The 2010 Election: What Happened and Why
November 11, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Griffin Hall, Room 3
David Mayhew is the Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University. Professor Mayhew, who holds a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard (1964) and is perhaps the preeminent scholar of American politics of his generation, has written seven books (along with countless articles) on Congress, elections, and political parties. In addition to winning numerous awards from the American Political Science Association for individual works, Professor Mayhew received the 2002 James Madison Award from the American Political Science Association, a triennial prize given for “distinguished scholarly achievement?? to a true intellectual giant of the discipline. In his lecture at Williams, Professor Mayhew, who has a special affinity for liberal arts colleges dating back to his own undergraduate days at Amherst, will provide an immediate retrospective, interpretation, and assessment of the previous week’s election as well as a look forward to what the results of this election season—one that, perhaps due to the emergence of the Tea Party, is being closely watched—portend for the new Congress, for the second half of the Obama Administration, and for the 2012 presidential election. Sponsored by the Political Science Department the Leadership Studies Program and the Lecture Committee.
Beyond the Midterms: A New Way Forward
November 02, 2010 at
MainStage, ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance
Mika Brzezinski ’89 and Joe Scarborough of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” will be on campus to discuss the midterm returns and the state of politics today. Q&A with students. Sponsored by the President’s Office, Leadership Studies, and the Political Science Department.
Letter to Students: On Election Night – Tuesday, November 2nd – we will have the privilege of joining Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski ’89, two prominent television commentators, as they discuss the 2010 midterm elections and their effect on American politics. The lecture and discussion will be held in the ’62 Center MainStage and be taped for excerpts to air on national television the next morning. “There’s a lot of questions about America and the future of the two-party system and Joe and I get asked to speak about this all the time,” said Brzezinski. “We decided to get away from all of the chatter on election night and talk to America’s future leaders, so I immediately thought of my alma mater Williams.” Joe Scarborough, a former United States Representative, has been discussed as a potential Presidential candidate in the 2016 election. Mika Brzezinski graduated from Williams in 1989, where she was a member of the Cross Country and Track & Field teams. To honor her success in the field of journalism, Williams awarded Mika a Bicentennial Medal in 2009.
This is no ordinary lecture, nor will it be a typical cable television show. Joe and Mika are coming to Williams specifically to hear our thoughts on the issues that define today’s political discourse. We hope that you will be able to attend one of the most exciting events that Williams will be hosting this year. The results of these midterm elections will set the tone of national politics for the next two years. The event will take place at the ’62 Center Main Stage next Tuesday from 6:30 pm until 8:00 pm, with a 6:00 reception for students in the Centerstage lobby.
In order to ensure that students get priority seating, please reserve a ticket by e-mailing [email protected] ASAP with “tickets” as your e-mail subject. We understand that the timing of the midterms might conflict with your midterms, but this event will be worth your while. Best Wishes,
Will Piereson ’11 & Will Slack ’11
Quotes from the media about our guests: “Joe is the conservative that all the talking heads and news producers in America wake up to,” says Erick Erickson of the influential conservative blog RedState. – Matt Lewis “I’ve found the new face of the Republican Party. It’s not a new one, entirely, and it’s been hiding out on national television every weekday morning from six to nine.”- Christopher Buckley
Some major donors and GOP strategists have approached Joe Scarborough, the host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” about a national run, according to party sources. – Politico
Brzezinski has parlayed her role as co-host of MSNBC’s morning show, with Joe Scarborough, into a syndicated radio show with the former congressman and a brand-new book deal. She is, for the first time, bursting with opinions. “I’ve been in a box as a journalist for 20 years,” she says. “That is a very safe and lazy place to be. You can hide behind objectivity. It is much harder to put yourself out there.” – Howard Kurtz
The Court, the Constitution, and the Confirmation Wars
October 23, 2010 at 11:00 am
MainStage, ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance
Join Assistant Professor of Political Science Justin Crowe ’03 for a conversation with the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the Honorable Jeffrey Sutton ’83/P’14, United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, about contested Supreme Court decisions, the challenges of constitutional interpretation, and the changing nature of the confirmation process.
The Great Arm-Twister: LBJ and the Great Society
October 14, 2010 at 8:00 p.m.
Griffin Hall, Room 3
James T. Patterson ’57 is Ford Foundation Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University. One of the most highly respected historians of contemporary America, he is the author of Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 , which won a Bancroft Prize, and Brown v Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy .
Interrogating Terrorists
October 06, 2010 at 7:30 p.m.
Griffin Hall, Room 3
Matthew Alexander was a senior military interrogator in Iraq who led the interrogations that located Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the former Al Qaida leader, who was killed in a subsequent airstrike. Alexander conducted or supervised over 1,300 interrogations. He shunned torture and abuse and instead taught his interrogators a new way to interrogate based on his experience as a criminal investigator and knowledge of Middle Eastern culture. His team of interrogators leveraged compassion, intellect, and ingenuity to convince several high-ranking Al Qaida leaders to cooperate, leading to the numerous successful kill or capture missions that helped turn the tide of the war. Alexander is the author of How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq and the forthcoming book Kill or Capture.
