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UCI International Studies  
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Events

March 13, 2014
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and Micere Mugo, "Drama, Law and Justice: The Making of the Trial of Dedan Kimathi," Cosponsored by the Department of Drama

March 6, 2014
Inderpal Grewal, Professor, Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies, Anthropology, and American Studies and Anthropology; Chair WGSS, Yale University, "The Masculinities of Postcolonial Governance: Bureaucratic Memoirs of Indian ICS"

February 27, 2014
David Lyon, Director, Surveillance Studies Centre, Queen's University, Canada, "Surveillance after Snowden: Decoding the 'Snooping Scandal,'" Cosponsored by the Intel Science and Technology Center for Social Computing

February 20, 2014
Julia Elyachar, Anthropology Professor and Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies Director | Cecelia Lynch, Political Science Professor and Institute for International, Global and Regional Studies | Director Daniel Wehrenfenning, Olive Tree Initiative Director, "EXPERT SERIES: Is Crisis the New Normal Across the Middle East and Africa?"

February 20, 2014
Professional development ISPF with Brenda Seaver, CIA Analyst and UC Irvine PhD Alumnus, "My (Accidental) Career as a CIA Analyst"

February 13, 2014
Kristen Monroe, Chancellor's Professor of Political Science, Director of Interdisciplinary Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality, "Ethics in an Age of Terror and Genocide," Cosponsored by the Interdisciplinary Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality

February 6, 2014
Jackie Ogega, Executive Director, Mpanzi, "How Can We Eliminate Female Genital Cutting?"

November 15, 2013
Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies Annual Margolis Lecture with Mahmood Mamdani, Professor of Government and Anthropology, Columbia University and Director of Makere Institute of Social Research, Kampala, Uganda, "After Nuremberg: The Historical Significance of the South African Transition," Cosponsored with ISPF, African American Studies Program, School of Law, Center for the Study of Democracy, and Department of Anthropology

November 14, 2013
Professional development ISPF/Information Session on Graduate Programs in International Affairs, with representatives from Columbia, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Princeton and Tufts Universities

November 7, 2013
Elizabeth Lira, Professor of Psychology and Ethics, Universidad Hurtado, Santiago, Chile, and Brian Loveman, Professor Emeritus, Political Science, San Diego State University, "The Politics of Reconciliation: Truth, Reparation and Justice in Chile, 1989–2013"

October 31, 2013
Carl Wilkens, Co-Founder/Director, The World Outside My Shoes, "Stories of Rwanda's Recovery from Genocide," Cosponsored by the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding

October 17, 2013
Nancy Burke, Associate Professor, UC San Francisco, "Travels in Exceptionalism? Cuban Health(care) on the Island and Around the World," Cosponsored by UC-CUBA Academic Initiative and the Department of Chicano/Latino Studies

October 3, 2013
Mike Bosia, Associate Professor of Political Science, St. Michael's College, "Threat Level Pink: State Homophobia and the Invention of an LGBT Menace," Cosponsored with the Department of Women's Studies and the Department of Political Science


Event Calendar




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For more information on International Studies at UCI as well as for job announcements, grants, and conferences, visit us online.

To submit news and events for the next quarterly International Studies newsletter, please contact Carrie Reiling.





Director's Message from Cecelia Lynch

Cecelia Lynch, Director of International Studies, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and Humanities, and Sheron Wray, Assistant Professor of Dance, at the concluding celebration of the 50th Anniversary Conference of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, October 2013

You may ask yourself, "What is IIGaRS?" Not at all the "same as it ever was," IIGaRS is the new Institute for International, Global and Regional Studies at UCI. IIGaRS's mission is to instigate, facilitate, and accelerate research and debate across campus and in the community on international, global and regional processes, problems and possibilities, showcasing new ways of looking at ongoing issues, analyzing developing fields that cut across conventional disciplines, and drawing attention to UCI faculty and student strengths and contributions while also facilitating innovative collaborations. As an incubator and accelerator, IIGaRS will look for ways to bring affiliated centers, institutes and departments together to collaborate on conferences and workshops, grants and research projects, speaker seminars and faculty/student interactions.

