Lutz Chairs Anthropology Department
Institute Professor Catherine Lutz is now chairing Brown’s Anthropology Department, where she has a joint appointment.
July 02, 2009
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Institute Professor Catherine Lutz is now chairing Brown’s Anthropology Department, where she has a joint appointment.
Taking a New Tack on State Formation
In exploring the processes of state formation in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Paraguay, Sebastián Mazzuca has arrived at a new model of state formation that differs significantly from the traditional European model. European state formation has traditionally been described as a geopolitical phenomenon, its culmination marked by the creation of a bureaucratic state and infrastructural power, Mazzuca said in a talk last semester at the Institute. In contrast, mercantile interests are of foremost importance in explaining state formation in Latin America.
July 01, 2009
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Lutz Questions US Military Basing Strategy in Iraq
As Iraqi citizens celebrated Sovereignty Day yesterday, with the hand-over of US military bases in cities and towns to national security forces, Professor Catherine Lutz told KPFK Los Angeles that she remained skeptical about the United States’ long-term basing plan.
July 01, 2009
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On Open Source: Gusenbauer Sees Euro-Socialism Take Root in US
Listen to a new Open Source podcast with Visiting Professor Alfred Gusenbauer. As host Christopher Lydon describes the interview: "Austria’s hearty 49-year-old former chancellor, who may be typical of the left-of-center professionals in European politics, likes everything he sees on his American sojourn, starting with the Obama stimulus package, the borrowed budget, and the push for big public investments in health, education and green technology."
July 01, 2009
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Intrepid Alum Profiled
Read a feature about David Rohde '90, a reporter who escaped last month from a Taliban prison.
July 01, 2009
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Michael Kennedy Takes up Post as Institute Director
Michael D. Kennedy today assumes the directorship of the Watson Institute. Following an international search, he was named the Howard R. Swearer Director and professor of sociology and international studies in May. Kennedy comes to Brown from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he was most recently director of the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia and the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies, as well as a professor of sociology and the Ronald and Eileen Weiser Professor of European and Eurasian Studies. In his new role, Kennedy will provide intellectual leadership and strategic direction to the Watson Institute’s research and teaching on contemporary global issues.
July 01, 2009
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Heller: Globalization Spurs Rapid Urban Change
Globalization has fundamentally changed the role of cities, Patrick Heller said in a talk at this month’s Brown International Advanced Research Institute (BIARI) on Development and Inequality in the Global South. Associate Professor of Sociology and Paul Dupee Faculty Fellow at the Institute, Heller explored the ways in which new flows of ideas, goods, and political allegiances have spurred rapid urban transformations.
June 29, 2009
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Hart: No Backing Down in Iran
Neither side in the Iranian confrontation over recent presidential elections is going to back down, Institute Adjunct Professor Jo-Anne Hart said during a Saturday WPRO broadcast. Protestors “are not going to pack it in,” she said, and the government is not going to accept change. “It could get very bad there; we’ll have to hope for the best for Iranians,” she said on WPRO Saturday Morning News with Steve Klamkin.
June 22, 2009
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New Book: 'Censoring an Iranian Love Story'
How can art retain its force and emotional power in the face of government censorship? The first novel of Iranian author Shahriar Mandanipour to be translated into English, Censoring an Iranian Love Story (Knopf, 2009) depicts the creativity and determination of a novelist, also named Mandanipour, who writes “a simple love story” under the oppressive eye of Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Mandanipour wrote the novel from 2006 through 2007 while he was Brown University’s International Writers Project Fellow in residence at the Watson Institute.June 22, 2009
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Gusenbauer: Global Crisis Places EU at Crossroads
Speaking last week to young scholars participating in the Brown International Advanced Research Institutes (BIARI), former Austrian Chancellor and Visiting Professor Alfred Gusenbauer offered a European perspective on the current global financial crisis and what it means for the future of the European Union. The crisis has placed Europe’s 52-year-old experiment in supranational integration “at a crossroads,” Gusenbauer said.
June 19, 2009
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Tracing the Global Diffusion of Legal Ideas
How to explain the evolution of core ideas shared among global legal elites about the role of law in society, the relationship between law and politics, or the nature of the legal process? How to explain the historical progression within legal systems around the world from a fundamental emphasis on property rights, to an emphasis on the rights of social groups, to, finally, an emphasis on human rights? Addressing these and other questions last week, legal scholar Duncan Kennedy discussed his hypotheses on the global processes of legal change during one of four of this summer's Brown International Advanced Research Institutes (BIARIs).June 17, 2009
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Watsonblogging the Tehran Protests
Watsonblogger Andrew Blackadar sees echoes from the past in images and videos of the current protests in Tehran.
June 17, 2009
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Pinheiro Calls Attention to Burma's Minorities
Institute Adjunct Professor Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro recently called for the release of Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and 2,100 other political prisoners in Myanmar/Burma, as well as an international commission of inquiry into the systematic subjugation of minorities in the country, in an op-ed in the New York Times.
