Skip to content

News

News Archive 2011

Author Sees Defense Contractor Embedded in US Government

March 17, 2011

“Lockheed Martin has morphed into a multi-faceted conglomerate that works for almost every agency of the federal government – the Pentagon, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, the Census Bureau, and others,” said William Hartung, of the largest defense contractor in the world. As the first speaker in the Institute’s new Eisenhower Farewell Speech Series, Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New American Foundation, analyzed the embeddedness and influence of Lockheed Martin in our society, to provide his view of the military-industrial complex in the United States. He recently published a book on the company, Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex (Nation Books, December 2010).

'Focus on Freedom' Screening Supports Iranian Filmmaker Panahi

March 16, 2011

“Even in prison, Panahi creates, and even as he is released, he remains imprisoned.” So writes Shiva Balaghi, a fellow at Brown’s Cogut Center for the Humanities, in an essay inspired by last weekend’s screening of the work of Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi at the Watson Institute. Organizing the screening of The White Balloon as part of the Brown Afghanistan Working Group and a related film series, Balaghi also spoke on a panel following the film with Huss Banai, a Brown PhD candidate in politics, and Benjamin Hyman ’11.

Call for Safety of NY Times Reporters in Libya

March 16, 2011

On April 12, 2010, the very day Anthony Shadid received his second Pulitzer Prize, he presented the Peter Green Lectures at Brown University. The New York Times Beirut Bureau Chief, Shadid has been covering the uprisings in Libya. As scholars and students of the Watson Institute for International Studies, we have gleaned tremendous insights on the Middle East from Shadid, through his talks at Brown and his courageous reporting from Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, and Libya. We call on the Libyan government to ensure the safety of Anthony Shadid and the other New York Times reporters missing in Libya.

TNR Review of Gleason's Memoir Reflects on Academics and Public Service

March 14, 2011

Academics’ choice whether or not to enter public service is analyzed in The New Republic by University of Chicago Professor Martha C. Nussbaum as she reviews a memoir written by Brown History Professor Emeritus Abbott (Tom) Gleason, a long-time member of the Watson Institute faculty.

Video Competition Winners Announced on the Global Conversation

March 14, 2011

Two videos have tied to win the Global Conversation Video Contest – one portraying the beauty and ritual of an Indian wedding and the other depicting the struggle of Wolof-speaking Senegalese people to protect and extend their language in the digital age. Indian Wedding was produced by Tanmay Misra ’11 and National Language, Digital Language was made by Juliana Friend ’11. Honorable Mention goes to Kai Herng Loh '13 for Backpacking in Nicaragua, Alone and to Chelsea Sokolow ’11.5 for (des)empleado/(un)employed.

Analyzing Religion in Revolution

March 14, 2011

“Revolution is about myth and myth hooks up to religion, and that’s the link,” said Nathaniel Berman, Brown’s Rahel Varnhagen Professor of International Affairs, Law and Modern Culture, at the most recent Religion and Internationalism Colloquium. Professors and graduate students from various disciplines came together last week to discuss the overlapping, divergent, and shifting connections between religion and socialism, bringing into question the role of religion in revolutions and social movements in general.

Networking Higher Education around Environmental Issues

March 13, 2011

Over several years, the Luce Foundation supported a major initiative to engage higher education in extending experiential learning, management approaches, and international and interdisciplinary capacities to address local and global environmental issues. The Watson Institute was one of an original set of grant recipients, but it was also home to their final assembly in November 2010.

ISA Features Watson Researchers and their Work

March 13, 2011

Watson Institute researchers and their work will be featured throughout the program as scholars gather in Montreal this week for the International Studies Association’s annual convention.

New Culture of Learning Challenges Knowledge Institutions

March 11, 2011

How do people learn today in a world with unprecedented access to information? Today's culture of learning flows more, relying less on preexisting stocks of knowledge or fixed cultures of intellectual authority and more on a passion for learning that itself is a form of play, according to Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown, the authors of A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change (CreateSpace, January 2011). It is reviewed on Amazon’s website by Institute Director Michael Kennedy.