International, global and regional processes are intersecting and dynamic. Cyber insecurity has joined economic crises, climate change, and weapons proliferation as prominent challenges to the nation-state. Gender politics across the globe are being transformed as sexual identities expand and evolve, taking on different nomenclatures in different regions. The lines between the religious and the secular are in flux globally, providing new possibilities for governance, even while religious and racialized constructions of otherness play new roles in humanitarian interventions of various kinds. Social media and "big data," as well as advances in global health and scientific research, provide unimaginable knowledge resources and economic potential as well as present ethical challenges and possibly unforeseen meanings for goals of peace and justice. Regional convulsions such as the Arab Spring veer from hope to heartbreak, and new movements for justice are developing even while local as well as global gaps between rich and poor grow exponentially.

UCI faculty are leaders in analyzing these issues, and UCI students' diverse backgrounds (from all over the globe) make us uniquely situated to link the local with the international, global and regional. Harnessing this scholarly and experiential energy for the benefit of the campus and the Southern California community is what IIGaRS is about.

This year's International Studies Public Forum (ISPF), for example, has already addressed issues of state homophobia vis-à-vis changing sexual identities (with the Departments of Women's Studies and Political Science), reparations, law and democratization in Latin America (with the Department of History), and health care in Cuba (with the Department of Chicano-Latino Studies). We also co-sponsored the annual CGPACS Margolis Lecture with Mahmood Mamdani on forms of transitional justice in Africa vs. Nuremburg. This quarter's talks examine female genital cutting, surveillance after the Snowden affair, and the political/literary implications of a new play by Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Micere Mugo, working with the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding, the Intel Science and Technology Center for Social Computing, and the Department of Drama, respectively. We also continue to provide one major professional development talk per quarter for our undergraduates, hosting a panel of five representatives from prominent M.A. programs in international affairs in the fall quarter, and welcoming home one of our political science Ph.D.s who has been a CIA analyst for the past fifteen years in the winter quarter.

For our international studies students, we are excited to announce a new double major with French, which reflects global and regional intersections by bringing together the study of the linguistic, historical, cultural and political systems of francophone regions in Europe, Africa and North America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. We thank the interdisciplinary team of faculty and staff headed by professor Carrie Noland for creating the double major, which emphasizes one of the dominant, linguistically based geographies of culture, conquest and economic and political power that crisscrosses the globe. We are also excited to announce two new local internships for our students: one with Living Ubuntu (preparing for Genocide Awareness Week in April 2014), and the other with the Department of Drama (working in the community to prepare connections for the play, "The Trial of Dedan Kimathi"), and we are now in the second year of our internship with the Southern California Red Cross on International Humanitarian Law.

Read on for more information on our award-winning faculty and students, news from centers and institutes, and updates on undergraduate clubs and events.




Faculty Honors and Awards

Etel Solingen, political science Chancellor's Professor, has been named the Thomas T. and Elizabeth C. Tierney Chair in Peace Studies. The endowed chair was established in 1986 as a way to honor a scholar of distinction who is making contributions to world peace through teaching, research and service. Read on...





Stergios Skaperdas, economics professor, has been appointed to a five-year term as the Clifford S. Heinz Chair, which recognizes an outstanding UC Irvine scholar who studies the economics of peace. Read on...





Kristen Monroe, political science professor and UCI Inderdisciplinary Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality director, has been named UCI Chancellor's Professor of political science. This designation recognizes scholars who have demonstrated unusual academic merit and whose continued promise for scholarly achievement makes them of exceptional value to the university. Read on...





Rubén Rumbaut, professor of sociology, has been elected to the National Academy of Education, one of 12 new members admitted earlier this year for outstanding contributions in educational research and policy development. His research focuses on immigrant families of diverse nationalities and socioeconomic classes. Read on...





