Posts
Liberal Values, Institutions, and Security in Europe (Academic), April 8th
*I know that I attended all in-person community meetings, but cannot remember if I went to all online meetings so I am covering my bases*
I went to the lecture on Liberal Values, Institutions, and Security in Europe which was a part of the Mershon Center workshop titled “U.S. and NATO Relations with Russia and Security in Europe”. Richard Herrmann stated that it is of utmost importance for all of the generations who are able to to keep working towards global democracy and fighting against the leaders who are non-democratic. He argues that there are few events that have pulled together NATO as much as the Russia-Ukraine conflict has. That being said, we tend to underestimate the lengths empirical powers will go to and that has negative consequences.
I am interested in how institutions can help band together nations in times of conflict and this event highlighted the powers that unity has. Individually, states tend to act in a self-serving manner, and can promote violence but, as soon as we learn to coexist globally, I believe we will finally be able to make big strides towards being a functional democratic society.
This event has ties to both my major in Security and Intelligence and my minors in Russian and Psychology. We discussed the Russia-Ukraine conflict A LOT in all of my security-focused classes but primarily focused on the security aspects so I think it was interesting to look at the situation from the perspective of international cooperation. Moreover in psychology, we learned about security trade offs which is something that I think plays a big role in this particular instance. And obviously Russia and Russian are related.
Career Paths with CIA (Professional Development), March 22nd
State Department with Jeffrey Giauque (Academic/Professional Development), February 25th
*I know that I attended all in-person community meetings, but cannot remember if I went to all online meetings so I am covering my bases*
I attended the CSEEES lecture with Jeffrey Giauque which gave a glance into what it looks like to have a career in foreign service and, more specifically, the State Department. He talked about his background in slavic studies and Russian and how that translated into his work experience in Belarus during their election cycle. He talked about the corruption that he witnessed (ie seeing ballot counters deliberately count votes for Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya as votes for Alexander Lukashenko) and what it means to work for the State Department.
IA Movie Night: Flee (Social/Academic), February 20th
Pyongyang Modern: Architecture and Urbanism in Postwar North Korea (Academic), February 15th
*I know that I attended all in-person community meetings, but cannot remember if I went to all online meetings so I am covering my bases*
I attended “Pyongyang Modern: Architecture and Urbanism in Postwar North Korea”, an event presented by Cheehyung Harrison Kim. He taught about the impact that Stalin and the USSR had on the architecture in North Korea and how Stalin even influenced the names of some streets. I don’t know how it was particularly related to the study of architecture, but he mentioned the North Korean film industry and how Woo In-Hee was the first actress to feature in a sound film from the country.
This relates to IA because knowing arts and architecture of other countries can help to understand more about that country and its culture.
I think that this event was very interesting mostly because I knew so little about North Korea. The country is very closed off so it is hard to get a good picture of what goes on inside. I, for example, had no idea that Stalins sphere of influence spread into North Korea and find it interesting that his impacts last to this day. I was surprised to see that the buildings in North Korea were not all brutalist, which is something that I expected going into the lecture.
Hafle (Social), November 8th
The Organization of Arab Students hosted an event called Hafle which was essentially an Arabic party with food, music, and dancing. It was held in the hall above Curl Market and there were quite a few people there. As someone who is neither Arabic nor in the Arabic program, my connection to the event was the people who I went with who were learning Arabic (ie Rosa).
As a vegetarian, I was only able to eat the rice and salad (both were very delicious), but the rest of the food looked absolutely amazing. The music was very familiar to me because traditional music in Spain incorporates a lot of elements of traditional Arabic music. The dancing was cool to watch because everyone was able to jump right into the action. There was also a student who was doing henna so almost everybody left with henna all over their hands and arms.
This relates to International Affairs because it was an event that encouraged cultural immersion, a concept that is a part of broadening one’s global horizons. Learning about other cultures, especially traditions, cuisine, and the arts is helpful in understanding who those people are.
Climate Change and U.S. Foreign Policy (Academic), October 21st
I attended Alex Thompson’s discussion on climate change and foreign policy. Thompson started by describing the new IPCC report which essentially makes it clear that humans have impacted earth’s climate which has led to major changes. As these changes occur, we can expect more extreme weather events which will continue and get worse unless we can stop earth from warming more than 2º. In the 26th COP, the parameters of the Paris accords and other pledges are supposed to be established. In terms of foreign policy, Thompson stated that someone must take control of the issue and the major emitters should be included in talks. The Paris accords should be maintained and the United States should carry out the plans that they promised (50% reduction by 2030, net zero by 2050). Aid should be increased and remain flexible while also keeping the fact that climate change must be combatted in mind.
Is The Two-State Solution Dead? (Academic), September 23rd
On Thursday, September 23rd, I attended Peter Hahn’s presentation on the Two-State Solution with the Mershon Center. In the first part of the event, Hahn read his writing on the conflict between Israel and Palestine and his thoughts on whether or not a two-state solution is still possible. He argues that the two-state solution is the only way for the countries to coexist while also maintaining Judaism in Israel and Islam in Palestine. This method of resolution is more realistic than a single-state solution because of (1) the dominating religions in the states as well as (2) Israel’s perception that Palestine is not ready for democracy. The two-state solution lets Israel be democratic while Palestine can gain self determination. The alternatives, he argues, would defeat the original purpose of the conflict and be detrimental to the government and/or culture of both states.
I think that the information presented in this event is helpful in the understanding of the conflict between Israel and Palestine and I preferred the Q&A section to the actual presentation. When answering questions Hahn seemed much more animated and happy to discuss his work further.
This event is connected to IA because it involves a multinational conflict that concerns a clash of culture/religion, for lack of better words. This conflict appears in global headlines on a semi-regular basis which highlights its importance to the global community. Also, this event is relevant to my studies as a Security and Intelligence major, especially my political science course about International Security and the Causes in War. In that class, I recently wrote an analysis on Israel and Palestine relations in which I discussed the resolution of the conflict and how international organizations cannot do anything to fix the problem in the deadlock unless Israel and Palestine start to have effective communication that gears them towards a path of cooperation. This argument, as well as the material that I have been learning in that class help me to understand or at least theorize how this two-state solution would be achieved.
Community Meeting ft. Kevin Kelly, Dayton International Peace Museum (_), April 14th
On April 14th I attended the community meeting about the Dayton International Peace Museum. Kevin Kelly talked about the museum as well as what it does for the community. The museum is a non-profit, primarily volunteer-ran organization that focuses on peace, making people aware of peaceful actions and ways that peace is being achieved now and how it can be achieved in the future. As an organization, it strives to make the local community, as well as the national and international communities, peaceful.
This event had clear ties to IA considering that the main focus was international peace, something that is vital to the status of international relations.
I found this event interesting because I didn’t expect an International Peace Museum to be located in Ohio. Coming from out of state, I had no idea of this museum’s existence so it definitely gave me an idea of a place to visit at some point. I think that having a museum dedicated to something that is integral to the maintenance and preservation of global well-being is important because it gives people hope for the future. While it may seem insignificant, I think that by giving people a chance to learn about peace, especially international peace, we can better learn about how peace can be maintained so that we are more aware of what curet global actions mean in terms of peace.