Mershon Center for International Security Studies
September 12 , 2016
In This Issue
Congratulations
Dorothy Noyes
Professor of English and Comparative Studies

Dorothy Noyes received a letter of thanks from a student for her part in bringing several speakers to the Mershon Center in 2015-16. The note read in part: 

I was able to attend three talks, and found them all to be timely, compelling and fascinating.

Particularly noteworthy were lectures given by Drs. Ingrid Hehmeyer, Paul Janse, and Yücel Demirer. ... I found myself "hanging on every word." Dr. Hehmeyer demonstrated the intersection between knowledge of the "local" and non-patronizing use of resources to address water scarcity in Yemen. Dr. Janse enthralled by showing how applied linguistics can shed light on cross-ethnic discourse in the Ottoman Empire as well as 20th-century migratory events. Finally, Dr. Demirer brought us a harrowing first-hand account of the implications of the AKP's restriction of academic freedoms in Turkey.

... Thank you for commitment to bring speakers of relevance and note to OSU. The Mershon Center continues to play an important part in my academic training.
In the Media
Sean Kay
Mershon Associate
 
"Presidential Nominees Foreign Policy"
September 8, 2016
John Mueller
Woody Hayes Senior Research Scientist

"Clinton, Trump campaign in the world made by 9/11"
USA Today
September 9, 2016

"Fifteen years after Sept. 11, Americans are afraid but don't want it to cloud their judgment"
Los Angeles Times
September 11, 2016
Erik Nisbet
Associate Professor of Communication

"Why Russians support Putin's foreign policy"
The Conversation
September 9, 2016
David Stebenne
Professor of History and Law

"American Symbols and Politics"
All Sides with Ann Fisher
September 6, 2016
About Mershon Memo
Mershon Memo is a weekly e-mail newsletter distributed by the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, a unit of the Office of International Affairs at The Ohio State University.
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Mershon Events
Thursday-Friday, September 22-23, 2016

Fall COMPAS Conference
11th Floor, Thompson Library, 1858 Neil Ave.
Organized by Center for Ethics and Human Values

COMPAS Fall 2016COMPAS is a series of year-long conversations on morality, politics, and society organized by the Center for Ethics and Human Values. The theme for the 2016-17 COMPAS program is inequality. It kicks off with a major interdisciplinary conference that aims to engage a general audience by focusing on four intersecting policy issues: mass incarceration, neighborhoods and social inequality, health disparities, and economic inequality and democracy. These issues raise important questions about poverty and opportunity, individual well-being and institutional justice, and the rights and responsibilities of democratic citizenship. They also cause us to reflect on the social and political effects of class, race, gender, and other factors. Richard Wilkinson, author of The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger (Bloomsbury, 2011, with Kate Pickett), will give the keynote address. Read more at go.osu.edu/compasfall
Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Kwame Anthony Appiah
5 p.m., Performance Hall, Ohio Union, 1739 N. High St.
Co-Sponsored by Office of International Affairs and Center for Ethics and Human Values

Kwame Anthony Appiah A world-renowned philosopher, cultural theorist and author, Kwame Anthony Appiah has published widely on moral philosophy, political theory, ethics, and African American literature and culture. A leading thinker on race and society, Appiah's current research centers on the roles of idealization and ideals in psychology, ethics and politics, and his talk will focus on ethics in higher education. Appiah holds an appointment at New York University's Department of Philosophy and its School of Law, where he teaches in New York and at the university's global centers. In 2009, Forbes Magazine named Appiah as one of the world's seven most powerful thinkers, and in 2012, he was one of eight scholars presented with the National Humanities Medal by President Obama. Read more
Monday, October 3, 2016
4:30 p.m., 360 Journalism Building, 242 W. 18th Ave.
Co-Sponsored by School of Communication

Olga Kamenchuk Media and journalism are very important components of all elections, whether in the United States or abroad. However, the role they play and the rules that govern their influence vary widely from country to country. In many countries the media promotes free and democratic elections.  Yet in others the media is a tool of autocrats to maintain their power. This event features a panel of international media and election experts from the Comparative National Elections Project representing Russia, Mexico, Germany, Portugal and South Africa. Panelists include:
  • Thorsten Faas, professor of political science at Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz
  • Olga Kamenchuk (left), director of international studies at VCIOM (Russian Public Opinion Research Center),  the leading opinion polling company in the post-Soviet area
  • Pedro Magalhaes, researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon
  • Robert Mattes, director of the Democracy in Africa Research Unit at University of Cape Town
  • Alejandro Moreno, professor of political science at Mexico's Autonomous Technological Institute, and director of public opinion polls at Reforma newspaper. 
The discussion will be moderated by Mershon affiliate Erik Nisbet, associate professor of communication, political science, and environmental policy. Read more and register at go.osu.edu/cnep-media
Thursday, October 6, 2016

Thomas Lindemann
2 p.m., 120 Mershon Center, 1501 Neil Ave.

