March 2011 Archives

Greetings from the Humphrey School!

Beginning this Thursday, the Humphrey Students of Color Association (HSOCA) is offering a series of talks about the intersection of racial inequity and public policy. Speakers will explore varied policy areas, including transportation, housing, employment and education. Format is lecture followed by Q&A. Lunch is provided.

Time: Thursdays 11:30 to 12:30 PM
Place: Humphrey Center Room 20

Speakers lined up include:

March 31st - Mahmoud El- Kati
April 7 - Ed Goetz
April 21 - Veronica Burt
April 28 - TBA

Questions or RSVP to hsoca@umn.edu

Egypt's Revolution:
The Infectious Power of Standing Up

The surprise success of Egypt's recent uprising holds encouraging lessons for anyone pushing for political change.

When democracy activists called for mass protests to begin on January 25, many in mainstream Egyptian society dismissed their plans as pointless and doomed to failure. The conventional wisdom was that Egyptians were apolitical. Many accepted the country's dictatorship as a necessary cost for security.

Yet within a day or two, the same skeptics became outspoken supporters for the democracy movement. Why did they switch so quickly? How did social networking sites overcome the presumption of Egyptian apathy and trigger a cascade of emulation?

Daniel Lynx Bernard, a consultant to projects of the United States Agency for International Development in Egypt since 2002, will discuss his observations of the lead-up and early success of the Egyptian revolution, with a Q&A following.

Bernard, media consultant to the USAID Media Development Program in Egypt, is an alumnus of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and founding coordinator of U. of M. Human Rights Program's Save Yar Campaign against child abduction in South Sudan.

Is the transnational dissemination of modern concepts of gender/sexual identification - like gay or transgender - indicative of a metropole-to-periphery trajectory of globalization, allied to the expansive tendencies of neoliberalism and global capital? Or is such expansion the result of contingent overlaps between translocal and regional socio-cultural formations that intersect in a more decentered manner? Aniruddha Dutta will explore this question with respect to the emergence of transgender (or 'TG') as a category of political representation and HIV-AIDS intervention for gender-variant communities in West Bengal. Dutta will explore how the term emerged through the asymmetric mediation of centralized development funding, on one hand, and ongoing negotiations of identity within translocal lower-class community networks on the other, indicating a fractured and shifting hegemony of metropolitan agencies rather than a consolidated or centralized discursive formation.


Aniruddha Dutta is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota. He has previous Master's degrees in Asian Literatures, Cultures and Media from the University of Minnesota and in English Literature from Jadavpur University. His Ph.D. research examines the institutionalization of gender/sexual identities and identity politics in Eastern India, interrogating how hegemonic forms of identity politics based on normative notions of sovereignty and citizenship are simultaneously established and challenged through the interaction of decentered lower-class networks and centralized development funding. Dutta is also active in collaboratively working with community-based organizations (CBOs) of 'sexual minorities' in the course of his PhD.

Special advance reading by German novelist Eugen Ruge, winner of the 2009 Alfred Doeblin Prize, at the U of M. The reading will be in German and English. The novel tells the history of communism/ socialism as an East German family's history.

What: English/ German reading from In Zeiten des abnehmenden Lichts
Who: German author Eugen Ruge; translator Jerome Samuelson; and GSD host Matthias Rothe
When: Tuesday, April 12, 12:00-1:15 PM, 125 Nolte (Library)

refreshments will be served

Sponsors: CGES, GSD, the Dept. of English, and IAS

Details:
In 2008, playwright, screen writer, literary translator of Anton Chekhov, and former mathematician Eugen Ruge took a big gamble. He decided to try his hand at a novel to see if he could capture the truth of lived communism in the GDR. The story, he believed, needed the broadest of canvasses. It needed to connect the GDR to the Soviet Union and to other places in the world. It needed to show the range and contradictions of individuals' experiences. It needed to present readers with a mosaic of perspectives. He set to work.

In 2009, Ruge's debut novel won the biennial Alfred Doeblin Prize, one of Germany's most coveted literary awards. Guenter Grass, 1999 Nobel Laureate for Literature, had created the award to honor and support daring new manuscripts by accomplished German novelists. Stylistically, Ruge connects to the tradition of great narrative storytellers. His daring is about what he shows--four generations of a political East German family: a son who flees the Nazis for the Soviet Union, almost dies in one of Stalin's gulags, and returns to the GDR to work as a researcher in a state historical institute; parents who at war's end return from political exile in Mexico to help build socialist East Germany; a grandson who flees the GDR just as the Wall comes down; and a great-grandson for whom the first generation's political struggles are but the stuff of boring history lessons.

CGES invited Eugen Ruge to Minnesota for an advance reading and discussion of his In Zeiten des abnehmenden Lichts. The German publisher Rowohlt Verlag granted special permission for an English/German reading.The novel will be published in September and is billed as Rowohlt's top new book for the fall season.

In Bush of Ghosts: Life & War in Namibia 1986-1990 photographer John Liebenberg and historian Patricia Hayes address the Namibian anti-colonial liberation struggle during the late 1980s. The book deals with urban political mobilization as well as the northern war zone. The conflict involved South African conscripts in what became known as the Border War until the UN-supervised transition to Independence in 1990. Liebenberg's photographs document the militarization of the body and the gaze, the spaces and conditions that produced nationalist subjectivities, and the palpable rise of an African presidentialism in the wake of exile and return of the liberation movement SWAPO. This public lecture by co-author Patricia Hayes offers a critical reflection on the relationship between photography and history in southern Africa, and political aesthetics more broadly.

In the last two decades, there has been a significant expansion of cross-border higher education activities internationally. Many of these activities have been established through cooperation and partnerships. International cooperation and partnerships have become an important trend in African higher education. African universities increasingly seek to establish academic partnerships with foreign institutions, and many foreign institutions have become interested in establishing linkages with African institutions of higher education. Recent developments, particularly in the U.S. and in Europe suggest the partnership trend will continue to expand in coming years. International partnerships, however, are not a new phenomenon in African higher education. "Partnerships" have been established for decades. Yet, despite past and present developments, very little is known about how members of African university communities experience international partnerships, how beneficial they think partnerships are, or what they believe should be future priorities. Drawing from a survey of 470 and interviews with 40 administrators, faculty members, and postgraduate students at the University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and the University of Lubumbashi (D.R. of Congo), this presentation will explore some partnership trends at the two institutions.

Please come and join us for a presentation and discussion with the Director of the I on E Dr. Jon Foley in ICGC Monday April 4th at 4:30 (537 Heller Hall). He will be discussing his work on global land use changes, agriculture and population growth.
Check out this great video made by the Institute on the Environment.

More Information-
Jonathan Foley is the director of the Institute on the Environment (IonE) at the University of the Minnesota, where he is a professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior. He also leads the IonE's Global Landscapes Initiative.

Foley's work focuses on complex global environmental systems and their interactions with human societies. He and his students have contributed to our understanding of global-scale ecological processes, global patterns of land use, the behavior of the planet's climate and water cycles, and the sustainability of our biosphere. This work has led him to be a regular advisor to large corporations, NGOs and governments around the world.

What changes are we talking about?
We often view land use as a local environmental issue, but it's quickly becoming a matter of global importance. Today, we use more than 15 million square kilometers, an area about the size of South America, just to grow crops. For pasture and rangeland, we use more than 32 million square kilometers--an area comparable to the continent of Africa. Altogether, our cities, crops and pastures occupy more than 40 percent of the planet's total land surface.

By the year 2050, the world population is expected to reach about 9 billion. That's almost 3 billion more people who need food, water and shelter to survive. This rapid population growth, combined with rising dietary and biofuel consumption, has led to a major transformation of Earth's land, water and air systems.

