Equity, the first ever in United States government history, and more.

  • This new photography exhibition is sponsored by Art at Watson and features the photography of Leslie Starobin taken during a “roots journey” to Poland, coupled with memories from family members who survived the Holocaust.

    Exhibit open February 13 - May 30

    Stephen Robert ’62 Hall, 280 Brook Street, The Agora

    Artist statement:

    “Looming in the Shadows of Lodz” was inspired by a roots journey I made to Poland in 2019 with my husband and children. We traveled on the 75th anniversary of our relatives’ deportation to Auschwitz from the Lodz Ghetto, the last one to be liquidated by the Nazis. In Lodz, I photographed the Altman family residences, the cemetery where they hid from the Nazis, and the Radegast train station where they boarded cattle cars to the death camp.

    After visiting Auschwitz, we flew to Israel, where my husband’s aunt lives. At 95, Dorka

    Berger (née Altman) is the only relative alive to contribute to this multi-generational project. She poured over our photos and film footage, revealing new memories of the past.

    In July 1945, when 15-year-old Dorka penned her “Diary of Dwojra Altman,” she was haunted by the atrocities she witnessed, and she was mourning the loss of her parents. Now, she aspires to fulfill Jewish tradition — “l’haggid” — “And you should tell your children.”

    My “photo narratives” are framed by quotes I collected over three decades from Dorka and her older sister, Tola (my mother-in-law). By layering memories of the past onto visual depictions of the present, I am asking viewers to shift between text and image and between memory and place as they view these topographies of trauma across time and space.

    When speaking in Hebrew throughout our conversations, Dorka and Tola referred to Nazis as “Germans.” I chose to adhere to their language in the photo narratives as they were speaking about their past experiences.

    Made with generous support from the Combined Jewish Philanthropies Arts & Culture Community Impact Grant Fund, “Marching All Night: The Testimony of Dorka Berger née Altman” will screen on opening night. It can also be seen by scanning the QR code. Ori Segev, who is the third generation to inherit and tell this family story, filmed and edited the video.

  • Ambassador Jorge Heine will join this week’s China Chat for a discussion of Sino-Latin American Relations under the new Trump administration.

    Ambassador Jorge Heine is a lawyer, IR scholar and diplomat with a special interest in the international politics of the Global South. Before joining Boston University, he was Public Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. (2018-2019). He has served as ambassador of Chile to China (2014-2017), to India (2003-2007) and to South Africa (1994-1999), and as a Cabinet Minister in the Chilean Government. A past Vice-President of the International Political Science Association (IPSA), he was CIGI Professor of Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University, from 2007 to 2017, and a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). He has been a Guggenheim Fellow; a Visiting Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford University; a United Nations Research Fellow at the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC); a Visiting Professor of Political Science at the University of Konstanz; and the Pablo Neruda Visiting Professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Paris.

  • About the Event

    Carla Yumatle presents a new definition of populism based on the “creation of a new social actor,” as its necessary condition. This approach to populism has two implications. First, it shows that today’s democratic discontent could not be properly understood through the lenses of populism. Second, it suggests that populism, thus defined, was possible under certain structural historical social conditions that today have been eroded.

    About the Speaker:

    Carla Yumatle is currently the R.F. Kennedy Visiting Professor at Harvard University, and was the Fortabat Visiting Scholar at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University in the Fall 2024. She teaches political theory at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (Argentina). She earned her PhD in Political Science from University of California, Berkeley, a Masters from London School of Economics, and her postdoctoral research at Brown University in the Political Theory Project. She published on liberalism, pluralism and human rights. She co-edited El mundo visto desde América Latina (2024) and La sociedad civil en América Latina: transformaciones y rupturas recientes(forthcoming, October 2025). She is currently working on various projects such as the erosion of democracy; populism; an analysis of the ideal of democracy in the first transitional government in Argentina; and the new conceptions of human rights held by different actors in civil society in Latin America.

    About the Series:

    Graduate students and faculty affiliated with the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies are invited to present their work at this roundtable luncheon series. Faculty and graduate student research presentations will alternate on a biweekly basis.

    All are welcome.