Leadership and the art of military dissent
October 06, 2010 at 4:15 pm
Schapiro Hall, room 129
Student discussion on dissent vs. insubordination, Gen McChrystal’s resignation. Informal Q&A.
The Biggest Lie: How the CIA and the Advertising Industry Taught Us to Start Worrying and Love the Cold War
October 05, 2010 at 2:45 p.m.
Schapiro Hall, room 129
Kenneth Osgood will explore the CIA’s collaboration with the advertising industry to sell the Cold War to the American public. He will focus on one of the longest-running and most extensive campaigns of political advertising in U.S. history: the Crusade for Freedom. Largely forgotten today, the Crusade saturated the American media with anti-communist propaganda for more than two decades – from 1950 to 1971. Secretly orchestrated by the CIA with the blessing of five presidents (Truman through Nixon), the campaign sought to whip-up anti-communist fervor and stir American patriotism. The Crusade had a particularly wide reach because of the extensive support it received from the Advertising Council – an industry association that donates time, talent and money for public service advertising (such as the Smokey the Bear campaign). In addition, the CIA’s propaganda campaign was both wittingly and unwittingly supported by a wide range of powerful institutions in postwar American life, including conservative patriotic organizations like the American Heritage Foundation, special interest groups, politicians, celebrities, major corporations, and the mass media. By publicizing the evils of communism and the perils of life behind the Iron Curtain, the campaign instructed Americans on the moral righteousness of the anti-communist “crusade”, thus transforming a distant geopolitical battle into a high-minded struggle for freedom. Kenneth Osgood is the Stanley Kaplan Visiting Professor of American Foreign Policy for 2010-2011.
Ground Zero Mosque Discussion
October 03, 2010 at 6:00 p.m.
Griffin Hall, Room 3
Donald W. Goodrich, Chairman of the Board of Families of 9/11, is a partner in the law firm of Donovan & O’Connor in North Adams, MA. One of the founders of FOS11, Don analyzed and recommended improvements to the Victim Compensation Fund as well as various forms of ongoing and potential litigation against organizations whose actions have affected victims’ rights. Don helped develop questions for the online 9/11 Grief Survey; was involved in petitioning Congress for legislation in support of the 9/11 Commission; and raised money to build a girls’ school in Afghanistan. His son, Peter Goodrich, was on United Airlines Flight 175.
First They Killed my Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers
September 13, 2010 at 7:00 p.m.
Griffin Hall, Room 3
Lecture and discussion with Loung Ung, author, landmine activist. Loung is a survivor of the killing fields of Cambodia, one of the bloodiest episodes of the twentieth century. She was five years old when the Khmer Rouge invaded Phnom Penh. Over the next three years, Loung lost half of her family, including both parents, and spent time in a camp for child soldiers. After the war was over, she and her older brother relocated to Vermont, where she grew to adulthood. Today she is an internationally best-selling author and a well-known human rights activist. Sponsored by the Stanley Kaplan Program in American Foreign Policy. Book signing to follow.
Going Rogue: Maverick Leadership in the Arts
April 22, 2010 at 7:30 p.m.
Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall
WCMA presents an inaugural event to celebrate the receipt of a million dollar endowment, The Fulkerson Fund for Leadership in the Arts, to support programs related to arts leadership. The inaugural event, Going Rogue: Maverick Leadership in the Arts, will be held on Thursday, April 22 at 7:30 pm at Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall. After opening remarks by President Adam Falk, prominent arts leaders will give their interpretation of what being a leader in the arts means and how that definition has changed throughout their careers. A moderated discussion will conclude the event.
Featuring: • Mariët Westermann, Provost, New York University Abu Dhabi, and Vice President Designate, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Williams College Class of 1984 • Rick Lowe, artist/founder, Project Row Houses • Susan Sollins, Executive Director and Curator, Art21 • Joe Thompson, Director, MASS MoCA, and Williams College Class of 1981 • Paul Tucker, Professor of the History of Art, UMass Boston, WCMA Visiting Committee Member, and Williams College Class of 1972.
Clash of Cartoons: Debates over the Headscarf and Relations with the US in Turkey
April 22, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Griffin Hall, Room 6
Pinar Batur, the Director of International Studies at Vassar College and John VanderLippe, Associate Dean at the New School for Social Research in New York will speak on he role of metaphors and icons in the rhetorical lexicon of Turkish political discourse. They will focus on political cartoons as image-based narratives of the conflict between secularist and Islamist forces to explore how icons and metaphors have evolved over time in response to the changing political situation in Turkey, and global circumstances. In this context, they will discuss the politics of images of the headscarf debate and Turkish-American relations.