Hope to see you all Monday April 4th!

Currently, Bernard works as a Program Officer at John Hopkin's University's Center for Communication Programs in Egypt. He and his family look forward to returning to Cairo where they will join the people of Egypt in embracing the new government.

The discussion with Dan Bernard will take place on March 30, at 2:30 PM in Room 614 Blegen Hall, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.

The event is free and open to the public.

Contact Info

Nora Radtke

Talk and Book reading by
Puerto Rican Author Irene Vilar

"Unlucky Lucky Bodies: Generational and National Trauma in the Memoirs of Irene Vilar"

Irene Vilar was just a teenager, a pliant young college undergraduate in thrall to a fifty-year-old professor, when they embarked on a relationship that led to marriage--a union of impossible odds--and multiple abortions. Vilar knows that she is destined to be misunderstood, that many will see her nightmare as a story of abusing a right, of using abortion as a means of birth control. But it isn't that. Her nightmare is part of an awful secret, and the real story is shrouded in shame, colonialism, self-mutilation, and a family legacy that features a heroic grandmother, a suicidal mother, and two heroin-addicted brothers. Hers is a story that touches on American exploitation and reproductive repression in Puerto Rico. It is a story that looks back on her traumatic childhood growing up in the shadow of her mother's death and the footsteps of her famed grandmother, Lolita Lebrón, revered political activist for Puerto Rican independence who in 1954 sprayed the U.S. House of Representatives with gunfire, wounding several congressmen, and later served twenty-seven years in prison. Vilar seamlessly weaves together past, present, and future, channeling a narrative that is at once dramatic and subtle.

Impossible Motherhood is a heartrending and ultimately triumphant testimonial of shame and servility as told by a writer looking back on her history of addiction. Abortion has never offered any honest person easy answers, and Vilar's dark journey through self-inflicted wounds, compulsive patterns, and historical hauntings revisits the difficulties this country has with the subject and prompts an important, much-needed discussion--literary, political, social, and philosophical. Vilar's is a powerful story of loss and mourning that bravely delves into selfhood, national identity, family responsibility, and finally motherhood itself.Irene Vilar Poster Mar 2011 8by14.pdf

Upcoming CHGS Events

"Testimony: Genocide and Transmission"
CHGS will present Régine Waintrater, psychoanalyst, family therapist and Associate Professor (Université Paris 7-Diderot)
Monday, March 28
5pm
Humphrey Forum (Humphrey Center, University of Minnesota, West Bank.)

As an oral or written account, testimony engages, provokes and challenges disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences. How does the process of witnessing develop? What are the expectations that it provokes--and what are its risks? How can bearing witness restore the victims' identity, rather than re-traumatizing them?

Event is free and open to the public.

Co-sponsored by The Human Rights Center at the University of Minnesota Law School, History Department, Human Rights Program,
CHAIM (Children of Holocaust Survivors Association in Minnesota.)

"'You, Zionist!'" Uses and Misuses of the Z-Word in Current Political Discourse" -
CHGS will present Meïr Waintrater,French journalist (editor-in-chief of L'arche)
Tuesday, March 29
7pm
St. Paul JCC

For several years, within circles hostile to Israel, there has been a systematic use of the words "Zionism" and "Zionist" where the words "Israel" and "Israelis" would be expected. Meïr Waintrater, French journalist and editor-in-chief of the Jewish magazine "L'Arche," will contrast the use of the word "Zionist" in France, Great Britain and the United States.

Waintrater will suggest that while criticism of Israel should not be reduced to Jew-hatred, the "anti-Zionist" argument is often used to legitimize genuine anti-Semitism.

Event is free and open to the public. Co-sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), St. Paul JCC, University of Minnesota: Center for Jewish Studies, School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Special Event
"Turkish-Armenian Relations through the Sociological Lens"
Fatma Muge Gocek, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan
The Ninth Annual Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Lecture
Friday, April 1
7pm
Mississippi Room
Coffman Memorial Union

Fatma Muge Gocek is Associate Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies. Her research focuses on comparative analysis of gender issues in first and third worlds. She also studies the impact on women of processes such as economic development, nationalism and religious movements.

The Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Lecture results from a generous gift by Arsham Ohanessian to the College of Liberal Arts. Arsham was a successful businessman, avid musician, and dedicated community leader. He was devoted to promoting peaceful reconciliation among peoples. His gift to the University of Minnesota supports a wide range of educational, research, and public programs concerning human rights, ethnic and national conflicts, and Armenian history and culture.

A reception will follow the lecture.

This event is free and open to the public.

Sponsored by the Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair in the College of Liberal Arts, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, History Department, and Sociology Department.

Educators

· For resources on Turkish-Armenian relations please visit the CHGS Armenian Genocide page.
· Video of Fatma Müge Göçek's talk on nationalism and identity in the Ottoman Empire during the 19th Century: Facing History and Ourselves
Co-sponsored Campus and Community Events

The Truth-Compassion-Tolerance Art Exhibition will be on campus from March 28th through March 30th. The exhibition consists of works from over twelve artists who are united in their practice of Falun Gong. Click here for more information about the campus exhibit.

The Sabes Foundation Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival will take place March 24th through April 10th.

Reminder
The final meeting of the 2011 CHGS Reading Discussion Group will be on Thursday, April 14. The group will meet at 12pm in room 201A in Wilson Library. The discussion will be led by Dr. Keith David Watenpaugh, historian and Associate Professor of Modern Islam, Human Rights and Peace who teaches in the Religious Studies program at UC-Davis. Dr. Watenpaugh will also present a lecture, "Hate in the Past Tense: Understanding Armenian Genocide Denial's Origins as a Problem of Contemporary Reconciliation" on campus that evening.

We will be discussing chapters 10, 11 and 12 of Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide,edited by Richard G. Hovannisian. The excerpts are available on-line on the CHGS Reading Discussion blog.
Space is limited, and reservations are required. If you are interested in attending, please send an email tochgs@umn.edu with your name, email address and phone number (please put RDG in the subject line), or call 612-624-0256.

Greetings!

It's award season! Please take the time to nominate an outstanding student, staff or faculty woman or yourself for one of the Women's Center's awards! (Award and Scholarship information is listed below).

Happy Women's History Month! Celebrate by attending one of the many great events listed on our events page !

On Our Minds

My academic and professional background has been in intercultural learning and development, and thus I have usually approached societal diversity through the lens of culture. While culture is formed around various factors, it is most common to focus the discussion of culture around race and ethnicity. The Women's Center aims to enhance the awareness of diversity by educating on women's issues and the impact of gender differences in the culture of the society we live in. I invite you also to explore the intersection of gender and culture and how they reciprocally affect the campus and society at large.