June 12, 2009
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Xu Honors the Unknown Rebel
Watson Institute Senior Fellow Xu Wenli this month commemorated the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests in Washington with dignitaries including Nancy Pelosi, leader of the US House of Representatives. Remembering the young man who faced down a tank during the protests, Xu called the Unknown Rebel “a hero who has fought violence with peace … the noblest messenger of peace in the 20th century.”June 12, 2009
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Students Awarded Swearer Fellowships
One development studies concentrator and one international relations concentrator has each been awarded a Swearer International Service Fellowship for 2009. DS concentrator Einat Kadar ’10 will be investigating the South African tobacco industry and IR concentrator Jenna Stark ’11 will be supporting the Middle East peace process.
June 11, 2009
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On Video: Writers Project Fellow Gives Reading
Brown University's International Writers Project Fellow gave a reading of her work at one of this year's commencement forums. Watch it here.June 10, 2009
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Zakaria: Global Optimist
Watch international commentator Fareed Zakaria as he delivers Brown University's 2009 baccalaureate address.
June 10, 2009
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Tannenwald Calls for Creation of Disarmament Agency
The US government should create an agency devoted to nuclear disarmament, according to Associate Professor Nina Tannenwald. “Norms of nuclear restraint need to be embedded in the thinking of leaders and backed up by institutions of government,” she wrote in one of a series of commentaries the New York Times published on the subject last week on its Room for Debate blog.
June 10, 2009
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Watson Leads BIARI Workshops for Young Scholars
The Watson Institute is leading two of this summer’s inaugural Brown International Advanced Research Institutes (BIARI), which are now underway. A first-of-its-kind faculty development initiative for young scholars from the developing world, BIARI 2009 comprises four distinct two-week institutes on campus. At Watson, an institute on “Development and Inequality in the Global South” has drawn 60 participants, and another 55 are attending the “Law, Social Thought, and Global Governance Institute.”
June 09, 2009
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DS Ceremony Videos Capture Graduates' Esprit
Development Studies Program Director Gianpaolo Baiocchi evoked the historic nature of this past year as he addressed graduating students in the DS, Middle East, and South Asian Studies concentrations today. DS concentrator Alison Fairbrother ’09 emphasized society’s inequalities in one of the student addresses.
May 24, 2009
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Fareed Zakaria Keynoting
Brown is hosting Fareed Zakaria, author, CNN host, and editor of NewsWeek International, who will give the 2009 baccalaureate address on Saturday.
May 22, 2009
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Choices Brings Nuclear Issues to High Schools
Twenty teachers from across the country will participate in the Choices Program’s summer institute in July on “Living in a Nuclear Age: Facing the Challenges.”May 22, 2009
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Revisiting Michael Bhatia on the Human Terrain
Boston Magazine recently published an extensive feature article about the extraordinary life and work of scholar-humanitarian Michael Bhatia ’99, a 2006-07 Watson visiting fellow – and about the controversial Human Terrain System he was working on when he was killed last May in Afghanistan.
May 22, 2009
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BJWA Focuses on Philanthropy
The spring/summer 2009 issue of the Brown Journal of World Affairs (BJWA) addresses such themes as global philanthropy with contributors and interviewees including top Clinton Foundation executive Ira Magaziner '69 P'06,'07,'10.
May 22, 2009
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Journal Analyzes Capitalism, Media
Global capitalism and media are among the subjects analyzed in the newest issue of Studies in Comparative International Development (SCID), published at the Institute.May 22, 2009
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Lutz: Cars Take on New Meaning in Economic Crisis
“Americans are now seeing their cars not as the emblem of their socio-economic rise but an unsustainable encumbrance.” So writes Professor Catherine Lutz in “Car Crash: The Death of the American Auto,” an op-ed recently published in the Boston Globe.May 21, 2009
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Chicago Ward Trials Participatory Budgeting
On April 29, Watson Institute Associate Professor Gianpaolo Baiocchi traveled to Chicago to help kick-start an experiment in democracy.May 21, 2009
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Kim Koo Library Dedicated
Han Duk-soo, Korea’s new ambassador to the United States, figured among the dignitaries on hand to celebrate the recent dedication of the Watson Institute’s library to Kim Koo (1876-1949), who was premier of the Korean Provisional Government in exile, which led the Korean independence movement of 1910 to 1945. A much revered national figure to this day, Kim also devoted himself to the cause of the peaceful unification of South and North Korea, following his return from exile in 1945.
May 21, 2009
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IR Concentrators to Deliver Commencement Speeches
International relations concentrators Noor Najeeb and Juliana Thorstenn have been chosen to deliver the two student commencement speeches this year.
May 20, 2009
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Area Studies Grads Honored
Three students are graduating with honors from area studies concentrations based at the Institute. They are:
· Hilary Fischer-Groban, South Asia Studies
· Adam Siegel, Latin American and Caribbean Studies
· Anjana Joshi, Middle East Studies
May 20, 2009
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DS Students Present Research on Range of Topics, Regions
Early this month at the Institute, concentrators in development studies presented their theses to faculty and peers. The event brought together almost 25 students in the development studies concentration, one of the few concentrations in which writing a thesis is mandatory. Thesis topics ranged from the structural causes of obesity to intellectual dissidence in authoritarian regimes, and spanned Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
May 20, 2009
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Development Studies Theses Recognized
Thirty students are graduating this year with degrees in development studies (DS). Directed by Brown University Associate Professor Gianpaolo Baiocchi, the DS Program provides Brown undergraduate students an interdisciplinary concentration centered in the social sciences.