From Bandung to Tehran: Transnational Networks in the Postcolonial World
April 17, 2010 at 9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Griffin Hall, Room 3
9:00 am Panel I: The 1950s Panelists: Devyn Benson, Assistant Professor of History and Africana Studies, Williams College; Robson Taj Frazier, Assistant Professor, University of Southern California; Christopher Lee, Assistant Professor of History, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Commentator: Magnus Bernhardsson, Williams College
10:45 am Panel II: The 1960s Panelists: Ryan Irwin, Dissertation Fellow, Yale University; Judy Wu, Associate Professor of History, Ohio State University; Mark Lawrence, Associate Professor of History, University of Texas-Austin; Jeffrey Byrne, Senior Instructor, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
Commentator: Jessica Chapman, Williams College
1:30 pm The Poorer Nations, Address by Vijay Prashad, Professor of International Studies, Trinity College
2:30 pm Panel III: The 1970s Panelists: Victor McFarland, Ph.D. Candidate, Yale University; Paul Chamberlin, Postoctoral Fellow, Williams College; Piero Gleijeses, Professor of American Foreign Policy, Paul H. Nitze, School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University
Commentator: Doug Little, Clark University
The Cuban Drumbeat: Cuba and Southern Africa, 1975-88
April 16, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Griffin Hall, Room 6
Piero Gleijeses is professor of United States foreign policy in the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. He is an author of a number of books on the subject of Latin America, including several on the role of US intervention in Latin America, including the 1954 Guatemalan coup d’état and the 1965 United States occupation of the Dominican Republic. In 2002, Gleijeses published his book Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa, 1959–1976 on the Cuban involvement in the decolonization of Africa (particularly the Cuban intervention in Angola), which won the 2002 Robert Ferrell Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. In November 2003, the Cuban Council of State decorated Gleijeses with the Medal of Friendship at the initiative of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples.
Theodore Roosevelt and the Creation of the Modern Presidency
April 12, 2010 at 8:00 p.m.
Griffin Hall, Room 3
Sidney M. Milkis is the White Burkett Miller Professor of the Department of Politics and Assistant Director for Academic Programs at the Miller of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. His books include: The President and the Parties: The Transformation of the American Party System Since the New Deal (1993); Political Parties and Constitutional Government: Remaking American Democracy (1999); and Presidential Greatness (2000), coauthored with Marc Landy. He is also author of The American Presidency: Origins and Development, 1776-2007 (2007), 5th edition, coauthored with Michael Nelson; and Theodore Roosevelt, the Progressive Party, and the Transformation of American Democracy (2009).
Self-Styled Revolutionaries: Forgotten Struggles for Social Change and the Problem of Unintended Dissidence
March 11, 2010 at 7:00 p.m.
Griffin Hall, Room 7
Lillian Guerra is Assistant Professor of Caribbean History. Born in New York City and raised in Marion, Kansas, Professor Guerra is the author of two books, Popular Expression and National Identity in Puerto Rico (University of Florida Press, 1998) and The Myth of José Martí: Conflicting Nationalisms in Early Twentieth Century Cuba (University of North Carolina Press, 2005). She has also published two books of Spanish-language poetry on themes of displacement and Latino identity.
As a teacher and scholar, Professor Guerra is committed to forging ties of connection and understanding between Caribbean diasporas in the United States and their national communities at home through the study of history. She has over two hundred relatives in Cuba and travels there frequently for research and family reasons. Guerra is the principal author of an archival guide to the Cuban Revolution Collection, an enormous resource for researchers comprised of 5,000 original photographs and 60 unedited archival films in the Manuscripts and Archives division of Sterling Memorial Library at Yale. Together with materials and interviews gathered in Cuba, this collection forms a key part of Guerra’s most recent book project, “Visions of Power: Revolution and Redemption in Cuba, 1956-1971.”
The fourth in a series of talks on The Cuban Revolution: 50 Years Later.
10 China Myths for the New Decade
March 02, 2010 at 7:30 p.m.
Griffin Hall, Room 6
At Heritage, Scissors focuses on the Chinese economy as well as broader Asian economic trends and challenges facing the United States. In addition to his duties with the think tank, Scissors is an Adjunct Professor at George Washington University, where he teaches a course on the economy of the People’s Republic of China.
Before joining Heritage in August 2008, Scissors was a China economist at Orbis Publications, which was acquired by Intelligence Research, a global political risk assessment firm. In that role, he wrote and edited the firm’s China Weekly Bulletin, China Watch and China Quarterly Forecast.
Media and War in Vietnam and Iraq: Déjà Vu All Over Again?
February 22, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Griffin Hall, Room 7
Daniel C. Hallin is Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of The Uncensored War: The Media and the Vietnam (1986), a groundbreaking study of the media’s influence on the Vietnam War. Far from being a consistent adversary of government policy in Vietnam, Hallin shows, the media were closely tied to official perspectives throughout the war, though divisions in the government itself and contradictions in its public relations policies caused every administration, at certain times, to lose its ability to “manage” the news effectively.
Hallin’s research concerns political communication and the role of the news media in democratic politics. He has written on the media and war, including Vietnam, Central America, and the Gulf War. He has written on television coverage of elections, demonstrating the shrinking “sound bite” and offering an interpretation of its meaning for political journalism. His new research focuses on comparative analysis of the news media’s role in the public sphere, concentrating on Europe and Latin America.