Akiko Maeker
Research Assistant, Women's Center

Women's Center Awards & Scholarships

*The Carol E. Macpherson Memorial Scholarship:* A private family scholarship that was established in the 1970's in Carol's memory to assist "non-traditional" women in completing their education at the University. The scholarship deadline is 4:30 PM, Wednesday, April 27th, 2011. Please visit: http://www1.umn.edu/women/awardsMacpherson.html for more information and to obtain an application.
*
The Civil Service/Bargaining Unit (CSBU) Staff Award:* This award recognizes a CSBU staff member who has made outstanding contributions to improve the work environment for CSBU employees at the University of Minnesota ($1500 for professional development). This award is funded by the Women's Center. Nomination materials must be received by 4:30 PM, Friday, April 22, 2011 more info. http://www1.umn.edu/women/awardsCSBU.html

*The Mullen-Spector-Truax Leadership for Women Award:* This annual award recognizes a woman staff or faculty member who has made outstanding contributions to women's leadership development at the University of Minnesota. The award ($1500 for professional development), funded by the Mullen/Spector/Truax Endowment for Women's Leadership Development and the Women's Center Nomination materials must be received by 4:30 PM, Friday, April 22, 2011. more info http://www1.umn.edu/women/awardsMullen.html

*The Sharon Doherty Woman Student Leader Award:* Two awards (fees and travel to national women student leadership conference) will be given to the recipient to be used in support of attendance at a national leadership conference. Given to a female graduate or undergraduate student on the University's Twin Cities campus who has contributed outstanding volunteer service regarding women's issues on campus or in the broader community. This award is funded by the Women's Center. Award deadline has been extended to Friday, April 8th, 2011. more info http://www1.umn.edu/women/awardsSharon.html

Upcoming Women's Center Initiatives

The Women's Center calendar for spring 2011 will be available soon for download from http://www.umn.edu/women.
* *March 28: Are Any Women Happy? Army Wives, Workers, Mothers
*4:30-6:00PM. Murphy Hall Room 65. Lecture featuring Dr. Mary
Vavrus author of " Lifetime's Army" and "I Married the
Media-Military-Industrial Complex", Dana Schowalter author of "A
Woman's Nation, A Man's World: Silencing Institutional Change in
the Workforce" and Dr. Catherine Squires of "Are All Unhappy Moms
This Homogeneous?" Free and open to the public. Refreshments
served. This Family News event is co-sponsored by the Cowles
Professor for Journalism, Diversity & Equality and the Women's Center.
* *March 30: Are We There Yet? Allies for Women's Equity
*2:00-4:00PM. Education Sciences Building Room 325. How do you
respond to the rumors that women have reached equality? What can
you to say when you hear a sexist joke, or when you think someone
is being put in an uncomfortable situation? In this interactive
workshop, participants discuss their experiences, increase their
knowledge of women's status today, think about intersections of
gender with race, ethnicity, sexuality, ability, and culture,
discuss language and privilege, and practice bystander
interventions. Leave with concrete tools to be more effective
allies! RSVP online at z.umn.edu/wmnequity.

* *April 12: (L)Earning What You're Worth: Women's Salary
Negotiation *11:30 -1:00PM. Education Sciences Building Room 325.
Just one year out of college, the average woman working full time
already earns less than her male colleague earns, even when they
both work in the same field. Ten years after graduation, the pay
gap widens. In this discussion-based workshop, participants learn
how the pay gap happens and will gain resources, tools and
hands-on practice that will help them in negotiating a salary that
reflects what they're worth. RSVP online at z.umn.edu/salary
.
* *April 27:* *Women's Center 50th Anniversary Open House* - Please
join us on April 27, 2011 at 12 p.m., in the Appleby Hall Ground
Floor Lounge for our final 50th anniversary event. Come enjoy cake
with the Women's Center staff!
* *April 30: Cool Chemistry *9:30-3:00PM. Smith Hall. A day for
girls in grades 7-9 to explore the wonders of chemistry with women
in the graduate program in the University of Minnesota's
Department of Chemistry. The day will feature interactive
workshops, chemistry demonstrations (aka "tricks"), and new skills
that you can take home to wow and amaze your friends and
neighbors! Co-sponsored with Chemistry Department Chapter of Women
in Science & Engineering. Registration information

Additional Equity and Diversity Announcements

*Office for Equity and Diversity Workshops*
The Office for Equity and Diversity (OED) has posted its 2010-11 calendar of educational opportunities. Workshops focus on a wide range of equity and diversity issues in higher education. For more information, visit http://www.academic.umn.edu/equity/education/calendar.html

On-going Groups

* Bufandas By Yolanda Intergenerational Knitting
* Civil Service / Bargaining Unit Women's Action Network
* Hmong Women Student Group (co-sponsored)
* Professional and Administrative Women's Council
* SistaFriends
* University Professional Circles (UP!)
* Women R.E.A.D. (Reading for Equity And Diversity)
* Women's Leadership Institute
* Women's Outreach and Leadership Force (WOLF)

Be Connected!

*Feisty Femmes (women's student blog):*
http://feistyfemmes.wordpress.com
*
Women's Center on Facebook: *
http://www.facebook.com/mnwomenscenter

*Women's Center on Twitter: *
http://www.twitter.com/mnwomenscenter

More Campus and Community Event

* Free Self Defense Classes (Mar 5-26)
* Women's & Gender Studies in Europe
(Mar 30)
* Women's Human Rights Film Series
(Jan
31-Mar 31)
* Breaking out of the Box: Redefining Masculinity
(Apr 1-3)
* White Privilege Conference
(Apr 13-16)
* Power and Possibilities: A Leadership Conference for Women of
Color

(Apr 13)
* Hmong National Conference <> (Apr
22-24)
* Women in Science & Engineering: Cool Chemistry
(Apr 30)
* U Women of Color 10th Anniversary Gala (May 5)
* Women's Worlds 2011 <> (Jul 2011)
* U of MN - Twin Cities Women's Support/Counseling Groups

* The Solukhumbu Women's Empowerment Project

* Women Author's at the U of M Bookstore

* Paid Congressional Fellowship for College Women
(Apr 15)
* Internship: College Feminist Connect Coordinator

* Hiring: UC Davis-Women's Resources and Research Center: Asst.
Director

*Find even more campus and Twin Cities events, announcements, funding, internship and job opportunities at http://blog.lib.umn.edu/women/news.

* *Ideas and suggestions are always welcome.* Feel free to share them by phone, email or by stopping by our offices located in Appleby Hall Rooms 52-64.

Mission

/The Women's Center advances equity for women students, staff, faculty and alumnae across identities/ by increasing *connect*ions for women's success, cultivating socially responsible *lead*ers, and advocating for organizational culture *change* toward excellence for all. A part of the Office for Equity and Diversity, the Women's Center supports the University of Minnesota's goals, particularly to improve the human condition, provide extraordinary education, foster a culture of excellence, create an inclusive and diverse University community, and become one of the top universities in the world.

Giving
Your gift, whether small or large, makes a huge difference and we thank you! Your gift can go directly to the Carol E. Macpherson Memorial Scholarship, the Dr. Nancy "Rusty" Barcel� Scholarship, the Mullen-Spector-Truax Fund, or the Women's Center Leadership Fund via the University of Minnesota Foundation <>.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Please note that it's not too late to sign up for the Women's Center
workshop "Are We There Yet? Allies for Women's Equity."

How do you respond to the rumors that women have reached equality? What can
you to say when you hear a sexist joke, or when you think someone is being
put in an uncomfortable situation?

In this interactive workshop, participants discuss their experiences,
increase their knowledge of women�s status today, think about intersections
of gender with race, ethnicity, sexuality, ability, and culture, discuss
language and privilege, and practice bystander interventions. Leave with
concrete tools to be more effective allies!

FREE. RSVP online at http://z.umn.edu/wmnequity.

IPID is a student-led initiative that brings together graduate students from across the University who are actively engaged in development studies. On the afternoon of Friday, April 22, 2011 IPID will host its second Student Speaker Conference. The theme for this semester's event is:

The event's theme is intentionally broadly defined. IPID seeks submissions from a diversity of theoretical and practical perspectives and disciplines, regarding any relevant issue, event, population, or geographic area to the theme. The moderated panel will explore linkages between papers and works based on theoretical questions such as the following; however, when considering topics to submit, please do not feel limited by these ideas:

How does an interdisciplinary perspective, and your particular disciplinary perspective, affect our conceptualization of who holds power, how power is wielded, and who can participate in the discourse or practice of international development?
What role do particular groups of participants have in international development, and how can they be identified, studied, aided, contested or otherwise engaged via specific disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives?