Sara Goodman, political science assistant professor, is the 2012–13 recipient of the Social Sciences Assistant Professor Research Award for her research on the politics of citizenship in Israel. Read on...









Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Distinguished Professor of English and comparative literature, was a keynote speaker at the African Studies Conference, held at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. Read on...






Faculty in the News

Kristen Monroe, professor of political science, was cited in The Washington Post about her research on moral psychology during World War II.

Cecelia Lynch, professor of political science and international studies director, was quoted in Public Radio International's The World as part of an investigative project called Tracking Charity.

Wang Feng, sociology professor, was quoted by a number of news sources, including The New York Times (November 15 and November 17), Forbes, and ABC News, on China's shift in the one-child policy.

Dorothy Solinger, political science professor, was quoted by Bloomberg News about Chinese President Xi Jinping's reaction to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to a war shrine.

Political science professor Tony Smith was featured by CBC News in Canada on the possibility of a war crimes trial for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Anthropology professor and ethnomusicologist Robert Garfias has contributed his entire collection of musical instruments from around the world to the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix.

Brandon Brown, director of the Global Heath Research, Education and Translation program, spoke at the Biomedical HIV Prevention conference in Abuja, Nigeria.

Assistant professor of French Ève Célia Morisi has been on a tour across France and the United States, following the publication of her book, Albert Camus, le souci des autres (2013), which also coincides with the centenary celebration of Nobel laureate Albert Camus.




IS Major News

Check out the new French & international studies double major and expand your opportunities with advanced language skills and knowledge of histories, cultures, and governmental systems of Francophone regions all over the world, with courses such as "Black Paris/Paris Noir," "French Cinema," "French Literature and Politics," and many others, and study abroad in Senegal, Morocco, Vietnam, or France. The IS–French double major may take two courses for double credit. For more information, please contact professor Carrie Noland, director of French (cjnoland@uci.edu), Chika Kono, international studies academic counselor (ckono@uci.edu), or professor Cecelia Lynch, director of international studies and IIGaRS (clynch@uci.edu).

If you are planning to study abroad in summer 2014, in fall 2014 or for the academic year 2014–2015, investigate your opportunities NOW! Visit the Study Abroad Center website to prepare for an adventure abroad. Staff at the Study Abroad Center can help you choose a program, understand how to afford studying abroad, and ensure progress toward your degree.

UCI's Gamma Gamma Chapter of the Sigma Iota Rho (SIR) International Studies Honor Society has returned with new leadership this year. President Sarahzin Chowdhury and vice president Jason Arceneaux, with the help of advisor Teresa Neighbors, strengthened the society's presence within the network of IS students and alumni, working closely with the International Studies Club and Social Science Academic Resource Center.

During the upcoming quarters, SIR will host more networking events by connecting with ISPF and is also trying to invite at least one UCI alumnus to speak to SIR students. SIR works to encourage a lifelong commitment to a better understanding of the world. Members believe in an education that suits a globalized society to make the world a better place as a student and a professional through lasting connections. This chapter puts great emphasis on networking – an essential tool for advancement in politics.

The International Studies Club at UC Irvine is a holistic academic club designed to integrate students from all backgrounds who share a common interest in the global arena. Regardless of major, students come together to discuss opinions and ideas through academic events and discussions focusing on global issues, societies and cultures. Because the club is student-run, it incorporates ideas form all members for further activities and events. For more information, contact igscuci@gmail.com.

The International Peace and Conflict Studies House is affordable on-campus housing where students learn about global issues while living with other students from around the world. Residents can also participate in leadership development opportunities and share informal dinners with faculty and professionals working on global peace. For more information, contact Teresa Neighbors (teresa.neighbors@uci.edu) or Gloria Simpson (simpsong@uci.edu).




IS Student Honors and Activities

IS major Fahiya Rashid was awarded the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, supplemented by a Critical Need Language Award, to study Arabic language and culture in Jordan. This scholarship is supported by the U.S. Department of State and the Institute of International Education.

