IDEAS Inaugural Philippe Roman Chair Lecture
Thursday, 11 October 2007, 6.30 pm, Old Theatre
Reforming the United Nations, Mission Impossible?|
Speaker: Professor Paul Kennedy
Chair: Howard Davies
Professor Paul Kennedy has joined IDEAS-CWSC for the 2007-08 academic year as the inaugural holder of the Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs. Professor Kennedy delivered this lecture for the occasion of the inauguration of the Chair in History and International Relations.
Kennedy's lecture was a huge success and attracted a theatre full of students, faculty, politicians, and journalists from universities and organizations across London.
His discussion focused on the chief international organ of global civic society, the United Nations, its strengths and weaknesses, and the prospects for reforming the world body to improve its ability to confront the challenges of the twenty-first century.
In particular, he focused on the role of the Security Council and the special privileges bestowed upon its five permanent members, discussing the complex historical reasons for their "veto" and the reasons why Charter amendment is probably impossible. The lecture was based in part on Professor Kennedy's latest book, The Parliament of Man: the past, present and future of the United Nations (2006), which was inspired by work he did on a report for the secretary general for the 50th anniversary of the UN.
After the lecture, LSE IDEAS held a special reception for Professor Kennedy and for friends and guests of the centre. In addition to holding the Philippe Roman Chair at LSE, Professor Kennedy is currently the J Richardson Dilworth Professor of History at Yale University, where he teaches on political, economic, and strategic issues.
He is one of the most well-known international historians working in the field today, and has reached a global audience through his books The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1987) and Preparing for the Twenty-First Century (1993).
IDEAS Graduate Seminar:
Thursday, 18 October 2007, 6.30 pm, D702 (Clement House)
Zimbabwe: The Road From Independence to 2007
Speaker: Dr. Knox Chitivo
Chair: Dr Sue Onslow, CWSC Fellow
Knox Chitiyo is a Zimbabwean researcher and was the first Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Nelson Mandela Visiting Africa Fellow and now heads the RUSI Africa Programme, an initiative generously supported by the Brenthurst Foundation and the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
He was a Senior Lecturer in War Studies in the History Department at the University of Zimbabwe from 1994-2003. He was also the Deputy Director (and co-founder) of the Centre for Defence Studies during the same period, and edited the Journal of African Security and Conflict.
He is particularly interested in the armed/security forces of southern Africa [particularly Zimbabwe] and how they intersect with issues of development, and political transitions.
IDEAS Graduate Seminar:
Wednesday 24 October 2007, 6.30, E395 (CWSC Seminar room, East Building)
Consumption and the Cold War: Dilemmas of Legitimacy, Propaganda, and Social Change Under Brezhnev
Speaker: Natalya Chernyshova - Kings College
Chair: Dr. Anita Prazmowska, LSE
Natalya Chernyshova has recently completed work on her PhD thesis at the Department of History at King's College London. Her thesis examined late Soviet society of the Brezhnev era through the prism of consumption, seeking to look beyond the uninformative label of 'stagnation' and to investigate fascinating social and cultural changes that were taking place under 'mature socialism'.
Natalya received her MA in European Studies from King's and a BA in Journalism and History from the American University in Bulgaria. She is currently a teaching fellow at the History Department at King's College London.
IDEAS Public Lecture:
Tuesday, 6 November 2007, 6.30 pm, Old Theatre
The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy|
Speakers: John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt
Chair: Professor Michael Cox, Department of International Relations
This extremely successful lecture shed new light on the nature and activities of the 'Israel lobby' in the United States and showed how these various groups and individuals have encouraged policies that are unintentionally harmful to both US and Israeli interests. The event sparked wide public interest, and due to record demand the LSE was unable to accommodate everyone who wished to attend.
Following speeches by the lecturers, the floor was opened to questions and a rousing debate was held. Audience members raised questions on the future of Israel-US relations, terrorism and American foreign policy, and the resurgence of Iran in the Middle East. The debate provided a lively and engaging forum for an inclusive exchange of ideas.
A wide range of perspectives on the topic was addressed in the question and answer period, highlighting the LSE tradition of tolerance and academic curiosity.
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he served as Academic Dean from 2002 to 2006. His most recent book, Taming American Power: The Global Response to US Primacy (W.W. Norton, 2005), was a finalist for the Lionel Gelber International Affairs Book Award and the Arthur Ross Book Prize. John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982.
He has written extensively about security issues and international politics more generally. Mearsheimer has also won a number of teaching awards, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003. Their new book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (co-authored with John J. Mearsheimer), will be published by Farrar, Straus, & Giroux in September 2007. A podcast of the lecture is available here|.
IDEAS Graduate Seminar
Wednesday, 14 November 2007, 6.30 pm, E168, East Building, 1st floor
The G6 and the Rambouillet Conference
Speaker: Elizabeth Benning, PhD Candidate, LSE
Chair: Dr Kristina Spohr Readman
Elizabeth Benning is a PhD candidate in the LSE International History Department. She is working on West German foreign and economic policy in the 1970s. Elizabeth is co-managing editor of the journal Cold War History, and a CWSC program assistant, organizing among other projects the 2006 LSE-USCB-GWU International History Conference.
In addition, she works for the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. Elizabeth is a graduate teaching assistant in the International History Department. She holds a BA in history and a BA in German language and literature from Georgetown University, and spent a post-undergraduate year at Freie Universität Berlin studying history and political science.
IDEAS Public Lecture
Tuesday, 27 November 2007, 6:30 pm, Old Theatre
Re-Writing the History of the Constitution: From the Miraculous to the Political|
Speaker: Professor Carol Berkin
Chair: Professor O.A. Westad, IDEAS-CWSC Director
Was the US constitution the work of confident demigods and innovators-- or was it the handiwork of anxious political leaders who relied on longstanding Anglo-American political traditions to save a republic in crisis?
Professor Berkin's lecture shed new light on the intentions and motivations of America's founding fathers in drafting the constitution. As Professor Berkin explained, these men drafted and debated the constitution through the summer of 1787, guided by concern over abuse of power and uncertainty for the future.
Carol Berkin is Presidential Distinguished Professor of History at Baruch College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York, where she teaches early American and women's history.
She is author and editor of several books, including Women of America: A History (1980), ed. with Mary Beth Norton; Women, War and Revolution: A Comparative History (1980), ed. with Clara Lovett; First Generations: Women in Colonial America (1986); A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution (2002); Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America's Independence (2005); and the forthcoming Exploring Women's Studies: Looking Forward, Looking Back. She is the editor of History Now, the Gilder Lehrman Institute's quarterly online journal.
IDEAS Public Lecture
Wednesday, 5 December 2007, 6.30 pm, Old Theatre
The United States - Dangerous Nation?|
Speaker: Dr. Robert Kagan
Chair: Professor O.A. Westad, IDEAS-CWSC Director
"End of Dreams, Return of History" -- The years immediately following the end of the Cold War offered a tantalizing glimpse at the possibility of a new kind of international order, with nations growing together or disappearing altogether, ideological conflicts melting away, cultures intermingling, and increasingly free commerce and communications.
But that was a mirage, the hopeful anticipation of a liberal, democratic world that wanted to believe the end of the Cold War did not just end one strategic and ideological conflict but all strategic and ideological conflicts. Robert Kagan is senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund.
His most recent book is Dangerous Nation: America's Place in the World from its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the Twentieth Century (Knopf 2006.) His previous book was Of Paradise and Power (Knopf, 2003), an international bestseller that has been translated into more than 25 languages. Dr Kagan writes a monthly column on world affairs for the Washington Post, and is a contributing editor at both the New Republic and the Weekly Standard.