  • This new photography exhibition is sponsored by Art at Watson.  The photographs by Robert Nickelsberg offer a visual historical record of the first years of the civil war in El Salvador that is significant in the range and depth of its coverage of the conflict and illuminating in its critical view of the United States’ involvement, which was an important test of Cold War counterinsurgency strategy after the Vietnam war. The images of the violence and death form the foundational period that forced many Salvadorans to flee north to the U.S. creating the chaos and political gridlock along the U.S.-Mexican border.

    Exhibit open February 19 to May 30, 2025

    2nd Floor, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street

  • From its inception, Israel has defined itself as both Jewish and democratic—a dual identity that has shaped the nation’s history and continues to generate deep tensions. Over the past two years, the most turbulent since the state’s founding, these tensions have intensified, deepening political, social, and religious divisions. This lecture will explore the key challenges facing Israel’s democratic institutions, social fabric, and future as a shared society.

    Masua Sagiv is the Koret Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish and Israel Studies at University of California, Berkeley, and Senior Faculty at the Shalom Hartman Institute based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Dr. Sagiv’s scholarly work focuses on contemporary Judaism in Israel as a culture, a religion, and a nationality, as well as being part of Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state. Her research explores the role of law, state actors, and civil society organizations in promoting social change across diverse issues: shared society, religion and gender, religion and state, and Jewish peoplehood. Her book, Radical Conservatism (in Hebrew), on the halakhic feminist struggle in Israel, was published by Carmel Publishing House in 2024.

  • TM Krishna is a distinguished Karnatik musician known for his pioneering approach to Indian classical music. Since the early 90s, he has expanded the boundaries of the genre through innovative performances and thought-provoking collaborations. Trained by esteemed gurus, his concerts blend traditional rigor with personal expression, appealing to both classical aficionados and new audiences.

    Beyond music, Krishna is a writer, researcher, and critic, actively engaging with social issues and championing inclusivity in the arts. His influential book A Southern Music – The Karnatik Story explores the intersection of art, politics, and culture, earning him the 2014 Tata Literature Award. Krishna’s collaborations span diverse communities, including partnerships with environmentalists, transgender musicians, and contemporary writers like Perumal Murugan.

    Recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2016, Krishna continues to reshape the landscape of Karnatik music and its role in social change. His work encompasses musical productions, advocacy, and festivals like the Chennai Kalai Theru Vizha and Svanubhava, making him one of India’s most influential contemporary artists.

    Learn More
  • Register here

    Investigative journalists Nick Turse and Azmat Khan will discuss Turse’s new Costs of War report on risks to war reporters and impoverished understandings of global conflict. Moderated by Stephanie Savell, Director, Costs of War. 

    We will be discussing Nick Turse’s forthcoming Costs of War report, which covers how threats to journalists in conflict zones are increasing at a time when journalism is under unprecedented threat and the news industry is mired in a decades-long downward spiral. Since the 2000s, national governments and terrorist groups – from Israel, Syria’s Assad regime and the United States to the Islamic State – have found ways to curtail conflict coverage through myriad means, from repressive policies to armed attack. All have killed journalists and helped to foster a culture of impunity, turning conflict zones like Syria and Gaza into “news graveyards.” 

    Most reporters harmed or killed, as is the case in Gaza, are local journalists. This outsourcing of risk not only imperils the lives of local reporters, leaving them to stand alone in the face of extraordinary violence, but impairs news coverage and, as a result, the worldwide information ecosystem. The decreasing number of experienced foreign correspondents in conflict zones has crippled critical knowledge and helped facilitate the creation of news graveyards. 

    Nick Turse is an investigative reporter, a fellow at the Type Media Center, the managing editor of TomDispatch.com, a contributing writer at The Intercept, and the co-founder of Dispatch Books. He is the author, most recently, of Next Time They’ll Come to Count the Dead: War and Survival in South Sudan as well as the New York Times bestseller Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam, which received a 2014 American Book Award. His previous books include Tomorrow’s Battlefield, The Changing Face of Empire, The Complex, and The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan. He has reported from the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Africa and written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Harper’s Magazine, Vice News, Yahoo News, Teen Vogue, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, and BBC.com, among other print and online publications.