Our students continue to benefit from wonderful opportunities to study abroad all over the world. Check out the following photos (and students, keep them coming!):

Shanelle Garcia, Paris, France – located in Montmartre, this wall is called "Le Mur de L'amour"




Alexandra Korol, Lyon, France – at the Basilique du Notre Dame de Fouviere




Stella Liu, Taiwan – at Teapot Mountain, where the rocks on top look like a teapot from far away




Graduate Students Win Major Awards, Fellowships, and Honors

Beijie Tang, political science graduate student, is the recipient of a Herbert F. York Global Security Dissertation Fellowship from the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation to support her research on the interactions between domestic politics and international behavior in China. Read on...






Cristina Bejarano, anthropology graduate student, has been awarded a Chancellor's Club Fund for Excellence Fellowship, which are awarded to the best graduate students at UCI who also show great promise as future leaders. Her research examines how science in Mexico develops through interaction with, rather than separate from, science in the United States and Europe.





Kelsey Norman, political science graduate student, has received a Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada Fellowship to study factors that cause Middle Eastern and North African States to liberalize their citizenship policies to allow outsiders to become members. Read on...






Elizabeth Reddy, anthropology graduate student, has received a grant from the American Institute of Physics to support her dissertation research on seismic science and public policy in Mexico City. Read on...




Wilfred Wan, 2013 political science Ph.D., has been named a 2013–14 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science fellow. Awarded by the Social Science Research Council, the fellowship will allow Wan to spend the next year in Japan studying alongside leading nuclear proliferation researchers. Read on...






Anthropology graduate students Beth Reddy and George Hartman, as well as sociology graduate student Edelina Burciaga (pictured) and policy, planning and design graduate student Victoria Lowerson have all been awarded a UC MEXUS dissertation research grant for research conducted in Mexico or about the Mexican-origin population in the United States.









Affiliated Centers

The UCI Public Health Seminar Series is showcasing two lectures with an international focus in Winter quarter: "Gulf War Syndrome" on February 28, presented by Roberta F. White, associate dean for research and professor of environmental health at Boston University; and "Korean Medical Service Act and Emergency Medical Service System" on March 10, presented by Hyun Bae of the College of Law and College of Health Sciences at Ewha Woman's University in Korea. Public health previously sponsored "Confronting Dangerous Infections Diseases around the World" on November 18, presented by Donald P. Francis, cofounder of Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases. Read on...

The Religious Studies Program will co-sponsor a public conversation with Reza Aslan, the author of the recent and controversial best-seller, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth on March 4 at 5:30 p.m. Contact the Religious Studies Program for more information.

The Center in Law, Society & Culture is hosting the Socio-Legal Studies Workshop series, co-organized with the School of Law. A number of internationally focused workshops are in the works for winter and spring quarters. Read on...

The UCI School of Law is sponsoring a yearlong Long Institute Lecture Series on Chinese Law, Business and Society. This fall has seen topics such as legal education, environmental protection and intellectual property. Talks will also be held in winter and spring on other research topics where law, business and society interact in China or in relation to China. Read on...

The Empowering Sustainability International Journal has been launched through the Empowering Sustainability initiative affiliated with the School of Social Ecology. The journal is currently accepting papers for peer-reviewed open-access publication. Read on...

The Departments of Anthropology and Dance sponsored Hélène Neveu Kringelbach, a research associate at the African Studies Centre of the University of Oxford. She presented "Choreographic Performance and Politics in 20th Century Urban Senegal" on February 6.

The Department of Economics and the Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies held a conference on Identity and Conflict February 8. Economics and political science professors from around the U.S. presented their work.

The UCI XIV Dalai Lama Scholars, Students for Global Peacebuilding, the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding, the Office of the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, and The Hill joined together January 27–31 to celebrate Peace Week. Read on...