Freeman Center for International Economic Policy, Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, presents a
Workshop on Global Policy

Professor Mani Subramani

Carlson School of Management

will speak on:

Changing Motives for Global Sourcing: From Labor Arbitrage to Innovation

12:45 - 2:00 pm, Tuesday, March 29
170 HHH - Stassen Room, Humphrey School, West Bank Campus


One of the key drivers for global sourcing has been the ability to leverage the lower costs - typically lower labor costs - overseas. While increased competitiveness through the lowering of costs continues to be an important goal, it is increasingly becoming evident that overseas suppliers and a firm's overseas operations can also contribute to firm competitiveness by enhancing the level of innovation in new product development and in business process execution. There are a number of firms on the leading edge of this movement such as GE, Boeing, and PepsiCo and their initial successes offer a variety of
lessons for both large and medium sized firms to take advantage of these
new opportunities created by the global diffusion of capabilities.

Professor Subramani is a faculty member in the Carlson School and teaches an MBA course titled "Managing Globally" that incorporates a field trip to India with the students. He will draw on his experience of the changes he and the students have witnessed in over the past seven years to share his views on how global sourcing can be an important driver of a firm's innovation.

On Monday, March 28, MIRC is excited to host assistant professor Dara Cohen from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. She will present a paper titled "Explaining Sexual Violence During War: Cross-national Evidence (1980-2009)." The paper is attached and the abstract is pasted below.

Dara Cohen is an assistant professor in the global policy area at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on the dynamics of violence during civil war. Her dissertation research examines the variation in the use of sexual violence during recent civil conflicts. She has completed eight months of fieldwork in Sierra Leone, East Timor and El Salvador, where she interviewed more than 200 ex-combatants and noncombatants. She is a 2007-2008 recipient of the National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant. Other research interests include the participation of female combatants in armed groups, the politics of homeland security, and the response of government agencies to international crises. Her research has appeared in the Stanford Law Review and International Security.

MIRC meets on Mondays at 3:30 pm in 1314 Social Sciences. We hope to see many of you there!

***************
Abstract: Why do some armed groups commit wartime rape on a large scale, while
others never turn to sexual violence? Although scholars and
policymakers have made many claims about the rates, severity and
locations of wartime sexual violence, there have been few efforts to
gather systematic data on sexual violence during conflict. Using an
original dataset, I examine the incidence of sexual violence by both
insurgent groups and state actors during civil wars between 1980-2009.
I first establish that there is substantial variation in the severity
of wartime sexual violence, both across and within conflicts. I then
use the data in a statistical analysis to test a series of competing
hypotheses about the causes of wartime sexual violence. Amongst the
results, I find strong evidence that the choice of recruitment
mechanism--namely, whether the armed group abducted or press-ganged its
members--predicts the use of sexual violence. I maintain that this
finding supports an argument about the use of rape as a method of
combatant socialization, in which members of armed groups who are
recruited by force use rape to create and to maintain unit cohesion. I
find limited or no support for several common explanations for wartime
sexual violence, including ethnic war and gender inequality. Drawing
on data from the Sierra Leone civil war, I examine the observable
implications of the proposed mechanism on the micro level in a brief
case study. The results undermine some of the conventional wisdom on
the causes of sexual violence and suggest that multiple mechanisms may
be at work in understanding wartime sexual violence.

This Friday (3/25) the Political Theory Colloquium will host Antonio
Vazquez-Arroyo (University of Minnesota, Political Science), who will
briefly present his paper "Unseen Catastrophes: Capitalism and
Colonialism as Non-Events" followed by a longer discussion. The
colloquium will be in 1314 Social Sciences at 1:30. Coffee will be
served.

Abstract:

Plenty of scholarly and popular attention is increasingly devoted to
natural Catastrophes, yet not enough critical attention is afforded to
other, long-term and often dreary catastrophes that cannot be
accommodated in the logic of the Event that makes the Catastrophes
visible, even when these catastrophes often mediate their unfolding
and aftermaths. Capitalism and colonialism are the two preeminent
examples of catastrophes that fall from view in narratives of the
Event. And insofar as these are structural they can be considered to
be non-events. But in these catastrophes the dialectic of the "upside
of down" at work in catastrophic discourses is clearly discernable,
and so are the orders of violence that are constitutive of these two,
as well as constituted by them. Capitalism and colonialism, and their
ensuing orders of violence, are today's unseen catastrophes.

Title: "Auntie Justice": Kinship in a Muslim Women's Arbitration Center
Presenter: Katherine Lemons, GWSS Visiting Scholar from Smith College
Date: Friday April 1, 2011
Time: 2:00pm
Location: Ford Hall, Room 400 (East Bank)

Abstract
In 1992, a Delhi-based non governmental organization (NGO) instituted a network of women's arbitration centers throughout Delhi whose purpose was to offer women a new and accessible space for the adjudication of domestic conflict. According to the NGO, mahila panchayats were to enable women to present and argue their own cases and thereby to directly challenge forces perpetuating gender inequality and domestic violence. I conducted fieldwork in several of Delhi's forty mahila panchayats and other local level institutions of adjudication in Delhi between 2005 and 2007 and was surprised to find that these adamantly women-centered arbitration centers always concluded cases of marital disputes by reconciling the disputing couple. This was true even where the allegations were of untenable living situations and domestic violence. This insistence on reconciliation seemed to contradict the NGO's liberal feminist aim of "women's empowerment." In this paper, I analyze the performances and performatives that comprise the mahila panchayat's adjudication process to show how, through fictive kin terminology and modes of female authority from beyond law, the mahila panchayats at once regender legal authority and shore up norms about marriage, harmony, and the family that unsettle the liberal feminist aims of the mahila panchayats' founders.

About the Presenter
Katherine Lemons is visiting scholar in the department of gender, women and sexuality studies. Her research and teaching interests include anthropology of Islam, gender and kinship, and law in postcolonial South Asia. Currently, Katherine is working on a book manuscript based on fieldwork she conducted in Delhi, India that analyzes how women petition Islamic legal institutions within the context of Indian legal pluralism.

Be sure to check out the GWSS website and community blog for more information on more upcoming talks and graduate student commentary at gwss.umn.edu/.
Looking forward to see you!

GWSS Colloquium this Friday!

Participants: Jennifer L. Pierce (American Studies), Michael David Franklin (American Studies), Kevin P. Murphy (History), Ryan P. Murphy (American
Studies) , and Alex Urquhart (American Studies)

Date: Friday, March 25, 2011
Time: 2:00pm
Location: Ford Hall, Room 400 (East Bank)

About Queer Twin Cities
Combining the work of 12 scholars, writers, and activists whose lives have intersected in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Queer Twin Cities makes two major contributions to LGBT history. First, the book demonstrates that Twin Cities had its own active and visible movement of LGBT people who fought for rights and created a political movement that was both connected to and unique from those on the coast. In doing so, the volume challenges assumptions that that Minnesota's history has followed a normative gendered and sexual trajectory in contrast to coastal metropolitan areas' seemingly more dynamic and radical past. Queer Twin Cities' second contribution examines how sexuality, particularly in its transgressive expressions, has shaped people's lives in the Twin Cities from the late nineteenth century to the present. By sexuality, we refer not only to a range of identities -- straight, queer, lesbian, gay, femme, transgender, and bisexual among others--but also to a range of meanings, desires, norms, behaviors, and relationships that operate within regimes of power across time and place. Rather than treating identities or communities as singular and historically coherent--as in "the gay community"--the book's chapters illuminate how sexual politics have organized social relationships in differing and contradictory ways over time.