    Azmat Khan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter whose work grapples with the human costs of war. She is an investigative reporter for both the New York Times and New York Times Magazine, a Carnegie Fellow, and the Birch Assistant Professor at Columbia Journalism School, where she also leads the Li Center for Global Journalism.

  • At the 6th Brown-MIT Doctoral Development Workshop doctoral students interested in development will present their work-in-progress to familiar and new audiences. The workshop is co-organized by the Graduate Program in Development (GPD) at Brown University and the International Development Group (IDG) in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) at MIT.

    Brown-MIT Doctoral Development Workshop
    Graduate Program in Development (Watson Institute at Brown)&
    The International Development Group (DUSP-MIT)

    This years’ conference will be held on the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

     

    Friday April 4, 2025

    Please note that morning sessions will be held in room 9-415. Lunch and afternoon sessions will be held in room 9-217

    10:30-10:40

    Welcome, introductions and workshop framing

    Patrick Heller (Brown) and Jason Jackson (MIT)

     

    10:40-12:30 Session 1

    “Urban Adaptation Financing for Rapidly Growing Amazonian Cities” Mrinalini Penumaka (MIT) and Sylvia Jiménez Riofríoa (MIT)

    Discussant: Maria Arievitch (Brown)

    “Public Goods with Corporate Sponsors” Sai Pitre (Brown)

    Discussant: Benjamin Muñoz Rojas(MIT)

     

    11:30-11:40 mini-break

    “China’s High-tech, Low-road trap” JS Tan (MIT)

    Discussant: Yitong Liu (Brown)

    “The Fiscal and Financial Roots of Unfinished Residential Construction: Evidence from China and India” Aidon Li

    Discussant: Chenab Navalkha (MIT)

     

    12:30-1:30 Lunch

     

    1:30-2:20 - Session 2

    “The Multispecies Caste Economy, Violence, and Autonomy along Chittagong’s Karnafuli River” Anabelle Suitor (Brown)

    Discussant: Mrinalini Penumaka (MIT)

    “Resistance in Women’s Work: A View from the Indian Platform Economy” Amrita Nair (MIT)

    Discussant: Yulin Yang (Brown)

     

    2:20-2:30 mini-break

    “Solar Demand of Small Firms: Evidence from Kenya” Jiayue Zhang (Brown)

    Discussant: TBD (MIT)

    “On God, investors, and copper: A dispute for the origin of the value of nature”” Diego Alonso (MIT)

    Discussant: Aidon Li (Brown)

    3:20-3:45 Coffee Break

     

    3:45-5:00 Session 3

    “Punishment Before Guilt: Media, Punitiveness, and the Rise of Pretrial Detention” Benjamin Muñoz Rojas(MIT)

    Discussant: Jiayue Zhang (Brown)

    “Central Banking in Growth Models in the Global South”

    Sanghyun Cho and Soeun Kim (Brown)

    Discussant: JS Tan (MIT)

    “Globalization in an increasingly borderized world” Adeposi Adeogun (MIT)

    Discussant: Anabelle Suitor (Brown)

  • *Lunch provided*

    The power to create money is foundational to the state. In the United States, that power has been largely delegated to private banks governed by an independent central bank. Putting monetary policy in the hands of a set of insulated, non-elected experts has fueled the popular rejection of expertise as well as a widespread dissatisfaction with democratically elected officials. In Our Money, Leah Downey makes a principled case against central bank independence (CBI) by both challenging the economic theory behind it and developing a democratic rationale for sustaining the power of the legislature to determine who can create money and on what terms. How states govern money creation has an impact on the capacity of the people and their elected officials to steer policy over time. In a healthy democracy, Downey argues, the balance of power over money creation matters.

    Audience Q & A to follow.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Leah Downey is a junior research scholar at St. John’s College, Cambridge where she works on democratic theory and macroeconomic policymaking. Downey holds B.A.s in Mathematics and Economics from UNC Chapel Hill, an MSc in Economics & Philosophy from the LSE, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University. Her research considers the democratic implications of how states make policy. As such, she has written on topics including the administrative state, monetary policy, macrofinance and the green transition, and the meaning of security in politics and economics.

    Live Stream

  • Join us for a compelling discussion with David Wade, Founder and Managing Director of Greenlight Strategies, LLC. Wade served as Chief of Staff to Senator John Kerry, both during his time in the Senate and when he became Secretary of State. He also served as National Press Secretary for Vice President Joe Biden during the 2012 Obama campaign.

