Hi All,
It’s that time again. Here is a digest of the events, opportunities, and articles that are upcoming.
Event: Michael Young, Social Science and the British Left: A Conversation
Thursday October 15, 17:30
Join The Young Foundation CEO Helen Goulden and author Dr. Lise Butler for the launch of her new book, Michael Young, Social Science and the British Left.
The online event will celebrate the book launch with special guests (to be announced) sparking a lively discussion on the emotional drivers of political behaviour, the social sciences – and their inclusion in political discourse (both on left and right), and the role of knowledge and evidence in shaping public purpose in society.
We will be joined by:
• Lord Gus O’Donnell
• Rushanara Ali MP
• Jon Cruddas MP
• David Civil, University of Nottingham
• Professor Mike Savage, LSE & Young Foundation Trustee
Opportunity: Imagining Urban Futures in a Post-COVID World
City is part of the WC2 Network that brings together top universities located in the heart of major world cities to address contemporary urban issues. This year the WC2 network is launching an interdisciplinary, collaborative and virtual project, inviting undergraduate students from participating universities of the network to join. Participation in the project will provide you with the opportunity to:
- Expand your global network and gain skills in online intercultural collaboration,
- Join a cross-university team with students from across the network,
- Select a topic of interest based on the WC2 themes and develop a group project that will be presented to top academics in the field,
- Enrol in a RMIT micro-credential – Working with Global Clients Online,
- Receive a WC2 Certificate of Participation,
- Participate in two workshops offered by Common Purpose as part of the program,
- Present (virtually or in person) at next year’s WC2 conference, which we hope will be hosted by RMIT at their campus in Melbourne, Australia (for top selected projects).
Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to engage with students from major cities across the world!
- Application Deadline: October 23rd, 2020
- Team building begins at the beginning of November
- Final project completion scheduled for March 16th, 2021.
Apply Here!
Event: Journalism and Politics in the Pandemic
The Departments of Journalism and International Politics in the School of Arts and Social Sciences at City, University of London are arranging two international webinars on Thursday 15th October (the times given below are BST).
1300-1430 ‘The pandemic’s impact on Journalism: a global perspective’
1500-1630 ‘How political are young people?’
Event: US Think Tanks and Foundations in World Politics: The Nexus of Knowledge and Power
We are pleased to announce the new series of the “US Think Tanks and Foundations in World Politics” webinars. We kick off on Friday 16 October, 2020 with two historically-oriented papers on the role of the WWII work of the Council on Foreign Relations in the rise of US militarism and ‘endless wars’; and the CFR’s attempts to develop IR theory in the 1950s.
We have Stephen Wertheim (Quincy Institute/Columbia University) and Felix Roesch (Coventry University) to open the series on Friday 16 October from 4pm till 5.30pm (BST)
And the link to register is Here!
Event: Black History Month: Olivette Otele, Absent Black Bodies in the British Memoryscape
21 October, 2020 – 12:00pm – 1:00pm
We are honoured to welcome Professor Olivette Otele, who will focus on the way the Global North is currently looking at mass protest, racism and colonial violence seem to have shifted since the killing of African American George Floyd in May 2020. Yet, in Britain, debates about the legacies of the country’s colonial past that include memorialisation, discrimination and representation, seem to slowly descend into a disconnect between the histories of white men in urban landscape on the one hand and fear that the past as it has been presented until now, will be forgotten. A deep-seated insecurity about allegedly falling into an anachronistic witch hunt continues to shape discussions about Britain’s history. Inequalities and trauma have been noticeably absent to these debates. This presentation seeks to examine the hegemonic threads and absences of current debates about the country’s colonial past.
This session is a unique and exciting opportunity to hear about Professor Olivette Otele’s inspiring work on Black History. This will be followed by a Q & A session.
You can register Here!
Event: Anglo-American Relations after Brexit
22 October, 2020 – 19:00 (UTC+8)
Professor Inderjeet Parmar will join the Fortunes Society’s webinar series to speak on Anglo-American Relations after Brexit.
“The Anglo-American relationship is a fundamental, and therefore enduring, relationship between states and societies that are more accurately defined as an ‘imagined community’ underpinned by deep, shared identities, interests and governing concepts. Yet, they must also be viewed in a global context and not in bilateral terms, or cold war bipolar terms. Hence, their states’ interests are similar but not identical and therefore clash from time to time. Yet, their underlying liberal-imperial and cosmopolitan character, and dense and wide-ranging official and informal elite policy networks, underpinned by ethno-racial identities, make for an enduring relationship. This is especially significant due to moves within the core Anglo-American states due to ‘Trumpism/America First’ and ‘Brexit/Global Britain’; and equally so as the world moves towards a ‘turbulent transition’ — a partial, reluctant, and ‘messy multipolarity’ with emerging non-western powers. Conversely, those emerging powers, like China and India, have themselves attained greater position and influence largely within and through the post-1945 liberal international order built by Anglo-America. Consequently, I suggest that despite turbulence in the transitional phase, likely to be of long duration, world politics will recalibrate towards a new global compact, however unstable due to underlying inequalities between and within states and polities. I conclude that the above movements are inexplicable in liberal internationalist or realist terms, and argue that a synthesis of the ideas of Antonio Gramsci and Karly Kautsky might provide a better basis for understanding future directions in world order.”
Register Here!
Opportunities: Global Virtual Opportunities
Despite the on-going uncertainty around the world, now is a great time to take advantage of some fantastic virtual global experiences that are completely free and can be done from the comfort and safety of your home.
Check out the amazing opportunities Here!
Blog: Juvaria Jafri, Why Geobanking/Finance?
Juvaria Jafri, Lecturer in International Political Economy, has co-written a post on the RSA blog on geobanking/finance.
“Financial geography has become a growing, and increasingly distinct, branch of economic geography over recent years. These patterns have much to do with the phenomenon known as financialisation, and financial geographers have sought to understand how space and place matter for the processes and relations of finance. As Barnes and Christophers (2018) observe, scholars of financialisation are conscious that finance plays a crucial role in shaping the choices of ordinary individuals about their daily lives; but also in shaping the decisions of corporations, not only in their day to day operations but on how they deepen and widen their income streams. Over the last two decades, financial corporations have seen their profits and influence surge, but non-financial corporations now too rely more on dividend or interest income, as a portion of their overall profits.”
Check it out Here!
Article: Tom Davies, L’International: The World’s First International Journal and the Possibilities and Limits of International Studies
Tom Davies, Senior Lecturer in International Politics, has a new article with International Studies Perspectives
“L’International, a journal published in Paris in the 1840s that brought together an international team of intellectuals aiming to advance international studies, represents not only a forgotten milestone in the development of international studies but also provides an important case study shedding light on the challenges that need to be overcome in the development of international studies as a distinctive area of research. This article considers both the potential and the limits of the approach to international studies set out in L’International with a view to further understanding the potential and limits of international studies today. It elucidates four features of the approach taken in L’International pertinent to debates in today’s discipline: (i) the boundaries of international studies; (ii) the nature of a scientific approach to the subject; (iii) the role of race, gender, and class; and (iv) the relationship between international studies and the policy sector. While its contributors were notable for putting forward a pluralist approach to the subject, their efforts were marred by their consideration of a limited set of interests.”