Sanjeev Khagram is a visiting professor at SIIS and CDDRL 2004-2005. He will speak about his current transnational research projects. He is the author of Dams and Development (Cornell University Press, 2004).

This event is sponsored by CDDRL and CISAC.

Marc J. Ventresca is University Lecturer in Management Studies at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, Fellow of Wolfson College, and University Fellow at the James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization. For 2004-5 he is a Research Fellow in Organizational Learning and Homeland Security, CISAC, IIS, Stanford University.

His research and teaching interests focus on institutions, organizations, and industry entrepreneurship; organizational learning; organization design and managing change; environmental management; power and leadership in organizations, and economic sociology of strategy.

He earned his Ph.D. in sociology at Stanford University, after master's degrees in policy analysis and education and in sociology. He has taught at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, the University of Illinois, the Copenhagen Business School, the Center for Work, Technology, and Organizations at Stanford University, and the Stanford Institute for Research on Higher Education.

Prior to a faculty career, Dr. Ventresca worked as a policy analyst at the Congressional Budget Office in Washington D.C., studied language and politics in Florence, Italy, and worked as a technical writer for hopeful start-ups in Silicon Valley.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is Indonesia's new president. He and his vice presidential running mate, Jusuf Kalla, were elected by a landslide on 20 September 2004 and inaugurated one month later. On 18 November, when Prof. Liddle speaks, the new government will have been in office for nearly a month. What can be said about its performance to date - and in the future? Prof. Liddle will cover a range of topics related to the new leadership in Jakarta, including the prospects for democratic consolidation.

R. William Liddle is a well-known Indonesia specialist. He has written about Indonesian politics since the early 1960s. His recent scholarly publications include: "Indonesia's Approaching Elections: Politics, Islam, and Public Opinion" (with Saiful Mujani), Journal of Democracy (January 2004) and "Indonesia's Democratic Transition: Playing by the Rules," in Andrew Reynolds, ed., The Architecture of Democracy (2002). Prof. Liddle writes and speaks often for international and Indonesian media.

Bahtiar Effendy has written widely on Islam and politics in Indonesia. His latest book is Islam and the State in Indonesia (2003). He is deputy director of the Institute for the Study and Advancement of Business Ethics. He also co-hosts a popular Indonesian television talk show on public affairs.

Gayle Smith is a renowned expert on African politics and economics. She has worked on failed states, post-conflict management, and transnational threats in Africa for over 20 years. She served as Special Assistant to the President of the United States and Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council under the Clinton Administration. Smith negotiated a ceasefire between Uganda and Rwanda in 1999 and won the National Security Council's Samuel Nelson Drew Award for Distinguished Contribution in Pursuit of Global Peace for her role in the negotiated peace agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia. She has travelled extensively in active war zones and published pioneering analyses of political emergencies and humanitarian interventions in Africa in particular.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard's government has strongly reaffirmed the ANZUS (Australia-New Zealand-US) alliance and his country's cultural ties to Europe. Critics have replied that these policies impede the development of Australian relations with Southeast Asia, especially now that the US is so unpopular in much of the region. How valid is the critique? And how will likely trends in Southeast Asia and the outcome of the American presidential election affect Australia's search for a balance between its proximity to Asia and its alliance with America? In addition to addressing these questions, Dr. Engel will argue that in making foreign policy, identity politics need not be sacrificed to or precluded by pragmatic interest. In Southeast Asian international relations, rhetoric and realism hardly rule each other out.

Dr. David Engel's responsibilities at the Australian Embassy in Washington include policies toward Southeast Asia. He has directed the Indonesia section of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (2001-03) in Canberra, served in Jakarta (1998-2001) and Phnom Penh (1993-95), and worked on Australia's relations with Vietnam and Laos as well. He received his PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 1989.

This is the Forum's 1st seminar of the 2004-2005 Academic Year

Japan Brown Bag seminar.

Co-hosted with the Center for East Asian Studies.

Seth Faison spent 12 years living in and writing about China. He went to China as a 25-year-old looking for adventure. He spent two years studying Chinese in Xian, attaining fluency. He became a reporter in Hong Kong, and then a correspondent in Beijing, where he covered the events at Tiananmen in 1989. He joined the New York Times in 1991, covering New York City. He opened the newspapers bureau in Shanghai in 1995 and wrote about social and economic change, earning a reputation as a writer with a knack for capturing the moods and flavors of China.

China Brown Bag seminar

Co-sponsored with the Center for East Asian Studies