    In this session, Wade will share insights from his distinguished career in public service, discussing the intricacies of working in the Senate, managing the communications strategy for a presidential campaign, and navigating the challenges of global diplomacy. He’ll provide a behind-the-scenes look at the intersection of politics, press, and policy, and offer valuable lessons for those interested in strategic communications and political leadership.

  • Please join the Center for Language Studies and the Center for Middle East Studies for: “A Conversation on Türkiye’s Past and Future: A Discussion with Garo Paylan and Hosted by Stephen Kinzer”.

    This special discussion brings together a respected former member of parliament, Garo Paylan, as a guest speaker and a Türkiye expert, Senior Fellow in International and Public Affairs at the Watson Institute, author, and journalist Stephen Kinzer, as a host for a thoughtful conversation about the historical and contemporary challenges faced by minority communities in Türkiye.

    Together, they will talk about governmental policies and minorities from the last centuries of the Ottoman Empire to modern-day Türkiye, providing context for understanding current issues and developments.

    This event is being sponsored by the Charles K. Colver Lectureships & Publications Fund. 

  • AI for Impact and Justice

    A special roundtable event

    This roundtable will convene leading voices from NGOs, foundations, academia, and tech companies to critically examine the potential of AI for human rights and humanitarian work.

    Event Schedule

    2:00 - 3:00 PM | NGOs Bending the Arc of AI towards Impact and Justice

    • Sarah Spencer, EthicAI
    • Megan McGuire, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors without Borders

    3:00 - 3:30 PM | Coffee Break 

    Tea, coffee, and light snacks will be provided.

    3:30 - 4:00 PM | Fireside chat with Devshi Mehrotra, Founder and CEO of Justice Text

    Join Malika Saada Saar as she speaks with Devshi Mehrotra, the Founder and CEO of Justice Text, an AI-powered body cam analysis tool that allows attorneys to search the text and match it with the video.

    4:00 - 5:00 PM | Foundations and Corporations: the Commitment to AI for Impact

    • Margo Drakos, DRK Foundation 
    • Beth Goldberg, Jigsaw
    • Abdulhamid Haidar, Darsel

    5:00 - 6:00 PM | Reception

    Light refreshments will be provided.

  • TM Krishna is a distinguished Karnatik musician known for his pioneering approach to Indian classical music. Since the early 90s, he has expanded the boundaries of the genre through innovative performances and thought-provoking collaborations. Trained by esteemed gurus, his concerts blend traditional rigor with personal expression, appealing to both classical aficionados and new audiences.

    Beyond music, Krishna is a writer, researcher, and critic, actively engaging with social issues and championing inclusivity in the arts. His influential book A Southern Music – The Karnatik Story explores the intersection of art, politics, and culture, earning him the 2014 Tata Literature Award. Krishna’s collaborations span diverse communities, including partnerships with environmentalists, transgender musicians, and contemporary writers like Perumal Murugan.

    Recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2016, Krishna continues to reshape the landscape of Karnatik music and its role in social change. His work encompasses musical productions, advocacy, and festivals like the Chennai Kalai Theru Vizha and Svanubhava, making him one of India’s most influential contemporary artists.

    Learn More

  • In this lecture, Jared Koelling will describe leadership lessons gleaned from personal successes and failures throughout the past 20+ years in the Army. These lessons can be applied to become a more self-aware and effective leader and teammate –in any field– as you work to achieve your personal and team goals.

    Colonel Jared Koelling is a military fellow and visiting scholar at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. He is an Army officer who most recently served as the Deputy Commander for the 2nd Brigade, 78th Training Division, where he led the planning, development, and execution of Guardian Response exercises, focused on Defense Support of Civil Authorities. He has served in various leadership and staff roles, including an assignment as a Simulation Operations planner on the Joint Staff, providing support to US European Command and US Indo-Pacific Command joint training exercises.

    Colonel Koelling holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he also received his commission as an Army Aviation officer in 2003. Jared also holds a Master of Arts degree in Vietnamese Studies, received from Vietnam National University – University of Social Sciences and Humanities.