Stephen Sondheim ’50
January 23, 2010 at 8:00 p.m.
Chapin Hall
Frank Rich, New York Times columnist and former chief theatre critic, will conduct an onstage interview with Stephen Sondheim ’50 on Saturday, January 23 at 8 pm on the Chapin Hall Stage. The two will discuss Sondheim’s career including his collaborations with Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, and Tim Burton; the state of the American musical theatre; Sondheim’s own creative process; and his specific work on shows such as West Side Story, Gypsy, Company, Follies, and Sweeney Todd. This unscripted conversation promises to provide a most personal and engaging view of Sondheim and his life in the theatre. This event is open to the public, free of charge. Tickets required. Ticket reservations will begin on January 5 for the Williams Community. Tickets open to the public on January 10. Reserve tickets online (limit 2/person) at https://webapps.williams.edu/admin-forms/ephpubevent/
Please call 413-597-4435 with questions or contact [email protected]
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Black Leadership Roundtable
November 16, 2009 at 8:00 p.m.
Chapin Hall
Leadership in the Black American Community: Reflections on the Past, Analysis of the Present, and Visions for the Future. Participants include John Conyers (MI), Chair of House Judiciary Committee; Barbara Lee (CA), Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus; Danny Davis (IL); Diane Watson (CA); Wole Coaxum ’92, Senior VP at JP Morgan Chase; Bill Cosby, and Williams Spriggs ’77, Assistant Secretary for Policy, Department of Labor. Sponsored by Leadership Studies, Africana Studies, the President’s Office and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. Postponed to a later date.
Workers and the Poor: Lessons for Organizing in the Age of Obama
November 12, 2009 at 8:00 p.m.
Griffin Hall, Room 7
Lecture by Wade Rathke, co-founder of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 100. Rathke was ACORN’s chief organizer from its founding in 1970 until he stepped down in June 2008. He is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Social Policy, a quarterly magazine for scholars and activists, and he is the author of Citizen Wealth: Winning the Campaign to Save Working Families (2009).
U.S. Cuba Relations in the Twenty-First Century
November 04, 2009 at
Griffin Hall, Room 7
Julia E. Sweig is the Nelson and David Rockefeller senior fellow for Latin America Studies and director for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
She is the author of Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2009) and Friendly Fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century (PublicAffairs, 2006), as well as numerous publications on Latin America and American foreign policy. She has directed several Council on Foreign Relations reports on Latin America. Dr. Sweig’s Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground (Harvard University Press, 2002) received the American Historical Association’s Herbert Feis Award for best book of the year by an independent scholar.
Dr. Sweig serves on the International Advisory Board of the Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI), on the editorial board of Foreign Affairs Latinoame??rica, and from 1999-2008, served as a consultant on Latin American affairs for The Aspen Institute’s Congressional Program. She frequently provides commentary for the major television, radio, and print media, speaking in both English and Spanish. She holds a BA from the University of California and an MA and PhD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
The third in a series of talks on The Cuban Revolution: 50 Years Later.
Iranian Documentary Film Screening
November 02, 2009 at
Paresky Performance Space
Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Iranian filmmaker, will screen two of her most recent films. Discussion with Bani-Etemad to follow. Monday, Nov.2 at 6:30 pm in Paresky auditorium. Angels of the House of Sun is a documentary about a women’s shelter in one of Teheran’s poorest neighborhoods (2009). We are Half of Iran’s Population takes place shortly before the June Presidential election and provides an extraordinarily intimate glimpse into the current situation in Iran (2009).
China Rising
October 14, 2009 at 8:00 p.m.
MainStage, ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance
A national correspondent for The Atlantic, James Fallows is one of America’s most respected journalists. He has won the National Book Award, the American Book Award and the National Magazine Award. Based in China since 2006, he is chronicling that country’s explosive growth and its staggering ramifications for America and the world. Fallows is the author of several books, including Breaking the News, about the crisis facing contemporary news media, and Blind into Baghdad, about the lead-up to the War in Iraq, which is now required reading in many military programs. His most recent book is Postcards from Tomorrow Square: Reports from China. Admission free but tickets are required. Contact the ’62 Center box office, Tues.-Sat. 1-5 p.m., 597-2425.
Imagining Cuba: Metaphor and Narratives of Power
October 01, 2009 at 7:00 p.m.
Griffin Hall, Room 6
Lecture by Louis Perez, J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of History and Director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas, part of the Global Education Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Perez will address the multiple representations of Cuba in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, and how the different representations of the island corresponded to the evolving needs of U.S. national interests. The second in a series of talks on The Cuban Revolution: 50 Years Later.
Race and Revolution in Castro’s Cuba
September 24, 2009 at 7:00 p.m.