The roundtable discussion will focus on several key methodological issues in writing this book: 1) The project's unusual editorial method, that is the challenge in having so many junior scholars involved in the project. This is closely related to our thinking about how interdisciplinarity influenced the process of developing the project and the book. 2) Our goal of reaching public audiences and how that aim shaped the project; and 3) The challenges associated with oral history methodology, including the IRB approval process.

Please join us for an exciting round table discussion about collaborative scholarship and the Queer Twin Cities LGBT Oral History Project. This colloquium presentation is a must for folks interested in oral history, ethnography, interdisciplinarity, and participatory action/community based social research. Please forward this announcement your respective list serves (graduates, undergraduates, and minors), interested staff, and community members. A light snack and refreshments will be served.

Title: Queer Twin Cities: A Methodological Round Table Discussion

The roundtable discussion will focus on several key methodological issues in writing this book: 1) The project's unusual editorial method, that is the challenge in having so many junior scholars involved in the project. This is closely related to our thinking about how interdisciplinarity influenced the process of developing the project and the book. 2) Our goal of reaching public audiences and how that aim shaped the project; and 3) The challenges associated with oral history methodology, including the IRB approval process.
Participants: Jennifer L. Pierce (American Studies), Michael David Franklin (American Studies), Kevin P. Murphy (History), Ryan P. Murphy (American Studies) , and Alex Urquhart (American Studies)

Date: Friday, March 25, 2011
Time: 2:00pm
Location: Ford Hall, Room 400 (East Bank)

About Queer Twin Cities
Combining the work of 12 scholars, writers, and activists whose lives have intersected in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Queer Twin Cities makes two major contributions to LGBT history. First, the book demonstrates that Twin Cities had its own active and visible movement of LGBT people who fought for rights and created a political movement that was both connected to and unique from those on the coast. In doing so, the volume challenges assumptions that that Minnesota's history has followed a normative gendered and sexual trajectory in contrast to coastal metropolitan areas' seemingly more dynamic and radical past. Queer Twin Cities' second contribution examines how sexuality, particularly in its transgressive expressions, has shaped people's lives in the Twin Cities from the late nineteenth century to the present. By sexuality, we refer not only to a range of identities -- straight, queer, lesbian, gay, femme, transgender, and bisexual among others--but also to a range of meanings, desires, norms, behaviors, and relationships that operate within regimes of power across time and place. Rather than treating identities or communities as singular and historically coherent--as in "the gay community"--the book's chapters illuminate how sexual politics have organized social relationships in differing and contradictory ways over time.

Be sure to check out the GWSS website and community blog for more information on more upcoming talks and graduate student commentary at gwss.umn.edu/.
Looking forward to see you!

Warmly,
Zenzele Isoke

.

--
Zenzele Isoke
Assistant Professor
Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies
University of Minnesota
437 Ford Hall, 224 Church St.
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Phone: 612-626-8954 (office)
Fax: 612-624-3573

ICGC Brown Bag Series

Children's Health & the Environment
The U.S. National Children's Study & the Japanese Eco & Child Study

Pat McGovern, PhD, MPH
Bond Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy
and Principal Investigator, National Children's Study, School of Public Health

The profile of children's health among industrialized nations is changing from acute diseases to chronic conditions such as asthma,diabetes, obesity and autism. The U.S. also faces the conundrum of spending more money on maternal and child health care
than any other nation yet we rank near the bottom on most measures of maternal and child health among the 30 developed nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. While increased access to health care has been a cornerstone of US strategy for improving health there is growing recognition many determinants of perinatal and child health outcomes predate pregnancy and are outside of the clinical realm, involving educational, economic, family, community and the physical environment. In response to these concerns the U.S. launched the National Children's Study to identify risk and protective factors for child health in a 21 year study of 100,000 children. Comparable studies in other countries have also begun such as the Eco-Child Study in Japan.

Join us for a public health perspective on longitudinal studies of child health and the environment focused on the US and Japan.

Wed. March 23, 2011 · 12:00 p.m. · 537 Heller Hall

I would like to bring to your attention this recently scheduled event -- current Russian writer Mikhail Kuraev, who lives in St. Petersburg, Russia, will be give a presentation on campus this coming Tuesday, March 22, at 3:30 pm in 710 Social Sciences. He will be speaking in Russian; his interpreter is Gerald Mikkelson, Professor of Russian at the University of Kansas.

Gordon B. Anderson
Librarian for Scandinavian, Slavic, & Middle East Studies

Tuesday, March 22, 12-1:30 p.m., 235 Nolte Center (Reserve your seat, please)
To reserve your seat and receive a copy of a chapter from Brand Aid, please RSVP by replying to this email or write Anne Carter at cart0227@umn.edu.

Lisa Ann Richey is a professor of Politics, Culture and Global Change at the University of Roskilde in Denmark. Stefano Ponte is head of the research unit on Global Economy, Regulation and Development at the Danish Institute for International Studies. Richey and Ponte recently co-authored Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World (University of Minnesota Press, 2011).
Co-hosted by Quadrant's Global Cultures and Health and Society group

Nikhil Anand, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Haverford College, will be making a public presentation on Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 12:15 pm in Room 144, Blegen Hall.

Leaky States: On Ignorance and Absence in Mumbai's Water Supply.

He will also be giving an informal brownbag discussion on Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 1:30pm in the Anthropology Seminar Room, HHH 389. This discussion is co-sponsored with the Institute for Global Studies.

Municipal Disconnect: On Abject Water and its Urban Systems.

We would love to have you join us at these events.

Reconsidering Development, the student-led journal of IPID, just announced three job openings for the 2011-2012 school year. These positions are on the Reconsidering Development editorial board and interviews for candidates will be April 4, 2011.

Open positions:
-Associate Audiovisual Editor
-Associate Writing Editor
-Associate Web Editor

Descriptions of these open positions are attached.

If you are interested in learning more about these positions or applying for any of them, e-mail your letter of intent and C.V. to Casey Stafford by noon, March 28.

DATE: March 17, 2011

TO: ICGC Scholars

FROM: Karen Brown, Co-Director (kbt@umn.edu)

SUBJECT: Call for Applications for 2011-2012 Graduate Assistants for ICGC

___________________________________________________________________________

Each year we hire graduate assistants from among ICGC Scholars to assist the regular staff of the program in providing leadership and services for Center activities throughout the year. You recognize these graduate assistants as the friendly folks who keep the student center open and welcoming, provide peer counseling to newer members of the ICGC community, help plan and assist with the various DSSC courses we offer, produce and distribute publicity, help with research requests, organize the brown bag series, assist with workshops and conferences, edit MacNews, plan social activities, keep our reference collection up to date and accessible, and help in many other ways.

We are looking for a number of highly motivated and experienced ICGC Scholars who have ABD status to serve as graduate assistants next academic year. We expect to hire two 50% assistants (time variable, depending on availability) to help with the kinds of work mentioned above, and are especially interested in those with experience in our program activities and capable of providing good peer mentoring and information/problem-solving to visitors to the student center and office.

If you are interested in the possibility of serving as an ICGC graduate assistant next year, please submit your application to me by email (kbt@umn.edu) by FRIDAY, MARCH 25, 2011. Please include an indication of the amount of time you could/would be willing to work (25%-50%, fall semester, spring semester, or the entire academic year), a description of where you will be in your graduate program next year (please confirm that you are ABD and have completed at least 24 thesis credits), and a statement of your interest in/commitment to the purposes of ICGC and how you feel you could contribute as a graduate assistant. We will make decisions on assistantships shortly after the application deadline.