  • TM Krishna is a distinguished Karnatik musician known for his pioneering approach to Indian classical music. Since the early 90s, he has expanded the boundaries of the genre through innovative performances and thought-provoking collaborations. Trained by esteemed gurus, his concerts blend traditional rigor with personal expression, appealing to both classical aficionados and new audiences.

    Beyond music, Krishna is a writer, researcher, and critic, actively engaging with social issues and championing inclusivity in the arts. His influential book A Southern Music – The Karnatik Story explores the intersection of art, politics, and culture, earning him the 2014 Tata Literature Award. Krishna’s collaborations span diverse communities, including partnerships with environmentalists, transgender musicians, and contemporary writers like Perumal Murugan.

    Recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2016, Krishna continues to reshape the landscape of Karnatik music and its role in social change. His work encompasses musical productions, advocacy, and festivals like the Chennai Kalai Theru Vizha and Svanubhava, making him one of India’s most influential contemporary artists.

    Learn More

  • The Taubman Center is honored to present the Noah Krieger ’93 Memorial Lecture featuring Justice Stephen Breyer, retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Justice Breyer will share insights from his distinguished career and discuss the themes of constitutional interpretation and democracy explored in Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism. 

    This event offers a rare opportunity to hear from one of the most influential legal minds of our time, reflecting on the role of the judiciary, the evolving meaning of the Constitution, and its impact on contemporary governance.

    The conversation will be moderated by Justin Driver, Brown alumnus and Robert R. Slaughter Professor of Law at Yale Law School.

    REGISTER NOW

  • Rajdeep Sardesai, is an award winning senior journalist, author, tv news presenter. His latest book 2024: The Election That Surprised India is a national best seller as were his previous books 2014: The Election that changed India and 2019: How Modi won India which have been translated into different languages , His book Democracy’s Eleven’: The Great Story of Indian cricket was shortlisted by MCC Lords as cricket book of the year in 2017-18 .

    Currently the consulting editor and lead news anchor of the India Today group, he has over three decades of journalistic experience in print and television. He was the founder editor of the IBN 18 network which included CNN IBN, IBN 7 and IBN Lokmat. Prior to that, he was Managing Editor of both NDTV 24X7 and NDTV India and was responsible for overseeing the news policy for both the channels. He has also worked with The Times of India for 6 years and was city editor of its Mumbai edition at the age of 26.
    During his long career in journalism, he has covered major national and international stories, specialising in national politics. He has won more than 50 awards for journalistic excellence, including the prestigious Padma Shri for Journalism in 2008, the International Broadcasters award for coverage of the 2002 Gujarat riots, the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism award in 2007 and the 2019 Prem Bhatia award for political journalism for analysis of the 2019 elections. The first Indian to win the Asian Television award for both talk show and news presentation, he has been News Anchor of the year at the Indian Television Academy a record ten times. In 2020, he was conferred with the Lifetime achievement award at the annual news broadcasting awards, He has been the President of the Editors Guild of India and was also chosen as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum. Sardesai writes a fortnightly column across several newspapers, including the Dainik Bhaskar. He has his own blogsite and is the third most followed journalist in the world on social media site, Twitter. A graduate of St Xaviers college, he has completed his Masters and LLB from Oxford University and played first class cricket at Oxford and captained Mumbai schools.

    Learn More

  • This talk examines the global turn in cinematic technology and infrastructure towards a wider, stretched, horizontal film screen amid the Cold War, as embodied in the fervor over CinemaScope in both socialist China and Western capitalist countries. I argue that the simultaneous rise of CinemaScope in the 1950s and ’60s on both sides of the Iron Curtain, on the one hand, registered shared structures of feeling in socialist and capitalist countries alike, wherein filmgoers sought visceral escape from the horrific and apocalyptic realities of the Cold War through the enhanced immersive realism; on the other hand, this transnational movement of widescreen technology led to a revival, in both the United States and socialist China, of the frontier western genre, which was retooled as an important vehicle in the domestic governance of the southwestern frontier area and politics of the “discovery of ethnic minorities” in socialist China. I explore the complex connections between cinematic technological development, transnational film genre migrations, and the politics of identifying, representing, and governing ethnic minorities in their native land in the People’s Republic of China. Challenging the narrative of “technological competition” between socialist and capitalist camps that currently dominates scholarship on the technological history of the Cold War, I present a vision of the existence of a cinematic universe in which vibrant transnational movements of film form, technology, and infrastructure penetrated Cold War borders and undermined geopolitical separationism.