Paresky Performance Space
An ethnologist and political scientist with two doctorates from the prestigious University of Paris-7, France, Dr. Carlos Moore is an expert on the impact of race and ethnicity on domestic politics and inter-state affairs, and a leader in the ongoing global discussion on the topic of race, particularly race in Latin America. His 2008 book Pichón: Race and Revolution in Castro’s Cuba, A Memoir recounts his life of devastating poverty, racism, and his fight for justice; the book traces his imprisonment and eventual exile for speaking out against Fidel Castro and his return to Cuba 30 years later. His other books include A Africa que Incomoda; Racismo e Sociedade; Castro, the Blacks, and Africa; Fela: This Bitch of a Life; and Cette Putain de Vie. Moore is currently at work on Race: The Last Frontier of Hatred, which summarizes his three decades of research, conducted around the world, on the impact of race on society. The first in a series of talks on The Cuban Revolution: 50 Years Later.
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Williams/H-Diplo Conference on New Scholarship in American Foreign Relations
April 18, 2009 at 9 am – 5 pm
Griffin Hall, Room 3
9:00-10:30 p.m. Roundtable #1 – World Out of Balance Authors: Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, Dartmouth College Chair: James McAllister, Williams College Panelists: Stacie Goddard, Wellesley College Jeff Legro, University of Virginia Randall Schweller, The Ohio State University
10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. Roundtable #2 – Inventing Vietnam: The United States and State Building, 1954-1968 Author: James M. Carter, Drew University Chair: Jessica Chapman, Williams College Panelists: Scott Laderman, University of Minnesota Fredrik Logevall, Cornell University Edward Miller, Dartmouth College Jessica Elkind, San Francisco State University
1:45-3:15 p.m. Roundtable #3 – Occupational Hazards: Success & Failure in Military Occupation Author: David Edelstein, Georgetown University Chair: Paul Macdonald, Williams College Panelists: David Ekbladh, Tufts University Peter Liberman, City University of New York Greg Mitrovich, Columbia University Gideon Rose, Managing Editor, Foreign Affairs
3:30-5:00 p.m. Roundtable #4 – Nexus: Strategic Communications and American Security in World War I Author: Jonathan Reed Winkler, Wright State University Chair: Mark Stoler, Williams College Panelists: John Milton Cooper, University of Wisconsin Ross Kennedy, Illinois State University Alex Roland, Duke University Phyllis Soybel, College of Lake County, IL.
Vietnam and Iraq
April 16, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.
Griffin Hall, Room 6
Marc Lynch, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the Elliot School of International Affairs, George Washington University and Fredrik Logevall, Professor, Director of Graduate Studies, Field of History at Cornell University.
Professor Lynch received his B.A. in Political Science from Duke University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University. He teaches courses on Middle Eastern politics and international relations. He is the author of State Interests and Public Spheres: The International Politics of Jordan’s Identity (1999) and Voices of the New Arab Public (2006). He blogs at http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/
Fredrik Logevall joined the Cornell Department of History in 2004. He previously taught at UC Santa Barbara, where he co-founded the Center for Cold War Studies. A specialist on U.S. foreign relations, Professor Logevall teaches a range of courses covering the history of U.S. diplomacy and foreign policy, as well as the international history of the Cold War and the Vietnam Wars. His current research projects include an interpretive history of “America’s Cold War” (co-authored with Campbell Craig and forthcoming from Belknap Press/Harvard UP) and a book-length study of the struggle for Indochina after 1940. In 2006-07 he was Leverhulme Professor of History at the University of Nottingham and Mellon Senior Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge.
Why Vietnam Matters
April 14, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.
Griffin Hall, Room 6
Rufus Phillips became a member of the Saigon Military Mission in 1954 and the following year served as the sole adviser to two Vietnamese army pacification operations, earning the CIA’s Intelligence Medal of Merit for his work. He later worked as a CIA civilian case officer in Vietnam and Laos, then joined the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Saigon Mission to lead its counterinsurgency efforts. In 1964 he became a consultant for USAID and the State Department and served as an adviser to Vice President Hubert Humphrey. He is the author of Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned (2008), in which Phillips describes in first-hand detail such figures as John F. Kennedy, Maxwell Taylor, Robert McNamara, Henry Cabot Lodge, Hubert Humphrey, and Ngo Dinh Diem.
Iraq: The Lost Generation
April 11, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.
Paresky Performance Space
In the past five years more than four million Iraqis – 20 per cent of the entire population – have been driven from their homes as a result of the war and sectarian bloodshed. Two million have become exiles, living desperate lives across the border in Syria and Jordan. This edition of Dispatches investigates the biggest and most catastrophic refugee crisis in the Middle East since the Palestinian diaspora of 1948.
Award-winning journalist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy travels to Syria and Jordan to investigate the plight of Iraqi refugees. These are the very people on whom the new, democratic Iraq was to be built – the professional middle classes – nearly half of whom now live as desperate refugees, driven out by the violence and civil breakdown.
Film will be preceded by a panel on Iraqi refugees and followed by a reception in the Henze Lounge.
Update from Iraq
April 10, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.
