Henry M. Jackson School Speaker Series: A Global Perspective

When: Saturday, April 28, 10:00 am - 5:15 pm
Where: Thomson Hall - 101 - View Map
Contact: Allison Dvaladze, dvaladze@u.washington.edu, 2062217951
More information:
http://jsis.washington.edu/ellison/

Hear professors with regional expertise on Russia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Canada and Latin America discuss topics from archeology in East Timor and Kashmir after the quake to the debate on Quebec and current political situation in Russia ahead of the 2008 presidential elections.

U.S.-Russian Relations After the Bush-Putin Era. 10 - 11:15 a.m.
Speaker: Stephen E. Hanson, Boeing International Professor, Political Science.
In March 2008, Vladimir Putin is constitutionally obliged to step down from his current post as President of the Russian Federation, and he has publicly promised that he will indeed do so. A few months later, presidential elections in the U.S. will identify the successor to President George W. Bush. How will U.S.-Russian relations be affected by the twin leadership transitions next year--and beyond? Sponsored by the Ellison Center for Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies.

Burma: Charting an Uncertain Future from a History of Ethnic Strife. 11:30 - 12:45 p.m.
Speaker: Matthew J. Walton, PhD student, Political Science
This talk will discuss the prospects for economic development and a transition to democracy in Burma (Myanmar). Since independence in 1948 this predominantly Buddhist nation has been plagued by ethnic rebellion, resulting in military rule since 1962. How has this history of ethnic and religious conflict affected the standoff between the military regime, the ethnic minority groups, and the democratic opposition (led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi)? In an underdeveloped country that is in many ways ruled like a police state, what positive trends can we find that give us hope for the possibility of democracy and peace? Sponsored by: The Southeast Asian Studies Center and the Jackson School for International Studies.

Winning Back Québec: The Canadian Federal Parties Electoral Strategies on Quebec. 1 - 2:15 p.m.
Speaker: Thierry Giasson, Visiting Professor
Votes in Québec will be hotly contested among all political parties during the coming Canadian Federal General Election. This lecture proposes to identify the principal strategic angles of each of the five federal parties in their efforts to win Quebec votes during the 2007 Federal Election. How will the debate on the recoginition of Québec as a nation play as an electoral issue? How will the four main federalist parties aligned themselves in this heated political debate? Will accomodation to Quebec 's nationalism still be the approach of choice of the Conservative Party of Canada? Sponsored by the Canadian Studies Center.

Kashmir After the Quake. 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Speaker: Cabeiri DeBergh Robinson, Assistant Professor of International Studies and South Asian studies presents an illustrated discussion of her recent research into the social and political impact of a natural disaster that killed over 80,000 people and left 2 million people homeless in the Himalayan region of South Asia in October 2005. Her presentation discusses how a history of armed conflict in the Kashmir region made the relief activities more complex and how the involvement of participants in the conflict as humanitarian workers is changing the political landscape of post-earthquake Pakistan. Sponsored by the South Asia Center and the International Studies Center.

Medicine in the Spanish Colonial World. 4 - 5:15 p.m.
Speaker: Adam Warren, Assistant Professor of History
Many who have studied Latin American history are aware of the massive epidemics that followed the arrival of the Spanish, causing the demographic collapse of large indigenous populations in the Caribbean, Mexico, and the Andes. This lecture examines the ways in which doctors and government officials in Spain and colonial Peru actually attempted to reverse this process two centuries later, using medical reforms and policing the behavior of colonial populations to engineer population growth. Sponsored by: Latin American Studies Program and the Jackson School for International Studies.