    Chuanhui Meng is a Watson China Initiative postdoctoral research associate in the Department of East Asian Studies at Brown University. She completed her Ph.D. in Asian Literatures, Cultures, and Media at University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, with a minor in Moving Image Studies. Her areas of specialization include modern and contemporary Chinese film and culture, with a particular interest in transnational migrations and translations of film genres, border-crossing circulations of film and media in the global 1950s and ’60s, as well as ecocritical studies of socialist and post-socialist China. Her current book project examines the formation of a “genre ecology” in socialist Chinese cinema of the 1950s and ’60s. It explores the domestic experiments as well as transnational constellation, circulation, and translation of film genres across Cold War geopolitical borders, tracing film genre as a dynamic process of becoming that mediates between the domestic cultural-political environment, transnational migrations of film forms and theories, and the affective and embodied experiences of audiences.

  • Alden Young, Associate Professor of History and Jackson School of Global Affairs, Yale University, will join the Graduate Program in Development to discuss “The Afrabians: African views on the rise of the Arab Gulf states”

    This talk, drawn from Prof Young’s upcoming book, will examine how African intellectuals and activists thought about the rise of the Arab Gulf states during the 1970s and early 1980s. What sorts of cooperation or competition did they believe would occur? Did they conceive of the Red Sea as a region of connection or a barrier to exchange? 

  • Middle East Colloquium

    About the Event
    This talk examines the relationship between the concepts of “transcription” and “transition” in the development of Jean Sénac’s poetics, paying close attention to his engagements with Algerian būqāla poetry,a genre of oral texts recited by women in Algerian Arabic. As a Francophone pied-noir intellectual committed to Algerian independence, Sénac understood French as a “transitional language” to be employed only while a new Arabophone literary class could emerge. Driven by his exploration of būqāla poetry, Sénac thus abstracted transcription, an ethnographic practice with considerable colonial roots in Algeria, into a translational paradigm that allowed him to maintain his authority as a Francophone Algerian poet––an authority whose ultimate purpose was to negate itself. An analysis of key poems written and translated between the early 50s and late 60s allows us to observe how transcription became a conceptual paradigm through which Sénac reconfigured his relationship to the “voice of the people,” and his status as an anticolonial and Third-Worldist poet.

     

    About the Speaker
    Maru Pabón is an assistant professor of comparative literature at Brown University. She received her Ph.D. in comparative literature at Yale University with a certificate of concentration in Middle East Studies. Her current book project examines efforts to construct the “voice of the people” across Palestinian, Cuban, and Algerian Third-Worldist poetry. Along with Laure Guirguis, she is the co-editor of the volume “Art and Politics Between the Arab World and Latin America,” forthcoming with Brill in Spring 2025. Her writing and research has appeared in Middle Eastern Literatures, Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research, Bidoun, Momus, and Bidayat.

  • This conference brings together journalists, academics, and press freedom advocates to examine the status of media freedom and democracy in Africa, and how journalists and academics can collaborate in advancing free speech and democracy. 

    • Thursday, April 17, 1:30 - 6:30
    • Friday, April 18, 9:00 - 5:00

    In recent years, threats to freedom of the press in Africa have increased substantially with alarming implications. Throughout the continent, journalists face physical, verbal, and online attacks. Measures aimed at intimidating, silencing, and punishing those deemed as threats include imprisonment, displacement, and de facto exile. As of December 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported that 67 journalists were imprisoned across Africa, which is nearly 20% of the 361 journalists jailed globally. In addition to arbitrary imprisonment, African countries are increasingly weaponizing laws against journalists, using national security, antiterror and cybercrime legislation to justify crackdowns on free speech and democratic expression. While these developments are not unique to Africa, the continent has experienced various kinds of authoritarian and antidemocratic regimes (from elected autocrats to military dictators and kleptocratic civilian presidents) that particularly are threatened by and antagonistic towards a free and vibrant press. How have journalists in Africa responded to these authoritarian regimes and their continuing crackdowns on free speech and media freedom? What lessons can we learn from African media responses to democratic backsliding in Africa and beyond? What role can the academy play in advancing free speech and media freedom? How can journalists and academics collaborate in promoting democracy and protecting free speech?