Thank you,
Karen

--
Karen Brown, Ph.D.
Co-Director
Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change
University of Minnesota
537B Heller Hall
271-19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Phone: 612-624-0255
Fax: 612-625-1879
Email: kbt@umn.edu
Web: www.icgc.umn.edu

The third meeting of the Reading Discussion Group, initially scheduled for March 22nd, has been postponed until Thursday, April 14th. The discussion will be led by Dr. Keith David Watenpaugh, historian and Associate Professor of Modern Islam, Human Rights and Peace who teaches in the Religious Studies program at UC-Davis. Dr. Watenpaugh will also present a lecture, "Hate in the Past Tense: Understanding Armenian Genocide Denial's Origins as a Problem of Contemporary Reconciliation" on campus that evening.
We will be discussing chapters 10, 11 and 12 of Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide, edited by Richard G. Hovannisian. The excerpts are available on-line on the CHGS Reading Discussion blog.

The group will meet on Thursday, April 14th at 12pm, location TBA. Space is limited, and reservations are required. If you are interested in attending, please send an email to chgs@umn.edu with your name, email address and phone number (please put RDG in the subject line), or call 612-624-0256.

--
Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
University of Minnesota

760 Social Science Building
267 19th Ave. S.
Minneapolis, MN 55455

phone: 612-624-0256
email: chgs@umn.edu
website: www.chgs.umn.edu

The African Studies Centre in the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies seeks applications for a full time fixed-term Departmental Lecturership in African Studies. The Lecturership is tenable from 1 October 2011 until 15 July 2014, and is in association with a non-stipendiary junior research fellowship at St Antony’s College.

Please see the details about this vacancy on http://www.ox.ac.uk/abouttheuniversity/jobs/academic/index/210411/ac7550j/

ICGC Brown Bag Series

Pat McGovern, PhD, MPH
Bond Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy
and Principal Investigator, National Children's Study, School of Public Health

The profile of children's health among industrialized nations is changing from acute diseases to chronic conditions such as asthma, diabetes, obesity and autism. The U.S. also faces the conundrum of spending more money on maternal and child health care than any other nation yet we rank near the bottom on most measures of maternal and child health among the 30 developed nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. While increased access to health care has been a cornerstone of US strategy for improving health there is growing recognition many determinants of perinatal and child health outcomes predate pregnancy and are outside of the clinical realm, involving educational, economic, family, community and the physical environment. In response to these concerns the U.S. launched the National Children's Study to identify risk and protective factors for child health in a 21 year study of 100,000 children. Comparable studies in other countries have also begun such as the Eco-Child Study in Japan. Join us for a public health perspective on longitudinal studies of child health and the environment focused on the US and Japan.

Wed. March 23, 2011 · 12:00 p.m. · 537 Heller Hall

Date: 03/21/2011

Time: 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM

Location: 125 Nolte Center for Continuing Education

Cost: Free and open to the public

Description:

"Has there ever been a better reason to shop?" asks an ad for the Product RED American Express card, telling members who use the card that buying "cappuccinos or cashmere" will help to fight AIDS in Africa. Cofounded in 2006 by the rock star Bono, Product RED has been a particularly successful example of a new trend in celebrity-driven international aid and development, one explicitly linked to commerce, not philanthropy. In Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World (University of Minnesota Press, March 2011), Lisa Ann Richey and Stefano Ponte offer a deeply informed and stinging critique of "compassionate consumption."

The book examines the rise of a new modality of development financing: 'Brand Aid'. In Brand Aid, celebrities ask consumers to 'do good' by buying particular brands to solve a development problem. Brand Aid is 'aid to brands' because it helps sell branded products and improve a brand's ethical profile and value. It is also 'brands that provide aid' because a proportion of the profit or sales is devoted to helping distant others.

The Product (RED) initiative is the most advanced manifestation of Brand Aid to date. With aid celebrity Bono acting as the emotional sovereign, RED sells both the suffering of Africans with AIDS, and our power to ameliorate it, as effectively as selling computers, greeting cards or lattes. Companies such as American Express, Gap, Converse and Armani become the faces of ethical intervention in the world. Consumers are encouraged to do good by dressing well while part of the money they spend goes to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. RED provides a new mechanism for development finance that weds hard commerce with help, consumers with celebrities, and doctors with rockers.

Lisa Ann Richey is a professor of of Development Studies at the Institute for Society and Globalisation, Roskilde University in Denmark. Stefano Ponte is a Senior Researcher of Global Economy, Regulation and Development at the Danish Institute for International Studies.

Richey's primary research interests lie in international aid politics with particular attention to AIDS, reproductive health, and development technologies. Among other works, she is also the author of Population Politics and Development: From the Policies to the Clinics (2008) and the editor, with Frances Vavrus, of Women and Development: Rethinking Policy and Reconceptualizing Practice, a special issue of Women's Studies Quarterly (2003).

Ponte works with issues of international political economy and convention theory, with a specific emphasis on corporate and celebrity strategies as well as Africa and agro-food value chains. He is the co-author of Trading Down: Africa, Value Chains and the Global Economy (2005) and The Coffee Paradox: Global Markets, Commodity Trade and the Elusive Promise of Development (2005). He is also the co-editor of "Governing Global Value Chains," a special issue of Economy and Society (2008), and the author of Farmers and Markets in Tanzania: How Market Reforms Affect Rural Livelihoods in Africa (2002).

Partnership for Education of Children in Afghanistan is a Minnesota non-profit corporation and recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. EIN #77-0590869

Dear friend of P.E.C.A,

The spring equinox on March 21st starts the new year in Afghanistan, and it will be year 1390. Children will get new clothes, colorful kites will cover the skies and here in Kabul a festive fair will start and last for 40 days. May the new year bring peace and prosperity to our friends in Afghanistan.

As the schools are closed during the harsh winters in Afghanistan, P.E.C.A has taken advantage of this lull to develop its plans for the 2011 academic year. We have also finalized our budget and committed ourselves to support a list of items. In 2003 we started with one school and we now support three schools. Our focus this year is to increase the quality of teachers, add 10th grade to our girls' school, add computer education and improve the quality of English instruction.

Two of our female students.
Our focus remains on education for girls and we are delighted and honored that three young and remarkable young women are giving a benefit concert on behalf of P.E.C.A. While detail follows below, I would urge you to click on this link to catch a glimpse of the remarkable and Fabulous Ali Sisters. It takes hundreds of hours to organize an event like this, and we are grateful to all of those involved. We also thank Roseville Schmitt Music for their donation of a grand piano for the event.

We know it will be a memorable concert and we hope to see you there. You will also get an update on our work. It is your support that makes our work possible. Without P.E.C.A, our girls would not be even getting a first grade education, and now they look forward to being in 10th grade. Thank you for your support.

With very best wishes,
Santwana Dasgupta
Volunteer Executive Director, P.E.C.A
P.E.C.A Benefit Concert
Friday March 18th, 2011 at 7:00pm
South St.Paul High School Auditorium
700 2nd Street. North
South Saint Paul, MN, 55075

Music and activism come together March 18th as three sisters from Saint Paul perform to benefit P.E.C.A's educational and anti-poverty efforts in south-east Afghanistan. This concert showcases accomplished young classical musicians, three sisters who have made a name for themselves on violin and piano, and who now reach out to the world.

The oldest, Nicole Ali, is an MD/PHD student at Yale. Nora Ali is a senior at Harvard, and the youngest, Leeza Ali, is a senior at South Saint Paul High School(SSPH). The concert series began five years ago after Leeza, then in eighth grade, heard an exchange student from Afghanistan speak at her school. "She talked about the fear and difficulty she went through each day, and how lucky she felt to be in MN for her studies," Leeza recalls. "My sister and I had the idea of starting a concert series that would raise money for the organization P.E.C.A.

