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Paul Beck
Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Sociology and Communication
"Direction of Franklin County Democratic Party will be set by committee races"
"Candidates running out of time chasing Trump"
"As Super Tuesday looms, will Kasich make it to Ohio on March 15?"
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Sean Kay
Mershon Associate, Ohio Wesleyan University
"Here's the case some foreign policy experts are making for Bernie Sanders"
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Dorothy Noyes
Professor of English and Comparative Studies
"Women don't have to wait until Feb. 29 to propose marriage"
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Peter Shane
Jacob E. Davis and Jacob E. Davis II Chair in Law
"Brown calls on Senate to move on filling Scalia seat"
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David Stebenne
Professor of History and Law
"Filling the Supreme Court vacancy: lessons from 1968"
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Mershon Memo is a weekly e-mail newsletter distributed by the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, a unit of the
Office of International Affairs at The Ohio State University.
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Thursday, March 3, 2016
3:30 p.m., 120 Mershon Center, 1501 Neil Ave.
Vipin Narang is Mitsui Career Development Associate Professor of Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of MIT's Security Studies Program. His first book,
Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era (Princeton, 2014) on the deterrence strategies of regional nuclear powers, won the 2015 ISA International Security Studies Section Best Book Award. He is currently working on his second book,
Strategies of Nuclear Proliferation (Princeton, under contract), which explores how states pursue nuclear weapons. In this talk, Narang will explore the strategies of proliferation available to states - hedging, sprinting, sheltered pursuit, and hiding - and develop a theory for which strategies are likely to be chosen. Read more and register at
go.osu.edu/narangv
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Friday-Saturday, March 4-5, 2016
120 Mershon Center, 1501 Neil Ave.
 The Cold War was not simply a bipolar political confrontation between the communist East and the capitalist West. Rather, there was a variety of multipolar interactions among the First, Second, and Third Worlds. Historians of eastern Europe have been at the forefront of redefining the nature of these interactions. The goal of
Iron Curtain Crossings is to investigate the variety of ways in which eastern Europe emerged as an important international player in the global Cold War by promoting its own ideas of modernity, progress, humanism, culture, and everyday life. Read more and register for the k
eynote address by Padraic Kenney (left), Indiana University, on "Global Figures, Staying in Place: Situating Communist Eastern Europe in the World Without the Transnational" at
go.osu.edu/ironcurtain
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Wednesday, March 9, 2016
6 p.m., 120 Mershon Center, 1501 Neil Ave.
Co-sponsored by the Middle East Studies Center
 The symposium will address the complex issues related to extremist jihadi groups in the Middle East. Panelists will provide detailed background information on these groups as well as the on area they operate in. They will then provide an up-to-date analysis of the current situation in these regions. They will conclude with a discussion of the implications for U.S. foreign policy followed by a Q and A session. Panelists include
Amr Al-Azm (left),
associate professor at Shawnee State University and an active member of the Syrian opposition; Alam Payind, director of the Middle East Studies Center; and Richard Herrmann, director of the Mershon Center for International Security Studies. Read more and register at
go.osu.edu/jihadis
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Thursday, March 10, 2016
3:30 p.m., 120 Mershon Center, 1501 Neil Ave.
Elizabeth Hurd is associate professor of political science at Northwestern University with a courtesy appointment in religious studies. She teaches and writes on religion, politics and international public life. Her work pursues an integrative approach to the study of politics and religion focusing on dilemmas of national and international governance involving difference, equality, power, law, and pluralism. Her books include The Politics of Secularism in International Relations (2008) and Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion (2015), both published by Princeton. In this talk, Hurd introduces the central argument of Beyond Religious Freedom. The book is a study of state-sponsored global efforts to promote religious freedom, religious engagement and the rights of religious minorities. Read more and register at
go.osu.edu/hurde
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Monday, March 21, 2016
Noon, 120 Mershon Center, 1501 Neil Ave.
Patricia Owens, professor of international relations at University of Sussex, is author of
Economy of Force: Counterinsurgency and the Historical Rise of the Social (Cambridge, 2015), and
Between War and Politics: International Relations the Thought of Hannah Arendt (Oxford, 2007). In this talk, Owens will present a new history and theory of counterinsurgency with major implications for social, political and international thought. Retrieving the surprisingly neglected language of household governance, or oikonomia, she will show how the techniques and domestic ideologies of household administration are highly portable and play a remarkably central role in international relations. Read more and register at
go.osu.edu/owensp
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Thursday, March 24, 2016
12:30 p.m., 120 Mershon Center, 1501 Neil Ave.
Daniel C.K. Chow is Frank E. and Virginia H. Bazler Chair in Business Law at The Ohio State University College of Law. He teaches and writes in the areas of international trade law, international business transactions, international intellectual property, and the law of China. In this talk, Chow will discuss the challenge posed by the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which China opened in January, to the U.S.-dominated World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The AIIB represents not only a rival to the World Bank and IMF but a challenge to the way the United States has conducted international trade for the past 70 years. The rise of the AIIB could be the first indication that China will displace the United States as the final arbiter of the rules of international trade in the 21st century. Read more and register at
go.osu.edu/chowd
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Monday, March 28, 2016
Noon, 120 Mershon Center, 1501 Neil Ave.