The Informatics Department sponsored a seminar January 24 on "The Remediation of Killing: Drone Warfare from Secrecy to Social Media" with Peter Asaro, Assistant Professor and Director of Graduate Programs, School of media Studies, The New School.

Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian was on campus January 22 for a talk, "Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed." His visit was sponsored by the Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences and the School of Social Sciences.




Highlights from the Fall

The CIHA Blog (Critical Investigations into Humanitarianism in Africa) has developed a new mission statement and has a number of new posts reflecting on Nelson Mandela, exploring new films and books, analyzing the events in Egypt and Sudan, and keeping readers up to date on news from and about Africa. Several of the blog's co-editors gathered at the African Studies Conference, held at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon.

The Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies (CGPACS) has established a theme for the next three years – Thinking Past the Unthinkable: Opportunities and Challenges for Global Peace. The center's three subfields – Biosecurity and the New Realities of Global Warming, Financial Crisis: Peace and Conflict in the New Normal, and Rethinking Peace and Conflict After the Arab Spring – will guide the center's discussions, events, and other activities. CGPACS co-hosted Dr. Mahmood Mamdani of Columbia University and the Makerere Institute for Social Research in Uganda for a lecture titled "After Nuremberg: The Historical Significance of the South African Transition." Read on...

The Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion presented its annual conference for funded researchers on December 4–5. The conference explored existing, traditional money systems and financial practices, as well as the potential and real impact of new technology in providing access to finance for the world's poor. Read on...

The Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion co-presented with the Claire Trevor school of the Arts an exhibit titled "Figuring Exchange: Art and Money." This exhibit featured the work of Argentine artist Máximo González and offered perspectives of art on currency. Read on...

The Department of History presented the conference "Liberated Africans and Digital Humanities: African Diaspora Reconsidered" on October 1–2, organized around the themes of slavery, freedom, race and ethnicity. Video of many of the conference presentations is available.

Olive Tree Initiative students traveled to Washington, D.C., and the United Nations headquarters before leaving for the Middle East this summer. The students spent three weeks in Israel, the West Bank and Jordan, where they met with more than 60 politicians, religious leaders, nongovernmental leaders and academics to gain a better understanding of the regional tensions. Read on...

The University of California Humanities Research Institute and the Department of Anthropology sponsored a panel discussion on November 19 with Albie Sachs, a chief architect in South Africa's post-apartheid constitution. Sachs was also an anti-apartheid activist and was appointed by Nelson Mandela to the country's Constitutional Court. Read on...

The Dr. Joseph L. White Lecture for the Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium was delivered by Michael Eric Dyson, an ordained Baptist minister and professor of sociology at Georgetown University. The Cross-Cultural Center presented the symposium and lecture. Read on...

The Global Health Research Education and Translation (GHREAT) program has produced a four-part video series about the program's projects serving communities around the world. Watch the videos...

The UCI Center for Ethnography presented a one-day seminar and series of discussions on "Fieldwork After Ethnos" with Tobias Rees from McGill University, Stephen J. Collier from the New School University, and Christopher Ketly from UCLA. Read on...

The Department of Anthropology has launched a new degree: an M.A. in social sciences with a concentration in medicine, science, and technology studies. The one-year program uses an interdisciplinary approach to respond to the significant and rapidly changing impact of medicine and technology upon societies around the world. Read on...

The UCI Humanities Core Course Program and the UCI Alumni Association presented a talk on November 22 from art history professor Jim Herbert on Benjamin Britten's War Requiem in advance of the live performance of War Requiem on November 24.

On November 4, the UCI Program in Jewish Studies presented "Transnational, Diasporic and Local Challenges: Argentine Jews in the 20th Century," with Mollie Lewis Nouwen from the University of South Alabama and Adriana Brodsky from St. Mary's College of Maryland. Read on...




Thank you for reading! For more information on the Institute for International, Global & Regional Studies at UCI as well as for job announcements, grants, and conferences, please visit the International Studies website.

 







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