  • John H. McWhorter is an associate professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University. He earned his B.A. from Rutgers, his M.A. from New York University, and his Ph.D. in linguistics from Stanford. 

    Professor McWhorter is an author of more than twenty books including The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language, Losing the Race: Self Sabotage in Black America and Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English. In 2016 he published Words on the Move: Why English Won’t - and Can’t - Sit Still (Like, Literally), while in 2021 he published Nine Nasty Words and Woke Racism. He also writes a weekly column for The New York Times and hosts the language podcast Lexicon Valley. 

    Glenn C. Loury, Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences at Brown University, is an academic economist who has made scholarly contributions to the fields of welfare economics, income distribution, game theory, industrial organization, and natural resource economics. He is also a prominent social critic and public intellectual, having published over 200 articles in journals of public affairs in the U.S. and abroad on the issues of racial inequality and social policy. A Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a past Vice President of the American Economics Association, Prof. Loury has been a visiting scholar at Oxford, Tel Aviv University, the University of Stockholm, the Delhi School of Economics, the Institute for the Human Sciences in Vienna, and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and was for many years a contributing editor at The New Republic magazine.

  • Tightening US export restrictions of semiconductor technology toward China has become a key realm of tension between the two countries. What made this “chip war” highly disruptive was the considerable US-China interdependence in semiconductors prior to the conflict, made possible by relaxing US export control in the 1990s and 2000s. This talk discusses how US-China relations in semiconductors evolved. Going beyond structural and state-centered accounts, it highlights the role of business interests and contingencies in the turn from interdependence to conflict.

    Yan Xu is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in International and Public Affairs at the Watson Institute. He studies comparative and international political economy, with focuses on technology, state-business relations, and China. His book project examines the rise of a vibrant tech startup sector in China — now the world’s second largest — and its impact on the country’s advance in high-tech. He has also conducted research on the relations between the state and top business tycoons in China, and U.S. dominance of the global semiconductor industry. He completed his Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Chicago.

  • We will answer this question in relation to Nazi aspirations, relocation, the ubiquity of Holocaust places, mass removal of Jewish bodies, hiding, and lasting scars and silences in the landscape.

    This event is part of the April 25-26 conference:

    The Spatial Turn in Holocaust and Genocide Studies: Space, Place and Mapping

     

    Anne Kelly Knowles is a Historical Geographer and is the McBride Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Maine, where she leads the Digital & Spatial History Lab. She is the recipient of many grants and awards, including six grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her range of interests is reflected in monographs on Welsh immigration and the U.S. iron industry and edited volumes on historical GIS and the geographies of the Holocaust. Anne’s Holocaust research focuses on building, analyzing, and sharing spatio-temporal datasets of SS camps, Eastern European ghettos, and places in testimony. She is currently developing an atlas of the Holocaust.

    Paul B. Jaskot is Professor of Art History & German Studies at Duke University. He is also the Director of the Digital Art History & Visual Culture Research Lab. Jaskot’s work focuses on the political history of culture during the Nazi period.

    Tim Cole’s research ranges widely across social, landscape and environmental histories with a focus on the Holocaust and how it is remembered. He works in the digital humanities and co-produced research with communities and creatives.

  • The workshop brings together specialists engaged in employing new digital mapping technologies to uncover spatial patterns during genocide, with the goal of exploring sources, methods and findings.

    Open to Brown University only. Registration is required.

    Please your Brown email address and register here.

     

    CONFERENCE AGENDA:

    Thursday, April 25, 2025, 4:00–5:30 Keynote - “Where Was the Holocaust?”

