Beyond selecting the new President, the second and final round of the 2007 French Presidential election will raise many questions about the meaning of the results for France, and for the EU and trans-Atlantic relations. This roundtable event is scheduled to follow soon after the election to give the benefit of review. Panelists from wide-ranging disciplines will each comment on what can be learned from the campaigns, the final voting patterns, and prospects for French and Francophone politics, culture, and society.

About the Panelists

Patrick Chamorel has been a visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution since 2005. He is currently based at the Stanford Center in Washington, D.C., and will soon be the Center's Resident Scholar. He has written extensively on U.S. and European politics and U.S.-European relations. As a political scientist, Chamorel has taught and done research on comparative U.S. and European politics on both sides of the Atlantic. He is currently focusing on French politics on the eve of the 2007 presidential election.

Margaret Cohen is the Andrew B. Hammond Professor of French Language, Literature, and Civilization, and director of the Center for the Study of the Novel at Stanford University. She is author of Profane Illumination: Walter Benjamin and the Paris of Surrealist Revolution and The Sentimental Education of the Novel. Her research interests involve rethinking the literature and culture of modernity from the vantage point of its waterways. She is currently working on a book concerning how the history and representation of global ocean travel informed the development of the modern novel.

Jean-Pierre Dupuy is professor of French and political science at Stanford University and social and political philosophy at Ecole Polytechnique, Paris. He is author of The Mechanization of the Mind: On Origins of Cognitive Science and Self-Deception and Paradoxes of Rationality. His current research projects are: the paradoxes of rationality or the classical philosophical problem of the antinomies of Reason at the age of rational choice theory, analytics philosophy, and cognitive science; the ethics of nuclear deterrence and preemptive war; the philosophy of risk and uncertainty; and the philosophical underpinnings and the future of societal and ethical impacts of the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science.

Elisabeth Mudimbe-Boyi is professor of French and Comparative Literature at Stanford University. She is also director of the Program in Modern Thought and Literature and the Undergraduate Studies in French program. She is author of Beyond Dichotomies: Histories, Identities, Culture, and the Challenge of Globalization and Remembering Africa. Her research interests include cultural relations between Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean; literature, intellectuals, and society; and women writers.

Tyler Stovall is professor of history at University of California, Berkeley. He is author of Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light and The Rise of the Paris Red Belt. He is coeditor, with Sue Peabody, of The Color of Liberty: Histories of Race in France. He has written numerous articles on French history and has been president of the Western Society for French History. His work on African Americans living in Paris is of special importance to contemporary understanding of both French and American culture.

Sponsored by Stanford University's Forum on Contemporary Europe, History Department, Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, and France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies

Noah Richmond (speaker) is a CISAC Zukerman Fellow and a Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation fellow. His research has focused on the structure and management of the U.S. officer corps, organizing the U.S. military for new domains of warfare including space and cyberspace, and ballistic missile defense. His current research focuses on international, supra-national, and national control regimes for dual-use technologies. Most recently he co-chaired the working group on new domains of warfare for the Beyond Goldwater-Nichols Study conducted at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Richmond has previously consulted for the Institute for Defense Analyses, RAND, and Strategic Decisions Group. He received his BS in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an MS in engineering-economic systems and operations research from Stanford, and a PhD in management science and engineering from Stanford. Richmond is currently a law student at Stanford Law School (class of 2008), where his studies focus on intellectual property and international trade.

David Elliott (respondent) was staff director for science and technology at the National Security Council (NCS) and then vice president at SAIC and SRI. At NCS his portfolio included export control matters, which included the international coordination of our policy. During his time at NCS, major emphases emerged on civilian nuclear issues after the Indian nuclear test and on computer technology as its importance became evident. At CISAC he has contributed to work in cyber security and information technology. Elliott received his BS in physics from Stanford University and both his MS and PhD in experimental high energy physics from the California Institute of Technology.

A major component of the strategy to prevent attacks with Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) by transnational terrorist groups requires the widespread utilization of chemical, biological and radiological detection systems. Whether or not one can actually deploy these sensors may well depend on the public perception of the sensor's invasion of their privacy and the court's interpretation of the sensors' challenge to the Constitution's search and seizure protections. However, if scientists and engineers designing new sensors take cognizance of the perspective taken by courts in the past, they will stand a much better chance of providing technical solutions that will balance the Fourth Amendment and civil liberties against the modern realities of terrorist threats. This seminar will discuss and solicit ideas on how legal interpretations of the fourth Amendment can be used to help design modern sensor systems.

Don Prosnitz is currently the deputy drector (programs) for nonproliferation, homeland and international security at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and is responsible for overseeing all of the directorate's technical programs. He received his BS from Yale University and his PhD in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then spent two years as an assistant professor in the Engineering and Applied Science Department at Yale before joining Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as an experimental laser physicist. Over the next three decades, he conducted research on lasers, particle accelerators, high-power microwaves, free-electron lasers, and remote sensing, and managed the design, construction, and operation of numerous research facilities. In 1990, he was awarded the U.S. Particle Accelerator Award for Achievement in Accelerator Physics and Technology; in 2002, he was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He has served on multiple technical panels, including a Defense Science Board study and various intelligence committees. He is currently a member of the National Academies of Science Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology. In 1996, Prosnitz was briefly detailed to the Department of Energy where he provided technical support to the Office of Nonproliferation and National Security. In 1999, Prosnitz was named the chief science and technology advisor for the Department of Justice (DOJ) by Attorney General Janet Reno. In this newly created position, he was responsible for coordinating technology policy among the DOJ's component agencies and with state and local law enforcement entities on science and technology projects and programs. He served on numerous interagency working groups and federal committees, including the National Science and Technology Council, the Data Management Improvement Act Task Force (immigration systems), and the National Human Research Protections Advisory Committee. He advised the attorney general and DOJ officials and component agencies, such as the FBI, DEA, and former INS (Immigration and Nationalization Service), on such technical matters as weapons of mass destruction, forensics, human subject protection, immunization policy, immigration policy, biometrics, border protection, and information technology. In 2003 he returned to LLNL where he promotes continuing education of the workforce with a special emphasis on the interaction of society and technology.

On May 20-21, 2006, the Stanford Project on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE) of Stanford University and the China Institute for Science and Technology Policy (CISTP) of Tsinghua University will co-sponsor a workshop in Beijing, China, with the collaboration of Zhongguancun Science Park and the Industrial Technology Research Institute. The English version of the proceedings will be published by SPRIE.

Theme and Topics

The theme is the progress in and challenges to Greater China's innovative capacities. The workshop will include discussions of key drivers of innovative capacity: the inputs, processes, institutions, management strategies and outputs, including evidence of innovative capacities as demonstrated in new products, processes, services or business models.

The workshop will focus on information technology and telecommunications, focusing on development within and linkages among Mainland China and Taiwan, plus Singapore and Silicon Valley. Workshop sessions will include:

Statistical indicators

Corporate R&D: Multinational and domestic firms

University and research institute R&D

Science and technology human resources

Regional innovation

New technologies and business models

Papers invited include case studies of products and of firms, analysis of trends and cross-industry or cross-regional comparisons.

Workshop Format

Attendance at the two-day workshop will be by invitation only. More than twenty papers will be presented and discussed by a group of international scholars; panel participants will include senior industry leaders and government policy makers. The workshop format will facilitate discussions.