Griffin Hall, Room 3
Nir Rosen is a journalist who has written extensively on American policy toward Afghanistan and Iraq. He spent more than two years in Iraq reporting on the American occupation, the relationship between Americans and Iraqis, the development of postwar Iraqi religious and political movements, interethnic and sectarian relations, and the Iraqi civil war. His reporting and research also focused on the origins and development of Islamist resistance, insurgency, and terrorist organizations. Mr. Rosen covered the elections in Afghanistan and the differences between the American presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has also reported from Somalia, where he investigated Islamist movements; Jordan, where he investigated the origins and future of the Zarqawi movement; and Pakistan, where he investigated the madrassas and pro-Taliban movements. Mr. Rosen’s book on postwar Iraq, In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq, was published by Free Press in 2006. He has written for The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The New Republic, Boston Review, Time, Mother Jones, and World Policy Journal.
For integrated programming on Iraq through the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance, April 13-20, see http://62center.williams.edu/62center/event.cfm?eid=210
Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt: Anglo American Leadership in WWII
March 07, 2009 at
Griffin Hall, Room 3
Students from The Age of Roosevelt (History 358 and Leadership 258) will participate in open seminars. Members of the college community, as well as the public, are welcome to observe. Students who wish to participate actively in the seminars should contact Prof. Mark Stoler at [email protected]. This event is sponsored by the Williams College Program in Leadership Studies, The Churchill Centre, and The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. Seminar sessions run as follows:
9:15-10:45 AM: Churchill and Roosevelt Before Pearl Harbor Professor John Maurer, United States Naval War College
11:00-12:30 PM: Roosevelt and Churchill at War Professor Mark Stoler, Williams College
1:30-3:00 PM: Thinking About and Planning for the Postwar World Professor Warren Kimball, Rutgers University
U.S. Strategy in Iraq: Past, Present, and Future
October 06, 2008 at
Griffin Hall, Room 3
Stephen Biddle is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Award-winning author of Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle, Biddle is a former Associate Professor and Elihu Root Chair of Military Studies at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute. His areas of expertise include U.S. national security policy, military strategy, the conduct of war, technology in modern warfare, and recent operations in the war on terror.
The Past and Future of the People’s Republic: Will Capitalism Bring Democracy to China?
September 29, 2008 at 7:30 p.m.
Griffin Hall, Room 3
Panel discussion with Sherman Cochran, Hu Shih Professor in the Department of History at Cornell University and a leading authority on modern China with major contributions to the scholarship on Chinese economic, business, and social history; Sam Crane, Fred Greene Third Century Professor of Political Science, specializing in the politics of East Asia and international political economy; Michael Hunt, Stanley Kaplan Visiting Professor of American Foreign Policy, specializing in U.S. involvement in China and Vietnam. Sponsored by the Stanley Kaplan Program in American Foreign Policy and International Studies.
Iran: Continuity & Change
April 30, 2008 at 7:30 p.m.
Griffin Hall, Room 7
Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. His areas of specialization are Iran, the Persian Gulf, and U.S. foreign policy. He is also a contributing editor of the National Interest.
Dr. Takeyh was previously professor of national security studies at the National War College; professor and director of studies at the Near East and South Asia Center, National Defense University; fellow in international security studies at Yale University; fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; and fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Takeyh is currently working on a book entitled The Guardians of the Revolution: Iran’s Approach to the World (under contract by Oxford University Press). He is the author of a number of previous books including Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic (Times Books, 2006) and The Origins of the Eisenhower Doctrine: The U.S., Britain and Nasser’s Egypt, 1953–1957 (MacMillan Press, 2000). Dr. Takeyh has published widely, including articles in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the National Interest, Survival, World Policy Journal, Washington Quarterly, Orbis, Middle East Journal, Political Science Quarterly, and Middle East Policy. His commentary has also been featured in many newspapers, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Financial Times, and International Herald Tribune.
Dr. Takeyh has testified frequently at various congressional committees and has appeared on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, The Charlie Rose Show, NBC, CBS, CNN, BBC, FOX, and C-SPAN.
Dr. Takeyh earned a doctorate in modern history from Oxford University.
FDR and Election 2008
April 29, 2008 at 8:00 p.m.
Griffin Hall, Room 3
“Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Election of 2008,” Jonathan Alter, Senior Editor, Newsweek.
Since 1991, Jonathan Alter has written a widely-acclaimed Newsweek column that examines politics, media and social and global issues. Alter is also an originator and author of the weekly “Conventional Wisdom Watch,?? which uses up, down and sideways arrows to measure and lampoon the news. As an editor, he helps shape the magazine’s overall news coverage.
Alter has covered the last six presidential campaigns for Newsweek. He frequently interviews American presidents and other world leaders, regularly breaks news and has authored more than 50 Newsweek cover stories. Over the years, he has written extensively about party politics, patriotism, anti-Semitism, weapons of mass destruction, at-risk children, and a wide variety of other issues.
His new book, “The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope,?? will be published by Simon and Schuster in May, 2006.
Since 1996, Alter has also been a contributing correspondent for NBC News, where he appears regularly on all NBC broadcasts including “TODAY,” “NBC Nightly News,” NBC News specials, MSNBC and CNBC. In spring 1997, Alter was the Ferris Visiting Professor of Press and Politics at Princeton University.