    True North Classroom, Stephen Robert ’62 Hall, 280 Brook Street

    • Presenter: Anne Kelly Knowles
    • Authors: Anne Kelly Knowles, Tim Cole, and Paul B. Jaskot
    • Anne Knowles, University of Maine [organizer]
    • With Tim Cole, University of Bristol [organizer] and Paul Jaskot, Duke University [organizer] - Placing the Holocaust

    Friday, April 25, 2025

    9:00-10:30 Panel 1: Physical Evidence and the Forensics of Genocide

    • Waitman Beorn, Northumbria University, UK - Visualizing Janowska

    11:00–12:30 Panel 2: The Everywhereness of Genocide

    • Miranda Brethour, CUNY - The Holocaust in Rural Poland
    • Mael Le Noc, Memorial de la Shoah, Paris, France - Movements of the Jewish Population of France during and after the Holocaust

    2:00–3:30 Panel 3: Mapping Violence, Displacement, and Genocide

    • Meghan Kelly, Syracuse - New Typologies and Cartographies of Refugee Displacement
    • Maja Kruse, UMaine - Mapping Holocaust Landscapes

    4:00–5:30 Panel 4: Planning Space and Place

    • Paul Jaskot, Duke [organizer] - Planning and Building Housing as Central to Holocaust Perpetrators and Victims
    • Angelike Koenigseder, TU Berlin - The Concentration Camp in the Village: Camps and their Spatial Context

    Saturday, April 26, 2025

    9:00–10:30 Panel 5: Experiencing Place and Space

    • Tim Cole, Bristol, UK [organizer] - Spatial Planning and Survival by Victims
    • Chad Gibbs, College of Charleston - Gender, Social Networks and Geographies of Jewish Resistance at Treblinka

    11:00–1:00 Roundtable: Comparative Spatial Patterns of Mass Violence and Genocide

    • James Tyner, Kent State - Genocide and the Geographical Imagination: Germany, China, Cambodia
    • Alberto Giordano, Texas State - Migrant Deaths at the Southern Border
    • Frances Tanzer, Clark University
    • Omer Bartov, Brown [organizer] - Local Genocide and Oral Accounts in Comparative Perspective

    Discussants: Tim Cole, Paul Jaskot, Meghan Kelly, Anne Knowles

  • Join us for a conversation with Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch who will discuss his book Righting Wrongs with Ieva Jusionyte.

    Audience Q & A will follow the talk.

    Lunch provided.

  • Presenting the fourth William R. Rhodes ’57 Ethics of Capitalism annual lecture:

    How did business ethics come to be understood as something different from plain-old ethics? This lecture locates that departure in the middle decades of the nineteenth-century United States, specifically to the frictions that emerged from inter-regional commerce between Northern manufacturers and Southern slaveholders. The politics of slavery and abolition functioned in surprising ways to construct the business sector as a space where different rules applied. The outcome was a new notion of the market as a space functioning most efficiently when pesky concerns of morality did not intrude.

    Q & A to follow moderated by Mark Blyth, Director of the Rhodes Center for International Economics & Finance.

    ABOUT THE SPEAKER

    Seth Rockman is a historian of the United States focusing on the period between the American Revolution and the Civil War. His research unfolds at the intersection of slavery studies, labor history, material culture studies, and the history of capitalism. Rockman’s latest book, Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery (2024), is an eye-opening rethinking of nineteenth-century American history that reveals the interdependence of the Northern industrial economy and Southern slave labor.

  • Prophecies that the dollar will lose its status as the world’s dominant currency have echoed for decades—and are increasing in volume. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts claim that Bitcoin or other blockchain-based monetary units will replace the dollar. Foreign policy hawks warn that China’s renminbi poses a lethal threat to the greenback. And sound money zealots predict that mounting US debt and inflation will surely erode the dollar’s value to the point of irrelevancy.

    Contra the doomsayers, Paul Blustein shows that the dollar’s standing atop the world’s currency pyramid is impregnable, barring catastrophic policy missteps by the US government. Recounting how the United States has wielded the dollar to impose devastating sanctions against adversaries, Blustein explains that although targets such as Russia have found ways to limit the damage, Washington’s financial weaponry will retain potency long into the future. His message, however, is that America must not be complacent about the dollar; the great power that its supremacy confers comes with commensurate responsibility.

    Audience Q & A to follow.

    ABOUT THE SPEAKER

    Paul Blustein has written about economic issues for more than 40 years, first as a reporter at leading news organizations and later as the author of several critically acclaimed books. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, Paul spent much of his career reporting for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. He lives in Kamakura, Japan.

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