May 20, 2009
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Summer Interns Going Overseas
Watson has awarded summer internships to eight Brown students for 2009. The Institute administers the summer fellowship competitions as part of its mission to undergraduates who are pursuing degrees, research projects, and careers in international relations.
May 20, 2009
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IR Prizes Awarded
Academic prize winners in this year’s international relations class are: Hannah Brennan, Nina Frost, Hillary Harnett, Camilla Hawthorne, Jonathan Hillman, Xingkai Loy, Mariya Petkova, Eliza Sweren-Becker, and Bonnie Wong.
May 20, 2009
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2009 IR Grads Present Honors Theses
Nine students graduated from the International Relations Honors Program this year. To do so, each of them researched, wrote, and presented a graduate-level thesis, in addition to completing with distinction the usual IR requirements of 11 courses and three years of a foreign language.
May 20, 2009
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BSR Airs Prodi Lecture, Césaire Symposium, and More
Brown Student Radio featured four Institute-related events this semester on its Brown Block program: Former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, giving his first lecture as a Brown professor at large, on Europe’s role in today’s world; the Aimé Césaire Memorial Symposium, organized by Adjunct Professor William F.S. Miles to honor one of the foremost Black French intellectual-statesmen-writers of the 20th and 21st centuries; a panel on the militarization of space; and a lecture at the Institute by Slate commentator Fred Kaplan, on “Obama and the World: US Foreign Policy in an Age of Global Anarchy.”
May 19, 2009
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The Clash of Debate over Civilizations
In a recent talk at the Institute, Patrick Thaddeus Jackson evaluated the role of the late political scientist Samuel P. Huntington and his 1996 work, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, in the debate on “civilizations” and international politics.
May 19, 2009
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Michael Kennedy Named Institute Director
Following an international search, Michael D. Kennedy has been named the Howard R. Swearer Director of the Watson Institute. His appointment as director and professor of sociology and international studies was announced today by Brown University Provost David I. Kertzer '69 P'95'98. He will join the University in July 2009. Kennedy comes to Brown from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he is director of the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia and the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies, as well as a professor of sociology and the Ronald and Eileen Weiser Professor of European and Eurasian Studies.
May 15, 2009
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Undergrads Research Today's Global Issues
Each year, Brown University undergraduates in the international relations (IR) and development studies (DS) concentrations conduct research into the global issues defining our times. From the struggles of undocumented immigrants in Rhode Island to the influence of Sesame Street in Egypt – from underdevelopment and insecurity to the policies needed for a more equitable and peaceful world – a wide range of subjects come under students’ scrutiny as they write honors theses, do field work on international fellowships, and act as research assistants to Institute faculty members.
May 14, 2009
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Environmental Scholars Extend Program in Developing World
Graduates of the Watson International Scholars of the Environment program are conducting workshops in six countries – extending the benefits of this training program for mid-career scholars and practitioners across the developing world.
May 13, 2009
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DARE Meetings: 'Getting to Zero'
After a decade in which national security policy has been dominated by the threat of terrorism, the goal of nuclear disarmament is once again seeing renewed interest. At the beginning of 2009, the Dialogue among Americans, Russians and Europeans (DARE) project held a small meeting of experts on the issue in Milan and co-led a 100-participant “winter school” at the International School on Disarmament and Research on Conflicts (ISODARCO) in Andalo, Italy.
May 13, 2009
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IR Honors Students Receive Fulbrights
Four Brown graduates of the International Relations Honors Program have received Fulbright fellowships this year: Hannah Brennan ’09, Jonathan Hillman '09, Mia Psorn ’07, and Phoebe Sloane '08. A fifth IR honors student, Amy Chang ’08, received a Fulbright fellowship last year. Each honors program student must write a graduate-level thesis, among other requirements.
May 13, 2009
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Xu Wenli and Dalai Lama Discuss Han-Tibetan Unity
Institute Senior Fellow Xu Wenli met earlier this month with the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, at a meeting of China democracy advocates in New York. During the meeting, which aimed to advance unity among the country’s Han majority and Tibetan people, the Dalai Lama singled Xu out for a forehead-to-forehead greeting, considered an extraordinary sign of respect. One of China's most recognized pro-democracy advocates, Xu spent 16 years in prison for his activities as a dissident.
May 12, 2009
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Khrushchev: History Repeats itself in Afghanistan
Afghanistan, it is said, is where empires go to die. Addressing the question on the radio program The Takeaway, Senior Fellow Sergei Khrushchev agreed that “history is repeating itself,” as the Obama administration looks to increase US troops in the country. He pointed not only to the Soviet Union’s failed nine-year war in Afghanistan but also the earlier experiences of the Russian Empire and British Empire. “What is our goal?” he asked. “What does victory mean? We have this illusion that we can win.”May 12, 2009
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