Reflecting on last year's concert, Leeza notes, "We had fun trying to comeup with a program that would be entertaining to an audience spanning all ages and backgrounds, many of whom had never listened to classical music before." they also brought in friends for a few lively jazz numbers. This year's concert, could hold any number of surprises.

"My dream is to extend this series out in college and motivate other groups of teenage musicians to start benefit concert series of their own. It truly is one of the most gratifying things I have done in my life" = Leeza

Conact: P.E.C.A Contact
Mahfuza Ali Scott Dodds
651-245-7377 612-414-1521
mabli1@mmm.com afghanpartnership@gmail.com

Coloniality, Slavery and the Holocaust:
Introducing the Decolonial Option

Summer Course 04 to 19 of July 2011,

Walter Mignolo, Rolando Vázquez and guest faculty,

Roosevelt Academy, Middelburg, The Netherlands. www.roac.nl

'Coloniality, Slavery and the Holocaust: Introducing the Decolonial Option' is a pioneering course in the social sciences and the humanities. The events of slavery and the holocaust illuminate the geopolitical sources of decolonial thinking in the Global South and critical thought in the Global North. The course builds a dialogue between these currents of thought, and introduces the decolonial option as a path towards global justice. We will evaluate the potentials of the decolonial option in relation to coexisting options. The seminar brings together notions such as disposable life in the economic domain and bare life from the political domain. The first comes from decolonial thinking while the second from critical thought. The course benefits from the local history of Middelburg, a city that was central in the Dutch history of Slavery and that suffered great destruction during the 'Second World War'. The course will also explore the relations between museums and the coloniality of representation and memory.


The deadline for registration to the course is the 1st of May, you can register at the Utrecht Summer School Website:

http://www.utrechtsummerschool.nl/index.php?type=courses&code=S21

The course is made in cooperation with:

The Center for Global Studies and the Humanities at Duke University http://trinity.duke.edu/globalstudies/

Global Policy, Econ Devel, & MDP students, please note:

James Ron is a candidate for the Stassen Chair in International Relations, a joint appointment of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and the Political Science Department at the University of Minnesota. He will be giving a presentation to the HHH School and Political Science community on Friday, March 11 from 12:00 - 1:30 in the Wilkins Room (215 HHH Center). Faculty, fellows, staff, and students are all invited to attend. Dr. Ron's CV is attached and is also available on the HHH Institute Network Drive at O:\cherrene.

Resonance, Resources & Rivals: Embedding Human Rights in Developing-World Civil Societies

James Ron, Ph.D.,

Associate Professor of International Studies,

Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa

Candidate for Stassen Chair of International Relations

Friday, March 11, 2011
12:00-1:30 p.m.
Wilkins Room (HHH 215)

Abstract:

Over the last twenty years, the international human rights norm has become increasingly embedded in a wide variety of international and domestic institutions. Of particular interest to practitioners and scholars alike is the norm's apparent embeddedness in the civil societies of developing countries. This trend began in Latin America during the 1970s, and then spread a decade later to the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and, eventually, to the post-communist world.

The growth of human rights-oriented civil society accelerated yet again in the mid-1990s and early part of this century, when international donors began promoting and investing in "rights-based approaches" to development. Today, thousands of rights-based NGOs are engaged in development-style human rights work across the Global South. Are these NGOs, however, developing strong local ties? What are the challenges of embedding human rights rhetoric and practice in the organizational fabric of developing world civil societies?

Prof. Ron's research addresses these questions with a unique set of 215 semi-structured interviews conducted over five years with NGO workers from 60 countries. According to his respondents, rights-based organizations face significant challenges in spreading their message at home, and raising resources within their own society. Faith-based organizations and discourses, moreover, are their chief rivals for grass-roots and popular support. Prof. Ron's findings have important implications for the ways in which international donors and practitioners promote human rights worldwide.

Biography:

James Ron is Associate Professor of International Studies at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He publishes regularly in scholarly journals on issues of state violence, NGOs, transnational activism, and human rights, and has authored a scholarly book and three book-length human rights reports. He has worked and consulted for a variety of practitioner organizations, including Human Rights Watch, the International Committee of the Red Cross, CARE, the Associated Press, and the Canadian government. He frequently contributes to the op-ed pages of Canadian and international newspapers, and has held faculty positions at McGill and Johns Hopkins universities.

Five Open World program judges and court officials were selected to participate in a congressionally sponsored Open World professional exchange. World Services of La Crosse, a national hosting organization for the congressionally sponsored Open World program, has been asked to assist Judge Tunheim in hosting this judicial delegation. The Open World participants have been finalized and are described in the attached delegate summary. World Services will be responsible for the logistical arrangements for hosting this delegation.

Open World participants are home hosted which is a memorable experience for visitors and host. HHH students, faculty, or staff are invited to home host a delegate(s) and learn firsthand about life in the Republic of Georgia. I have attached an invitation that describes home host responsibilities.

Deborah Lutjen, MPH
World Services of La Crosse, Inc.
1601 Caledonia St., Suite B
La Crosse, WI 54603
Ph: 608-781-4194
Fax: 608-781-4197
dlutjen(at)wslax.us
www.wslax.us

IPID is putting out Call For Submissions, including visual art submissions for our Spring Student Speaker Conference. - Deadline is noon Sunday Mar 27th, so time is short. Please tell everyone and post the attached doc everywhere, though submissions are limited to University of Minnesota graduate students.

The conference will be held Friday April 22nd 2-6pm place TBA.

This Friday (3/11) the theory colloquium will host Jill Locke
(Political Science and Women's Studies, Gustavus Adolphus College).
Jill will briefly present her work "Rousseau, The Misfit's Hero,"
followed by a longer discussion. The colloquium will be in 1314
Social Sciences at 1:30; coffee will be served.

The paper is attached but can also be obtained from our website:
http://www.polisci.umn.edu/centers/theory/schedule.html

Adam Dahl
Chase Hobbs-Morgan
Garnet Kindervater

Abstract:

An extraordinarily pluralistic group of eighteenth-century men and
women were drawn to Rousseau"s writings and Rousseau himself because
of his sympathetic portrait of the person who did not fit into the
artificial and inegalitarian culture of le monde. Some of these men,
like Jean-Paul Marat, became revolutionaries; Jean-Marie-Bernard
Clément, by contrast, found Rousseauean inspiration for his labors in
the Counter-Enlightenment. Stranger still, Olympe de Gouges, whose
life and work represented all that Rousseau feared, claimed an
enormous debt to Rousseau as the person who helped her imagine an
unashamed and authentic life that was free from the shackles of social
expectations.
In this paper, I explore "Three Rousseaus" (the Romantic, the Tutor,
and the Legislator) with this reception history in mind, highlighting
the ways in which Rousseau"s paeans to the authentic life and desire
to protect the misfit from social shame radicalize his republican
thought in exciting ways. Yet at the same time, perhaps because
Rousseau was aware of the pluralism of his readers and his following
by women in particular, I show how his texts forestall these romantic
implications. By closing off the romantic republic from literary women
and the men with whom they dwell, Rousseau strives to protect the
misfit who animates his defense of the authentic life--the simple,
provincial man. Against current trends in political theory, I affirm
Rousseau"s concern with the psychological state of the misfit and his
willingness to see it in political terms, but caution against the
effort to guarantee the misfit or any other citizen a social or
political life that is free from the injuries of shame. It is this
move of seeking to guarantee the misfit a life free from anything that
will mock or humiliate him that enables Rousseau to close off the
public to others who were eager to take up his an invitation to live
an authentic life.