Timing Is Key to Mineral-Rich Andes' Development

March 10, 2011

Maritza Paredes Gonzales sought to steer away from bedeviling rents as the main culprits of shaky state formation in mineral-rich Latin American countries, during a recent talk at the Institute. The focus was instead put on the timing of the Andean commodities bonanzas and the impact that the sequence of these bonanzas had in the setting for elite politics. “Rents are an insufficient cause for explaining state underdevelopment,” said Paredes, a visiting research fellow at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and a PhD candidate at Oxford University's St. Anthony's College. “Timing and sequences and their effect on elite politics are also important.”

IE-Brown MBA is Launched

March 9, 2011

The inaugural class of an innovative MBA program incorporating the humanities and social sciences is meeting at the Watson Institute and other centers on campus this week, as part of a partnership between Brown and Spain’s Instituto de Empresa.

Colombian Journalist Urges Country to Confront Conflict

March 9, 2011

Deep in the lush Colombian jungle, a man sifts through the burnt shards that were once his home. Paramilitary forces, the distraught farmer says, had recently swooped in to punish coca-growers in this remote part of the country. “Then they wonder why we rebel,” he bitterly adds. This opening scene of Unwanted Witness sets the deeply human tone of the documentary, which follows Colombian journalist Hollman Morris as he reports on the Andean country’s violent conflict.

Using Soccer to Tackle HIV/AIDS

March 8, 2011

A simple soccer ball can be instrumental in helping youth tackle the devastating spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa, according to Kirk Friedrich, the co-founder and Africa executive director of Grassroot Soccer. The non-profit organization has harnessed the sport’s power to teach over 425,000 young people in 19 African countries how to best protect themselves from the deadly virus. “Learning is not a spectator sport,” said Friedrich during a recent talk titled "Grassroot Soccer and the Sport for Development Movement."

Danzon: Politics and Dance Meet in Cuba and Mexico

March 4, 2011

Dance may be a source of pleasure, according to Alejandro Madrid of the University of Chicago, but what pleasure dancers feel and want to feel is dependent on their social context. In a talk last semester at the Institute, Madrid compared experiences of Danzón dancing in Cuba and Mexico, exploring how the “pleasure” of this sensual dance may be constrained by political ideologies and social norms.

Arms Control Versus Nuclear-Free World

March 4, 2011

Arms control will not lead to a nuclear-free world, asserted David Mutimer at a talk last semester at the Institute. “While arms control can produce limits, it works against the overall elimination of arms," said Mutimer, who is deputy director of the Centre for International and Security Studies at York University.

Graduate Students Exchange Research Findings

March 4, 2011

Three graduate students presented their work late last semester during a workshop on "Alternative Political, Economic and Social Practices in Latin America,” sponsored by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

Varshney: Routine Relations at Heart of Interfaith Peace

March 4, 2011

Institute Faculty Fellow Ashutosh Varshney was recently a guest on WAMU Washington’s “Latitudes” program, where he spoke about interfaith relations based on such research as his award-winning book, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (Yale University Press, 2002).

'Knowledge Matters' Analyzes State of Higher Education

February 28, 2011

The realities and challenges of higher education – so often torn between multiple public and private agendas – are confronted in a new book, Knowledge Matters: The Public Mission of the Research University (Columbia University Press, 2011). Co-edited by Social Science Research Council President Craig Calhoun, a member of the Watson Institute’s board of overseers, the volume collects scholars’ reports from Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe, concluding with a chapter on globalization and diversity by Institute Director Michael D. Kennedy.

Research Details Caste Discrimination in Indian Private Sector

February 28, 2011

Discrimination on the basis of caste endures in the formal labor market of contemporary India, according to Paul Attewell of the City University of New York Graduate Center and Katherine S. Newman of the Johns Hopkins University Department of Sociology. Speaking at the Institute this month, Attewell and Newman outlined three of four discrimination studies collaboratively undertaken by Princeton University and the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies: a field experiment based in employer-employee correspondence, a study focusing on employer attitudes toward caste, and a prospective cohort study of lower-caste university graduates in elite institutions.

Russian Energy Companies See Mixed Success in Corporate Social Responsibility

February 28, 2011

In a recent talk at the Institute, Yale University Assistant Anthropology Professor Doug Rogers compared the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns by an oil company and a natural gas company in Russia’s west-central region of Perm. If Lukoil’s efforts at gaining local support were more successful than PRG’s, he concluded, it was at least in part because of differences between oil and natural gas and their methods of extraction and distribution.

Pages