Thomas Lindemann Thomas Lindemann is professor of political science at Ecole Polytechique (LinX Research Centre) and University of Versailles Saint-Quentin. During Fall 2016, he is a visiting professor at Columbia University. He is the author of six books and numerous articles published in leading international relations journals such as International Political Sociology, International Relations, and International Theory. He has contributed to introduction of the concept of recognition into the international relations discipline, with an emphasis on the antagonist and emotional aspects of the concept. His talk will show the limits of utilitarian models for the comprehension of war and humanitarian intervention and defend the idea that behind the concepts of interest are hidden logics of (non-)recognition between self and other. Read more and register at go.osu.edu/lindemannt
Mershon News
Responsibility, Morality, and Costs of War: Future Directions

" Responsibility, Morality and the Costs of War: PTSD, Moral Injury and Beyond" was a major interdisciplinary symposium that blended performing and visual arts with leading research to explore the costs of war. Organized by Kevin McClatchy and Janet Parrott of the Department of Theatre, the symposium took place November 12-14, 2015, at The Ohio State University.

A grant from the Mershon Center allowed organizers to bring speakers, artists and panelists, including keynote speaker Jonathan Shay, as well as featured participants Genevieve Chase, Heather Courtney, Dominic Fredianelli and Bianca Sams. The three-day event spoke to the challenges that confront veterans from the numerous sites of conflict around the world.

Slideshow of photos from the Responsibility, Morality, and Costs of War symposium (has music)

Symposium participants included military veterans, active duty military personnel, theatre students, medical professionals, filmmakers, writers, actors, painters, scholars and engaged citizens together for a string of memorable experiences and future possibilities. Faculty took part from a wide variety of disciplines, including theatre, history, political science, medicine, folklore studies, comparative studies, English, photography and digital media and military science. McClatchy performed his solo play, "Scrap Heap," about a Special Forces veteran grappling with his transition to civilian life.

The symposium was a "model of interdisciplinary collaboration," said Peter Hahn, divisional dean for Arts and Humanities at Ohio State. The symposium positioned a variety of departments across the university to collaborate further and allowed the conversation about the costs of war to expand across the Ohio State campus, into the Central Ohio community and beyond. Read more
Other Events
Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Tinaz Pavri 
"Mumbai Before Globalization: Changing City, Vanishing Community"
3:30 p.m., 160 Enarson Classroom Building, 2009 Millikin Road
Sponsored by East Asian Studies Center

Tinaz Pavri Tinaz Pavri is division chair of social science and humanities at Spelman College and an alumna of The Ohio State University. Her research and publication interests lie in the area of security studies and conflict resolution (particularly ethno-nationalist and protracted conflicts), questions of national identity and the international political economy. She will discuss her book, Bombay in the Age of Disco: City, Community, Life (University of Georgia Press, 2015), which considers the influence of globalization on India's largest city of Mumbai.  Read more
Friday-Saturday, September 23-24, 2016

Conference in Honor of John F. Guilmartin
120 Mershon Center, 1501 Neil Ave.
Sponsored by Department of History

John F. GuilmartinLt. Col. John F. "Joe" Guilmartin Jr., U.S. Air Force (Ret.), was a prominent member of the History Department at The Ohio State University for nearly three decades. He served two tours in the Vietnam War, logging more than 120 missions over Laos and North Vietnam in 1965-66 as a HH-3E "Jolly Green" helicopter pilot. Guilmartin, simply "Dr. G" to his students, was an authority on military and maritime history, airpower history, military technology, and the Vietnam War. At Ohio State he supervised 26 graduate students to completion of their Ph.D. degrees. He also sat on more than 270 student examination committees, the most of any other faculty member on record. On Friday the conference will include presentations from Guilmartin's fellow scholars and colleagues. The Saturday event is his celebratory Festschrift and will feature papers by his former doctoral students. Read more at go.osu.edu/guilmartin
Monday, September 26, 2016

Alam Payind
"Update on Extremist Jihadi Groups in Afghanistan and the Middle East"
Noon, 100 Enarson Classroom Building, 2009 Millikin Road
Sponsored by Middle East Studies Center

Alam PayindIn March the Middle East Studies Center sponsored a symposium on Jihadi groups with Amr Al-Azm, associate professor of Middle East history and anthropology at Shawnee State University; Alam Payind, director of the Middle East Studies Center; and Richard Herrmann, interim director of the Mershon Center. The symposium ( video here) addressed complex issues related to extremist jihadi groups in the Middle East, as panelists introduced the topic, provided background information on these groups and the area they operate in, and discussed the implications for U.S. foreign policy. In this event, Alam Payind will provide an update on the situation based on his recent fieldwork in Afghanistan.  Read more and register
Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Robert Gates
"America's Global Leadership: What's at Stake in 2016?"
11:30 a.m., Columbus Convention Center, 400 N. High St.
Sponsored by U.S. Global Leadership Coalition