Alter has earned many awards for his political columns, including a prize from the National Headliner Awards for Special Column on One Subject for a series of columns on life after 9/11. He was also part of the teams of Newsweek reporters and editors awarded the prestigious National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 1993, 2002, 2004. He received the John Bartlow Martin Award in 2001 for his reporting on the death penalty. Alter also received the 1994 Clarion Award from Women in Communications for Best Magazine Opinion Column, and the 1993 National Headliner Award for Consistently Outstanding Feature Column.
His many awards for media criticism include the 1987 Lowell Mellett Award and two New York State Bar Association Media Awards. In 1995, Alter was selected as one of the nation’s most influential media critics in a survey of leading media executives and scholars published by the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University. He also won the 1987 Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business Reporting, and a Mentoring USA Award for encouraging mentoring.
Alter joined Newsweek as an associate editor in the Nation section in March 1983, and became media critic the following year. He was named a senior writer in February 1987 and a senior editor in September 1991. For two years prior to joining Newsweek, Alter was an editor at The Washington Monthly. He has also been a freelance writer for such publications as The New Republic, Esquire, and The New York Times.
A Chicago native, Alter received his B.A. in history with honors from Harvard in 1979. He is married to Emily Lazar. They live in New Jersey with their children.
LBJ and Domestic Policy
April 24, 2008 at 8:00 p.m.
Griffin Hall, Room 3
“The Great Arm-Twister: LBJ and Domestic Policy,” James T. Patterson ’57, Ford Foundation Professor of History emeritus at Brown University.
James T. Patterson is the Ford Foundation Professor of History emeritus at Brown University, where he has taught for 30 years. His research interests include political, legal and social history, as well as the history of medicine, race relations and education.
While teaching at Indiana University from 1964 to 1972, he published “Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal,” “The New Deal and the States: Federalism in Transition,” and “Mr. Republican: A Biography of Robert A. Taft.” He received the Frederick Jackson Turner Book Prize from the Organization of American Historians in 1966 and the Indiana University Teaching Award in 1968, as well as two National Endowment for Humanities Fellowships and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
In 1972, Patterson joined the faculty of Brown University. His publications during that period include “America’s Struggle Against Poverty, 1900–1980;” “The Dread Disease: Cancer and Modern American Culture;” “Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974,” which won the Bancroft Prize for American History in 1997; “Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy;” and “Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore.” Several of his books have been History Book Club selections.
He was elected a member of the Society of American Historians in 1974 and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1997.
In From the Cold: Richard Betts and the Renaissance of Intelligence Studies
April 12, 2008 at 9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Griffin Hall, Room 3
The September 11 attacks and the war in Iraq have raised a number of questions about U.S. intelligence.
• Why did the intelligence community fail to prevent 9/11?
• How do policymakers use intelligence to make decisions about war and peace?
• Should Americans be willing to sacrifice their civil liberties in the name of national security?
Richard Betts explores these questions and others in his critically-acclaimed recent book, “Enemies of Intelligence.”
Betts is the Arnold Saltzman Professor of War and Peace Studies in the Department of Political Science, the director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies, and the director of the International Security Policy Program in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.
Betts has taught at Harvard University and was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution until 1990. A former staff member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the National Security Council, and the Walter Mondale presidential campaign, Betts has been a consultant to the National Intelligence Council and Central Intelligence Agency.
On Saturday, April 12, the Leadership Studies Program at Williams College will bring together leading intelligence scholars to discuss Betts’s work and offer insights about the future of U.S. intelligence. The conference will feature a range of academic experts along with representatives from the Department of Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The public is invited and the event is free.
Saturday, April 12 – Griffin Hall, room 3
9:00-10:30 – Intelligence and Foreign Policy Chair: Joshua Rovner, Williams College; James Wirtz, Naval Postgraduate School; Paul Pillar, Georgetown University; Thomas Mahnken, Department of Defense; Glenn Hastedt, James Madison University
10:45-12:15 – Surprise Attack and Intelligence Reform Chair: Richard Gid Powers, College of Staten Island; Richard Russell, National Defense University; Arthur Hulnick, Boston University; Stephen Marrin, Mercyhurst College; Erik Dahl, Harvard University
2:15-3:45 –Secrecy and Democracy Chair: Stephanie Kaplan, MIT; James Bruce, RAND; David Kaiser, Naval War College; Ted Gup, Case Western Reserve University
The conference is sponsored by both the Stanley Kaplan Program in American Foreign Policy and the Leadership Studies Program at Williams.