Keren Yarhi-Milo is assistant professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University. Her research and teaching focus on international relations and foreign policy, with a specialization in international security, including foreign policy decision-making, interstate communication and crisis bargaining, intelligence, and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Yarhi-Milo's book
Knowing The Adversary: Leaders, Intelligence Organizations, and Assessments of Intentions in International Relations (Princeton, 2014) explores how and why civilian leaders and intelligence organizations select and interpret an adversary's signals of intentions differently. It is winner of the
Edgar S. Furniss Book Award, given annually to an author whose first book makes an exceptional contribution to the study of national and international security. Read more and register at
go.osu.edu/yarhi-milo
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Nyseth Brehm, Carlarne headline TEDx Ohio State
Two Mershon Center faculty affiliates will headline this year's TEDx Ohio State University.
 Hollie Nyseth Brehm, assistant professor of sociology, teaches classes on conflict, global crime, and terrorism. Her research focuses on the causes and processes of genocide and on how countries rebuild in the aftermath of atrocity. She has lived and worked in Rwanda and Bosnia, where she interviewed both perpetrators and victims of genocide.
Nyseth Brehm is a member of a government atrocity prevention task force and regularly consults with the Rwandan National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide. She also volunteers with the Center for Victims of Torture and is a core member of I-Activism, which provides humanitarian action to people affected by mass atrocity in Darfur.
In 2014-15, Nyseth Brehm and Christopher Uggen, from University of Minnesota, won a research grant from the Mershon Center for "Genocide, Justice, and Rwanda's Gacaca Courts." Visit her website at hollienysethbrehm.weebly.com.
 John S. Carlarne is peace studies coordinator at the Mershon Center. His work as a British Army officer, police officer, peace and human rights activist has taken him to places of genocide and violence, and to communities of peace and hope. An anthropologist by training, his current research focuses on the evolutionary basis of meaning.
In 2014-15, Carlarne and Christopher Gelpi, Chair of Peace Studies, won a Mershon Center grant for "Training to Talk Peace: An Experimental Analysis of Non-Violent Communication Workshop." He is currently working to make Columbus a hub for peace and nonviolence by organizing an annual Ohio Peace Festival.
TEDx Ohio State University takes place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, March 5, 2016, at Mershon Auditorium, 1871 N. High St. The event is sold out, but a waiting list is available, and it will be live streamed. Read more and register at tedx.osu.edu.
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5:30 p.m., 180 Hagerty Hall, 1775 College Road
Sponsored by Institute for Japanese Studies
 Brett L. Walker is Regents Professor and Michael P. Malone Professor of History at Montana State University-Bozeman. His research and teaching repertoire includes environmental history and the history of science and medicine. Walker's 2010 book, Toxic Archipelago: A History of Industrial Disease in Japan, was awarded George Perkins Marsh Prize from the American Society for Environmental History. His recent publication is A Concise History of Japan (Cambridge, 2015). For 2015-2016, Walker is Edwin O. Reischauer Visiting Professor at Harvard University. In this lecture, he will discuss cleanup of the 25 million tons of rubble, much of it contaminated with asbestos and other carcinogenic toxins, left after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Read more |
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3 p.m., 200 Campbell Hall, 1787 Neil Ave.
Sponsored by Center for Folklore Studies
 Guinness World Records once dubbed Star Trek's Klingon the world's "most widely spoken fictional language." Though it is a conlang (or constructed language) whose sound system and grammar are unlike those of any other language, its development is rooted in more traditional (and earthbound) linguistic traditions. This talk by Marc Okrand, the linguist who developed Klingon, will review the origins of the language, how the study of an extinct American Indian language influenced the way its structure evolved, and how it fares in the "real world." A lunch for students is also available. Read more and register |
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4:30 p.m., East Ballroom, Ohio Union, 1739 N. High St.
Sponsored by Provost's Discovery Themes Lecturer Program
 Zika, Ebola, SARS, AIDS, and countless other deadly viruses all have one thing in common: the bugs that transmit these diseases all originate in wild animals and pass to humans by a process called spillover. With the advent of international air travel, the viruses that spill over can now spread more quickly and over a larger area than ever before. Go along with David Quammen on an astonishing quest to learn how, where from, and why these diseases emerge, and face the terrifying question: What might the next big one be? Quammen is an author and journalist whose book Spillover (2012), a work on the science, history, and human impacts of emerging diseases was short-listed for eight national and international awards and won three. More recently he published Ebola (2014) and The Chimp and the River (2015). Read more and register |
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Columbus Council on World Affairs to give annual awards
The Columbus Council on World Affairs is proud to announce that the 2016 International Company of the Year Award will be presented to Abbott.
Roger Bird, senior vice president for Abbott, will be present to accept the award. Past honorees include some of the region's most dynamic global players such as Cardinal Health, LBrands, Battelle, Honda, Nationwide, AEP, and others.
 Abbott is committed to helping you live your best possible life through the power of health. For more than 125 years, Abbott has brought new products and technologies to the world -- in nutrition, diagnostics, medical devices and branded generic pharmaceuticals -- that create more possibilities for more people at all stages of life. Today, 74,000 people are working to help people live not just longer, but better, in the more than 150 countries Abbott serves.
In addition, the council will recognize participants of its Global Scholars Diploma program.
The
Columbus Council on World Affairs International Awards Ceremony will take place Thursday, March 10, at 11:30 a.m. at Hyatt Regency, 350 N. High St. in Columbus.
Read more and register
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