Robert GatesGrowing global challenges -- from Syria to ISIS to Zika -- impact America's economic and security interests every day. Join former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, one of the most respected national security experts, to discuss why America's role in the world matters for this election and beyond. Gates is an American statesman, scholar and university president who served as U.S. Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011. Gates served for 26 years in the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, and was director of the CIA under President Bush. He currently serves as chancellor of the College of William and Mary. Co-sponsored by the Columbus Council on World Affairs. Register here
Friday, September 30, 2016

Bill Shkurti
"Campus Chaos: OSU in the Sixties"
3:30 p.m., 165 Thompson Library, 1858 Neil Ave.
Sponsored by University Libraries

Bill ShkurtiJoin us for a panel discussion and book signing of Bill Shkurti's The Ohio State University in the Sixties: The Unraveling of the Old Order (Ohio State University Press, 2016). Panelists include Bill Crandell, one of the leaders of the 1970 student strike; Mabel Freeman, president of the Women's Self Government Association, 1965-66; and Niki Schwartz, president of Students for Liberal Action, 1962-63. Bill Shkurti is a retired employee of Ohio State University and an alumnus. He received both his undergraduate ('68) and masters ('74) degrees from Ohio State. Shkurti served the university for 10 years as a vice president for finance and then another 10 years as senior vice president of business and finance. He currently holds an adjunct faculty appointment in the John Glenn College of Public Affairs. For more information about campus during this period, please see the online exhibition  Spring of Dissent: The 1970 Student Demonstrations
Monday, October 3, 2016

"Economic Analysis of Key Presidential Election Issues"
6 p.m., 11th Floor, Thompson Library, 1858 Neil Ave.
Sponsored by Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics

There has been considerable rhetoric around key issues in the upcoming presidential election, but much less analysis of their potential economic impact. Join the Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics (AEDE) for an evening conversation that will dig deeper into some of the election issues through a critical unbiased, non-partisan economic examination from leading economic experts. Among the speakers:
  • Mark Partridge, C. William Swank Chair in Rural-Urban Policy, will provide an overview of the economic agendas released by the candidates.
  • Ian Sheldon, Andersons Chair of Agricultural Marketing, Trade and Policy, will provide an assessment of the candidates' platforms on jobs and trade.
  • Joyce Chen, Development Economist, will discuss the effects of immigration on the domestic economy.
  • Jung Kim, Managing Director, Research and Business Intelligence, Columbus 2020, will offer an overview of the candidates' platforms from the lens of the potential impact on our region's economy.
Light refreshments will be served. There is no cost to attend. However, we kindly request that all participants register. Register here
Other News
Alexander Hamilton Society to hold election debate

Nick Dowling
The Ohio State chapter of the Alexander Hamilton Society is pleased to announce its inaugural debate for Fall 2016. 

The debate, to be held Wednesday, September 14, at 6 p.m. at Moritz College of Law, 55 W. 12th Ave., will center on the foreign policies of each of the two major presidential candidates and their implications for the United States and the world. 

Speaking in support of the foreign policy of Hillary Clinton will be Nick Dowling (right), founder and president of national security firm IDS International. Speaking in support of Donald Trump's foreign policy will be Randy Schweller, professor of political science and Mershon affiliate.

Mershon affiliate and Hamilton Society adviser Peter Mansoor, Gen. Raymond E. Mason Chair in Military History, will moderate.

As always, free Wings Over and Coke products will be provided on what should be an exciting, informative, and pertinent night on the eve of the election. Read more and register
2016 Education Abroad Expo to be September 16

The 2016 Education Abroad Expo will be held on Friday, September 16, from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. in the Buckeye Reading Room in the Thompson Library. The Expo gives students the opportunity to talk one-on-one with education abroad experts and learn more about the myriad of ways to study abroad at Ohio State. Students will be able to explore programs for all majors and learn more about how to fund their prospective education abroad experience. Visit the Office of International Affairs website to learn more.
2016 International Photography Competition

All students, faculty, staff, visiting scholars and alumni at The Ohio State University are invited to submit their photos to the 2016 International Photography Competition. Entries will be accepted through October 10. This is a wonderful opportunity to share your original photographs from around the world. In addition to honoring the Best in Show, first, second and third place winners will be selected in the following categories: People, Places and Cultural Exchange. There will also be People's Choice awards for the photos that receive the highest votes via the Facebook voting phase. Visit the Office of International Affairs website to learn more.
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