World War II Reconsidered
March 08, 2008 at 9 am – 5 pm
Griffin Hall, Room 3
Saturday, March 8 – Griffin Hall, Room 3 9-10:30 AM: Roundtable #1–“Japanese Strategy in the Pacific” Chair: Waldo Heinrichs, Temple University Panelists: James Wood, Williams College; Richard Frank, Independent Scholar; Edward Drea, U.S. Army Center for Military History, retired; Mark Parillo, Kansas State University
10:45-12:15 PM: Roundtable # 2—”Allied Airpower Strategies” Chair: Malcolm Muir, Virginia Military Institute Panelists: Conrad Crane, US Army Military History Institute; Tami Davis Biddle, Army War College; Reina Pennington, Norwich University
1:45-3:15 PM: Roundtable #3—”Allied Strategic and Diplomatic Relations” Chair: Arnold Offner, Lafayette College Panelists: Frank Costigliola, University of Connecticut; Randall Woods, University of Arkansas; Theodore Wilson, University of Kansas; J. Garry Clifford, University of Connecticut
3:30-5:00 PM: Roundtable #4—”What Remains to be Done?” Chair: Mark Stoler, Williams College Panelists: Gerhard Weinberg, University of North Carolina; Allan Millett, University of New Orleans; Raymond Callahan, University of Delaware
Additional Conference Participants: Andrew Buchanan, University of Vermont; Marc Gallicchio, Villanova University; Gian Gentile, US Military Academy; Meredith Hindley, American University; Timothy Jackson, Naval War College; Paul Miles, Princeton University; Galen Perras, University of Ottowa; Kurt Piehler, University of Tennessee; Michael Pavelec, Naval War College; Steven Ross, Naval War College; Nick Sarantakes, Naval War College; Douglas Smith, Naval War College; Roger Spiller, US Military Academy; Robert VanMeter, Skidmore College; Steven Waddell, US Military Academy; David Woolner, Marist College and FDR Library
This conference is sponsored by the Stanley Kaplan Program in American Foreign Policy and the Program in Leadership Studies.
“The Day of Battle: History, Memory, and Writing About War”
March 07, 2008 at 8:00 p.m.
Brooks-Rogers Recital hall
Pulitzer Prize-winning and Best Selling author, Rick Atkinson, to speak
Rick Atkinson the best-selling author of The Long Gray Line, a narrative account about West Point’s class of 1966; Crusade, a narrative history of the Persian Gulf War; and An Army at Dawn, the first volume in the Liberation Trilogy, a narrative history of the American Army in North Africa, Italy, and Western Europe during the Second World War. His book about the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq, In the Company of Soldiers, was published in March 2004. The second volume of the Liberation Trilogy, The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944, was published in Oct. 2007. The New York Times called it “a triumph of narrative history, elegantly written…and rooted in the sight and sounds of battle.”
Atkinson’s awards include the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting; the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for public service, awarded to The Post for a series of investigative articles directed and edited by Atkinson on shootings by the District of Columbia police department; the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for history; and the 1989 George Polk Award for national reporting. Atkinson is on extended book leave from The Washington Post, where his most recent assignments were covering the 101st Airborne Division during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and writing about roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007.
“Understanding the Middle East: The United States and the Role of Tribalism”
November 15, 2007 at 7:00 p.m.
Griffin 7
Dr. Yoav Alon is a senior lecturer in modern history of the Middle East at Tel Aviv University. He wrote his doctoral thesis in Oxford University on the creation of the modern Jordanian state under the British mandate and the integration of the tribal population into the modern structures of the new state. He teaches, researches, lectures and publishes on topics such as Jordanian history and politics, the British Empire in the Middle East, the Palestine mandate and tribal societies in the modern Middle East. His book The Making of Jordan: Tribes, Colonialism and the Modern State has been published in London by IB Tauris earlier this year.
“The Battle for Baghdad”
October 02, 2007 at
‘CTD MainStage
John Burns is currently London Bureau Chief for the New York Times. He is the longest-serving foreign correspondent in The New York Times’ history, having worked for more than 30 years on assignment in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Among his many awards, Burns has won two Pulitzer prizes: in 1993 for his coverage of the siege and destruction of the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, and again in 1997 for his coverage of the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan.This event is free but tickets are required. Contact the ’62 Center box office to reserve tickets: 413-597-2425. Box office hours are Tues.-Fri. 1-5 p.m. Sponsored by the Stanley Kaplan Program in American Foreign Policy and the Leadership Studies Program.
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The New Vietnam War Revisionism: Implications and Lessons
Saturday, March 3, 2007 9:00 am – 4:00 pm Griffin 3, Williams College
9:00-10:45 am Assessing Triumph Forsaken Chair: William Stueck – University of Georgia KC Johnson – Brooklyn College/CUNY Grad Center David Kaiser – Williams/ Naval War College Mark Lawrence – Yale/UT Austin Keith Taylor – Cornell University
11:00 am – 12:45 pm Ngo Dinh Diem and South Vietnam Reconsidered?? Chair: Seth Jacobs – Boston College Philip Catton – Stephen F. Austin University Jessica Chapman – UC Santa Barbara Matthew Masur – St. Anselm College Edward Miller – Dartmouth College
2:00 – 2:30 pm Is Iraq Another Vietnam A lecture by Robert Brigham – Vassar College
2:30 – 4:00 pm Roundtable Discussion on Vietnam and Iraq?? Chair: Ronald Frankum – Millersville University J. Gary Clifford – Univ. of Connecticut Richard Immerman – Temple University Doug MacDonald – Colgate University Stephen Morris – Johns Hopkins University
Sponsored by the Stanley Kaplan Program in American Foreign Policy and the History Department
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