In This Issue

Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Sociology and Communication

"Tea party heating up board races"
October 27, 2013
Columbus Dispatch

Associate Professor of Political Science

"On Left-Handed Latino Republicans and Interaction Terms"
October 26, 2013
Braumoeller Blog

Gen. Raymond E. Mason Jr. Chair in Military History

"Petraeus aide, now Ohio State professor, critiques Iraq 'surge'"
October 28, 2013
Columbus Dispatch

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.

        

Aaron Friedberg is professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, where he has taught since 1987, and co-director of the Woodrow Wilson School's Center for International Security Studies. He is author of The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895-1905 (winner of the Edgar S. Furniss Book Award) and In the Shadow of the Garrison State: America's Anti-Statism and its Cold War Grand Strategy, both published by Princeton. His latest book is A Contest for Supremacy: China, America and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia (Norton, 2011). In this presentation, Friedberg will examine the factors that appear to be impelling the United States and China towards a deepening geopolitical rivalry. Read more and register at go.osu.edu/afriedberg

Patrice McMahon is associate professor of political science and director of global engagement for the College of Arts and Sciences at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is the author of Taming Ethnic Hatreds: Ethnic Cooperation and Transnational Networks in Eastern Europe (Syracuse, 2007) and has two edited books, At Home and Abroad: How States Respond to Human Security (2013) and Statebuilding and the International Community: Getting its Act Together? (2012). Focusing on the Balkans, McMahon will explain the contradictory and often negative role played by the international community in supporting NGOs in peacebuilding environments. Read more and register at go.osu.edu/pmcmahon

Join the live webcast as the council's CEO Patrick Terrien sits down with Witold Szablowski, a Polish journalist known for his in-depth reporting from the edges of the European Union. Before he began working for Poland's leading independent newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, and its long form supplement, Duzy Format, Szablowski worked at the TVN 24 television station and CNN Turk. A graduate of the Department of Journalism and Political Science at Warsaw University, he also studied Political Science in Istanbul, where he got to know Turkey from the inside out.  A collection of his reports from Turkey, published in English under the title "Assassin from Apricot City," has been described as "a multi-layered story of Turkey torn between East and West, between Islam and Islamophobia, suffused with conservatism and post-modernity, longing for Europe while at the same time displaying a healthy dose of Euro-skepticism." Webcast viewers can participate by posting questions in the comment box. Read more and register

The Arctic Ocean and surrounding regions are undergoing transformations that are unprecedented in recorded human history. Air and sea-surface temperatures are rising, sea ice is receding in volume and areal extent, sea level is rising, glaciers are melting, permafrost is thawing and coastal erosion is accelerating due to increased river runoff.  Many of these changes are occurring at alarming rates with dire and not entirely predictable consequences.  What is certain is that there will be winners and losers in the new Arctic that emerges not only for human populations, but also for all other life forms. Already, new sea lanes are opening up -- shortening the distance from manufacturing regions in Asia to markets in Western Europe, oil exploration is accelerating, and fishing fleets have a entire "new" ocean to harvest from. Along with the positive developments will come negative ones and risks to delicate animal habitats, food webs and over Arctic ecosystem.  Samuel B. Mukasa, dean and Eric J. Essene Professor of Geochemistry at the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of New Hampshire, will discuss these developments and the scientific research areas that have emerged in response to these changes.

Watch a streaming video of Norman MacLeod, dean of post-graduate education and training at the Natural History Museum in London, speaking on "The Causes of Extinction: Setting the Modern Biodiversity Crisis in Context" at the Mershon Center. MacLeod visited as part of the center's new Climate, Security, Health and Resilience initiative. Shown above (left to right) are project collaborators John Brooke, professor of history; Craig Jenkins, director of the Mershon Center; Norman MacLeod; Ellen Mosley-Thompson, director of Byrd Polar Research Center; Geoffrey Parker, Andreas Dorpalen Professor of History; and Lonnie Thompson, Distinguished University Professor in the School of Earth Sciences.

 

The week of November 12-18 marks the 13th annual celebration of International Education Week. A joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education, International Education Week is an opportunity to promote a broader understanding of world cultures. The Ohio State University joins thousands of other institutions worldwide participating in events that bring an international perspective to college campuses. Take a look at the calendar of international events taking place on Ohio State's campus during the week.

 

Two Mershon-affiliated graduate student affiliates are embarking on a new journey this year as part of the record number of Fulbright Scholarship winners at The Ohio State University.

 

John Knight and John Douglas Johnson, both doctoral students in history, will be working on their Mershon-supported dissertation projects in China and Russia respectively.

 

Knight will spend a year in China researching "Is This the Final Struggle? Popular and Elite Attitudes within China toward the International Socialist Movement, 1917-1956," which examines Chinese views of the Soviet Union from the October Revolution of 1917 until Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" of 1956.

 

The Mershon Center supported Knight in conducting eight weeks of preliminary research during summer 2012 at archives in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Harbin, and Shenyang. He used the knowledge and experience he gained to parlay his project into a successful application for the Fulbright.

 

He will live in Shanghai, but also will conduct research in Beijing, Chongqing and northeastern China. Knight will incorporate the findings in teaching East Asian and world history classes at Ohio State. "My goal is to provide American students with a clearer understanding of China's political and cultural development in the 20th century," he said.

 

Johnson is living in Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad), Russia, for a year to research reconstruction of the city after World War II for his dissertation on "Building an Electric Future: The Volga Hydroelectric Station and the Construction of Late Socialism in the Soviet Union, 1950-1961."

 

The Mershon Center supported Johnson for 10 weeks of preliminary research in summer 2012 during which he worked in local archives and at the Volgograd City Library, visited the Volga Hydroelectric Facility, and explored the numerous war memorials and local history museums.

 

Johnson is now on his fourth trip to Russia since beginning graduate school in 2009. "Volgograd is the site of one of the most significant battles of the 20th century. I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to carry out this extended research trip and look forward to a productive year in Volgograd," he said.

 

Philip Brown, professor of Japanese and East Asian history, was among the 14 faculty members from The Ohio State University selected as recipients of prestigious Fulbright fellowships for 2013-14.

 

Brown will research his project on "Dam Imperialism: The Case of the Wusantou Dam, Tainan, and Related Projects" at the Institute for Taiwan History at Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan, during spring 2014.

 

Brown is an expert in early modern and modern Japanese history with interests in the history of technology, environmental history and state-society relations from the 15th to 19th centuries.

 

He recently published a monograph on joint arable land holding systems (warichi), Cultivating Commons: Joint Ownership of Arable Land in Early Modern Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2011).

 

He spent 2008 in Niigata, Japan, starting a new long-term project that examines the development of civil engineering, state modernization and flood control in 19th and 20th century Japan.

 

To support the latter research he received a Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Award, Japan-U.S. Friendship/NEH Fellowship, and National Science Foundation Scholars Award for $223,000 under the Science and Society Program.

 

Fulbright scholars are selected by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, which administers the program for the U.S. Department of State.

 

The program offers U.S. faculty, administrators and professionals grants to lecture, conduct research or participate in seminars abroad. About 1,100 U.S. faculty and professionals travel abroad on Fulbright Scholar Programs each year.

 

The Office of International Affairs administers the Fulbright Scholar program for Ohio State. Grant competitions are held annually. Faculty and staff interested in applying for the FY2015-16 award should contact Joanna Kukielka-Blaser. The deadline is February 1, 2014. For more information, visit cies.org.