The United States spends hundreds of billions of dollars on transforming the international landscape through military force in order to enhance America’s national security. But is there any other way? This lecture explores America`s Cold War experience in dealing with the communist states of Eastern Europe in an effort to make them less tyrannical and less hostile to the Western world. The focus will be on economic and psychological warfare, cultural and economic border penetration, and diplomacy as a tool of coercion in particular. The presentation also analyzes these policies in the light of the ideology, goals, strategies and tactics employed by the other side, while also considering the difficulties U.S. policy faces in adequately responding to external challenges. The discussion touches on the changing goals and strategies of U.S. foreign policy in Eastern Europe within the national independence/stability paradigm.

Co-sponsored by the History Department

Abstract:

For the past several years, and especially since the beginning of the "Arab Spring" in December 2010, Arab regimes have experienced sweeping processes of political decay, disintegration, reform, and revolution. While these are far from finished and clear in their impacts, they have already begun to transform the political parameters affecting peace and stability in the Middle East. The prevailing assumption is that destabilization of the neighborhood has made Israel even more reluctant to take any new initiatives or assume any new risks for a peace agreement with the Palestinians. But the changing regional parameters also generate new opportunities and especially new urgency for obtaining a two-state solution while it is still possible.

The manner in which complex quantum matter organizes evades elucidation. More than an esoteric problem, the lack of a first-principles description of this physics impedes our ability to deterministically design the transformational materials necessary for next-generation technology. To enhance our understanding of quantum matter, we are working to construct "quantum simulators" out of the coldest objects in the known universe, quantum gases of atoms. We will describe this new direction in quantum physics and how it may be applied to dissipation-less power grids and advanced "neural" networks for social network analysis.

About the speaker: Benjamin Lev received his Bachelors degree Magna Cum Laude from Princeton in 1999 and his Ph.D. from Caltech in 2005, both in Physics. He was an NRC postdoc at JILA (2006-2007), and an Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2008-2011) before joining the Stanford faculty as an Assistant Professor of Applied Physics and Physics in 2011. Benjamin has received a Packard Fellowship and a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) as well as NSF CAREER, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, DARPA, and Office of Navy Research young investigator awards. His research focuses on exploring strongly correlated, topological, and quantum soft matter using cavity QED, cryogenic atom chip microscopes, and quantum degenerate gases of exotic dipolar atoms.

LOCATION
Philippines Conference Room
Encina Hall
616 Serra St., 3rd floor
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
» Directions/Map

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The 1950s, the period between the catastrophic Korean War (1950-1953) and Korea’s ambitious industrialization in the 1960s and 70s, has remained relatively "neglected" among historians of modern Korea. The guest speakers will present their studies of this era’s culture, intellectual climate, and politics; and discuss colonial legacy, cold war, and reconstruction in the wake of the Korean War.

Participants:

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Eckert is the author of a number of books and articles, including Offspring of Empire: The Colonial Origins of Korean Capitalism, and he is also a co-author of Korea Old and New: A History, a widely-used university textbook on Korean history. 

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Robinson has worked extensively in program development at the university and national level with a special focus on Korean Studies.

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Moon is the author of Populist Collaborators: The Ilchinhoe and the Japanese Colonization of Korea, 1896–1910 (Cornell University Press, 2013). She is currently working on a new book tentatively titled Toward a Free State: Imperial Shift and the Formation of Post-Colonial South Korea, 1931–1950.

** We are currently experiencing some problems with our online RSVP system.  If you have any difficulty registering for this event, please send an email directly to the organizer, Meiko Kotani, via email meiko@stanford.edu. Thank you for your cooperation.  **

China has surpassed Japan to become the second largest economy in the world, and is able to strongly impact the global economy, politics and society.  But can China sustain and maintain relatively high economy growth in the future?  Can China surpass the United States to become the largest economy in the world?  Will the "China Growth Model" change?  These questions are now of great concern to the world.  Being a member of the management team of China's leading investment bank for ten years, Tatsuhito Tokuchi will speak on these themes from his China insider point of view.  He will also touch upon the future prospect of the China-Japan relationship and Chinese foreign diplomatic policy, which are the questions that people in neighboring countries are very much concerend about. 

Tatsuhito (Ted) Tokuchi is a Managing Director of CITIC Securities, the largest investment banking in China, and Chairman of CITIC Securities International, a subsidiary of CITICS in Hong Kong.  He is known as an only executive of a native of Japan for large indigenous Chinese companies.  Tokuchi was born in Tokyo in 1952.  In 1964, he went to Beijing with his parents, and there he spent thirteen years of his youth.  Tokuchi joined Daiwa Securities Comapny in 1980 in Japan, and during his twenty-year career at Daiwa, he engaged in investment banking and management of teams in Tokyo, New York, Hong Kong, Singapore and Beijing.  In 2002, he joined CITIC Securities Company as a head of the investment banking division.  Tokuchi received a B.A. in Chinese Literature from Beijing University in 1976, and an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University in 1985.

Special Seminar at Stanford Law School in partnership with the Levin Center

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Co-sponosored with the Center for African Studies

Abstract
Since the early years of her career working with children in some of the direst situations in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, Susan Bissell, UNICEF’s Chief of Child Protection, has witnessed children being targeted for such exploitative practices as human trafficking, recruitment into armed forces, and child labor. Violations of the child’s right to protection take place in every country and are massive, under-recognized, and under-reported barriers to child survival and development, in addition to being human rights violations. Children subjected to violence, exploitation, abuse and neglect are at risk of death, poor physical and mental health, HIV/AIDS infection, educational problems, displacement, and vagrancy.

 Protecting children from violence, exploitation and abuse is an integral component of protecting their rights to survival, growth, and development. UNICEF advocates and supports the creation of a protective environment for children in partnership with governments, national and international partners including the private sector, and civil society.  Bissell guides UNICEF’s Child Protection program in 170 countries, working with government officials and other partners to shape child protection policies. During this discussion, she will provide an overview of her role at UNICEF and the work she does to help ensure that governments honor their commitments to strengthen child protection systems and protect children.

In 2009, Susan Bissell was appointed to her current position in New York, heading all of UNICEF’s Child Protection work.  She oversees a team of professionals guiding efforts for children affected by armed conflict, child protection systems strengthening to prevent and respond to all forms of violence against children, and a range of other matters.

Abstract
In 1989 more than 700 South African political prisoners went on indefinite hunger strike to protest their detention. The unprecedented scale forced the South Africian government to release hundreds of incapacitated prisoners into public hospitals and enabled the active intevention of progressive medical professionals, social workers and human rights lawyers.

The presentation explores the widespread impact of these events in galvanizing the anti-apartheid struggle, energizing international human rights organizations and propelling the new international medical protocols on the ethical care of political prisoners on hunger strike.

Nayan Shah is Professor and chair of the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern california. He is the author of Contagious Divides,Epidemics and Race in San Francisco's Chinatown (Universty of California Press, 2001) and Stranger Intimacy Contesting Race Sexuality and Law in the North American West (University of California Press 2011) which was awarded the Norris and Carol Hundley Prize by the American Historical Association PAcific Branch for the most distinguished book on any historical subject. Since 2011 Shah is co-editor with Beth Freeman of GLO, The Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies.

Co-sponsored by: American Studies, Comparative Literature. Modern Thought and Literature, History,Theater Arts and Performance Studies