January 15, 2010
Francis J. Ricciardone Jr., US deputy ambassador to Afghanistan, described a continuing trend toward much more engaged public diplomacy during a visit to the Institute in November. Watch a video of the interview inside.
January 15, 2010
In a lecture last semester at the Watson Institute, director Noland Walker discussed his recent work in the documentary Egalite for All: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution and addressed the issues of reconstructing history for public consumption. Professor Barrymore Bogues of Brown University’s Africana Studies Department contributed to the discussion by putting the revolution in historical context.
January 14, 2010
The life and works of Aimé Césaire, “the foremost Black French intellectual-cum-politician of the 20th and 21st centuries,” are explored in a special new issue of French Politics, Culture & Society, based on a symposium held at Brown last year on the anniversary of his death.
January 14, 2010
In a lecture last semester, Rajmohan Gandhi, a leading public intellectual and the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, drew on the parallels between his grandfather and Martin Luther King, Jr., and also illustrated ways in which today's conflicts could be addressed by nonviolent means. Among these means are far wider and more serious dialogues among various cultures and countries, he said. Watch the video here.
January 13, 2010
International relations students can study gobal politics through various lenses this spring – with seminars including "Global Media: History/Theory/Production," "Political Psychology of International Relations," "Nationalism, Colonialism, Religion, and International Law," and others. There also is one IR lecture class for spring: "The Contemporary Transformation of the Modern State’s Security Apparatus. Critical Perspectives," by Philippe Bonditti. In Development Studies, Cornel Ban will again lead this semester's undergraduate seminar on "Methods in Development Research," and Richard Snyder will lead the graduate-level "Theory and Research in Development II." See the full listing inside.
January 11, 2010
Watson Institute Senior Fellow Sergei Khrushchev, assessing US-Russia relations during Barack Obama’s first year as president, this week told the Voice of America that the relationship is now much more pragmatic and based on common interests, such as the reduction of weapons of mass destruction. He predicted a peaceful coexistence between the two nations going forward.
January 6, 2010
The UN Security Council’s December reform of its policies and procedures for terrorist sanctions incorporated several provisions recommended in a report co-authored at the Watson Institute late last year. Mounting legal and parliamentary challenges to the use of targeted sanctions, which “play a central role in UN efforts to maintain peace and security,” posed serious threats to the Security Council’s ability to counter terrorism and prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, according to the October report, Addressing Challenges to Targeted Sanctions. The report presented options – from changes to the current UN review procedure, to measures at the national and regional level, and finally to proposals for the creation of a review mechanism at the UN Security Council level.
January 6, 2010
The Human Terrain documentary co-produced at Watson is featured in a Time article outlining the controversy about using social scientists in military operations. According to Human Terrain co-director James Der Derian, “the center of gravity’’ in Iraq and Afghanistan has shifted from the battlefield “to a psychological territory,” prompting a heated debate over how cultural knowledge should be integrated in current and future US wars.
January 4, 2010
Read a blog from December's Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, by Brown's Center for Environmental Studies Director J. Timmons Roberts and his students.