Please note the March events sponsored (and co-sponsored) by the Women's
Center. We hope to see you at our programs, and please do visit our website
at http://www.umn.edu/women for more information.

Commercial Sexual Exploitation in Minnesota�s Native Communities
March 8, 2011. 4-6 p.m., 1314 Social Sciences Building
Suzanne Koepplinger, Executive Director of the Minnesota Indian Women's
Resource Center, will present information on the little talked about issue
of sex trafficking of Minnesota Native girls. Free and open to the public.
Co-sponsored by the Human Rights Program, the Women�s Center and the
Advocates for Human Rights.

Young? Old? Broke? Flush? Start NOW to Fund Your Dreams
March 9, 12-1 p.m., Mayo Memorial Auditorium
You may live to be 100! Today�s generation needs to think and plan
differently for the future. BUT! Financial consultant Ruth Hayden believes
in living your dreams now too! Ruth Hayden helps us change our thinking
about money so that instead of avoiding the issue, we use money as a tool to
create the life we want . . . now AND for retirement. While Ruth can�t
promise us wealth, her wisdom and wit can help us make good choices for a
life with dreams fulfilled. Free and open to the public. RSVP online at
http://z.umn.edu/rh2011.

Women�s Student Congress Meeting
March 23, 4:30 p.m., 125 Nolte Center
The Women's Center is looking for your voice! Join other women students to
identify and address issues of importance to women undergraduate and
graduate students on campus. Open to all students. Free pizza. RSVP and
enter a drawing to win an iPod shuffle! RSVP to women@umn.edu.

Are Any Women Happy? Army Wives, Workers, Mothers
March 28, 4:30 p.m., 100 Murphy Hall

Dr. Mary Vavrus, Lifetime's Army or I Married the Media-Military-Industrial
Complex
Dana Schowalter, A Woman's Nation, A Man's World: Silencing Institutional
Change in the Workforce
Dr. Catherine Squires, Are All Unhappy Moms This Homogeneous?

Free and open to the public. Refreshments served. This Family News event is
co-sponsored by the Cowles Professor for Journalism, Diversity &
Equality and the Women�s Center.

Are We There Yet? Allies for Women's Equity
March 30, 2-4 p.m., 325 Education Sciences Building

How do you respond to the rumors that women have reached equality? What can
you to say when you hear a sexist joke, or when you think someone is being
put in an uncomfortable situation? In this interactive workshop,
participants discuss their experiences, increase their knowledge of women�s
status today, think about intersections of gender with race, ethnicity,
sexuality, ability, and culture, discuss language and privilege, and
practice bystander interventions. Leave with concrete tools to be more
effective allies! RSVP to
women@umn.edu
.

--
Anitra Cottledge
Assistant Director | Women�s Center
Office for Equity & Diversity | University of Minnesota

54 Appleby Hall | 128 Pleasant Avenue SE | Minneapolis, MN 55455
612.625.2385 | cottlead@umn.edu | www.umn.edu/women

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

Please note the March events sponsored (and co-sponsored) by the Women's Center. We hope to see you at our programs, and please do visit our website at http://www.umn.edu/women for more information.

Commercial Sexual Exploitation in Minnesota's Native Communities
March 8, 2011. 4-6 p.m., 1314 Social Sciences Building
Suzanne Koepplinger, Executive Director of the Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center, will present information on the little talked about issue of sex trafficking of Minnesota Native girls. Free and open to the public. Co-sponsored by the Human Rights Program, the Women's Center and the Advocates for Human Rights.

Young? Old? Broke? Flush? Start NOW to Fund Your Dreams
March 9, 12-1 p.m., Mayo Memorial Auditorium
You may live to be 100! Today's generation needs to think and plan differently for the future. BUT! Financial consultant Ruth Hayden believes in living your dreams now too! Ruth Hayden helps us change our thinking about money so that instead of avoiding the issue, we use money as a tool to create the life we want . . . now AND for retirement. While Ruth can't promise us wealth, her wisdom and wit can help us make good choices for a life with dreams fulfilled. Free and open to the public. RSVP online at http://z.umn.edu/rh2011.

Women's Student Congress Meeting
March 23, 4:30 p.m., 125 Nolte Center
The Women's Center is looking for your voice! Join other women students to identify and address issues of importance to women undergraduate and graduate students on campus. Open to all students. Free pizza. RSVP and enter a drawing to win an iPod shuffle! RSVP to women@umn.edu.

Are Any Women Happy? Army Wives, Workers, Mothers
March 28, 4:30 p.m., 100 Murphy Hall

Dr. Mary Vavrus, Lifetime's Army or I Married the Media-Military-Industrial Complex
Dana Schowalter, A Woman's Nation, A Man's World: Silencing Institutional Change in the Workforce
Dr. Catherine Squires, Are All Unhappy Moms This Homogeneous?

Free and open to the public. Refreshments served. This Family News event is co-sponsored by the Cowles Professor for Journalism, Diversity &
Equality and the Women's Center.

Are We There Yet? Allies for Women's Equity
March 30, 2-4 p.m., 325 Education Sciences Building

How do you respond to the rumors that women have reached equality? What can you to say when you hear a sexist joke, or when you think someone is being put in an uncomfortable situation? In this interactive workshop, participants discuss their experiences, increase their knowledge of women's status today, think about intersections of gender with race, ethnicity, sexuality, ability, and culture, discuss language and privilege, and practice bystander interventions. Leave with concrete tools to be more effective allies! RSVP to women@umn.edu.

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Anitra Cottledge
Assistant Director | Women's Center
Office for Equity & Diversity | University of Minnesota

54 Appleby Hall | 128 Pleasant Avenue SE | Minneapolis, MN 55455
612.625.2385 | cottlead@umn.edu | www.umn.edu/women

A SIP OF SCIENCE - ** Every 2nd Wednesday**
The search for diamonds in North America
Wednesday, March 9, 5:30p.m.
Aster Cafe, 125 SE Main Street, St. Anthony Main, Minneapolis
No cover

A SIP OF SCIENCE bridges the gap between science and culture in a setting that bridges the gap between brain and belly. Food, beer, and learning are on the menu in a happy hour forum that offers the opportunity to talk with researchers about their current work, its implications, and its fascinations.

MARCH 9th EVENT

Diamonds are said to be forever, but where do they originate? North America's geology has excellent potential for diamonds, but only recently has advances in science and technology made discovery possible. Join us for a happy hour discussion with Minnesota State Geologist Harvey Thorleifson on how Canada joined the ranks of world leaders in the production of high quality gem diamonds and how the methods that were key to diamond discoveries in Canada have been applied throughout Minnesota, with some preliminary success.

The talk takes place during happy hour at the Aster Cafe || Food and Drink Available for Purchase

ABOUT THIS MONTH'S SPEAKER

Harvey Thorleifson is director of the Minnesota Geological Survey, state geologist of Minnesota, professor in theDepartment of Geology & Geophysics at the University of Minnesota, and vice president of the Association of American State Geologists. Prior to joining the Minnesota Geological Survey team he was with the Geological Survey of Canada.

ABOUT A SIP OF SCIENCE

A SIP OF SCIENCE is a new science happy hour sponsored by the National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics (NCED). It is a chance to hear about new and exciting research over beer, in a cool bar. Come talk with the experts about their efforts to address some of the Earth's most pressing problems. NCED's A SIP OF SCIENCE brings the wonder of science to happy hour.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

http://www.nced.umn.edu/content/sip-science-search-diamonds-north-america