Thursday, January 26, 2012
MG 2001
7:00 pm
Speakers: Dr. Mark Appold and students from Middle East Study Abroad, Truman State University
Title: Israelis and Palestinians in Deadlock or Transition? Global implications for the result
Abstract: Professor of Religion Mark Appold will moderate a panel of student participants from a Summer 2011 Truman State University Middle East Study Abroad Course that visited Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Jerusalem, and the West Bank. The presentations will discuss the Balfour document, the Oslo Accords, United Nations resolutions, Gaza, water rights, and Biblical Israel and modern Israel. Professor of Religion Dereck Daschke will talk about the reasons for contentious debate on the status of Jerusalem.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012
VH 1000
7:00 pm
Co-Sponsors: School of Social and Cultural Studies; History Department; Hillel; Students for a Middle East Peace
Speaker: Gershon Baskin, Founder and Chair of the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI)
Title: Is Israeli-Palestinian peace still possible?
Abstract: After 20 years of failed peace processes, Israelis and Palestinians once again are not even talking to each other. The Palestinian house is divided into two separate regimes. A right wing-religious government leads Israel. The US President is campaigning for re-election, Europe is trying to relieve itself from financial collapse, Russia is not interested, neither is China, the UN is incapable of assisting, can the two parties (Israel and Palestine) do it by themselves? Baskin will also tell of the secret direct back channel of negotiations that he initiated and conducted between the Government of Israel and Hamas for the release of the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilead Schalit who was held in captivity in the Gaza strip for five years and four months.

Thursday, February 23, 2012
VH 1000
7:00 pm
Speaker: Axel Fuentes, Field Organizer, Center for New Community
Title: Y ahora aquí en el Norte (“And now here in the North”)
Abstract: Immigrant workers will share their personal stories, their journey to the U.S., and how their lives have improved or worsened.

Thursday, April 5, 2012
SUB Activities Room
7:00pm
Speaker: Aaron Fine, Professor of Art and Gallery Director, Truman State University
Title: Unworking Asia: The demise of hand painted political graphics in the digital age
Abstract: A recent investigation of hand painted political graphics in Mumbai revealed very little painting but a great deal about the rapidly advancing digitalization of visual space in India. As mass produced digital printing replaces idiosyncratic and individual creative efforts, in what ways are India’s political networks enhanced and in what ways are India’s creative networks destroyed? This presentation draws upon excerpts from visual artist and professor of art Aaron Fine’s creative non-fiction to explore recent changes in Indian visual culture.

The Truman chapter of the Spanish Honorary Society (Sigma Delta Pi) and the Colombia Support Network of Kansas City together with the Global Issues Colloquium will present “Indigenous Survival in the 21st Century: A Look at the Embera-Chami Community” on Tuesday, November 1, at 7pm in the SUB Georgian Room B.

Ancizar Gutiérrez and Reynelio Yagari, leaders of the Indigenous Colombian community, the Embera-Chami, will speak about the state of Indigenous rights and the efforts to preserve their traditional way of life in the South American country of Colombia. Their presentation will include traditional music of the Embera-Chami. Gutiérrez and Yagari will discuss how their community has sought to survive amidst an ongoing civil war, widespread drug trafficking, and the pressures of industrial development on their lands.

Following their presentation, there will be a Q/A with the audience. They will be accompanied by Truman alumna Rachel Hogan (’09) of the Colombia Support Network. While at Truman, Rachel worked with Dr. Carol Marshall and Dr. Sergio Escobar to translate the cultural myths of this Indigenous group.

A special Global Issues lecture will be given by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Alusio on Thursday, November 10 at 7:30 pm in Violette Hall 1000. Menzel is a photojournalist known for his coverage of international feature stories on science and the environment, and D’Alusio is a former award-winning television news producer. Since 1996 they have been collaborating on a series of documentary books, beginning with Material World: A Global Family Portrait, and Women in the Material World. Two of their most recent books are Hungry Planet: What the World Eats (2005), and What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets (2010). In Hungry Planet, the authors detail one family’s weekly food purchases and total costs in 24 countries, and use thought-provoking interviews. The centerpiece of each chapter is a portrait of the entire family surrounded by a week’s worth of groceries. Hungry Planet won the coveted James Beard Best Book Award in 2006, and in 2005 received Book of the Year from the Harry Chapin World Hunger Media Foundation. What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets is a photographic journey across 30 different countries that shows us what 80 people eat in a typical day. Through Menzel and D’Aluisio’s evocative narrative style and exceptional photojournalism, What I Eat shines a far reaching beam of light into the pantries of ordinary individuals, revealing a lot about their culture, economy and way of life. Their lecture at Truman is entitled “Calories and Culture: A Worldwide Photographic Journey.” It will feature images from their award winning books Hungry Planet: What the World Eats and Man Eating Bugs: The Art and Science of Eating Insects. More information about their work can be found at www.menzelphoto.com, and in a recent NY Times article.

The following are our scheduled presentations for the Fall 2011 Global Issues Colloquium:

Thursday, September 1, 2011, 7pm, MG2001
Jason Wiles, Assistant Professor, Biology, Syracuse University
Evolution Education in the Muslim World and Why it Matters in the West
Abstract: Evolution, the explanation of the unity and diversity of life via descent with modification from a common ancestry, is accepted by the global scientific community and considered to be of central importance to understanding the biological sciences. Yet, social controversies over the teaching of evolution are common in North America and other Western settings, especially with regard to creationism rooted in particular Judeo-Christian doctrines. Little is known in the West, however, about how Muslims have reacted to evolutionary science, and perhaps even less is known about how evolution is taught in Islamic societies. This talk will summarize findings derived from data collected in several Muslim nations via questionnaires and interviews administered to students, teachers and university scientists as well as from reviews of official curriculum documents during a four-year study of Islamic understandings of and attitudes toward evolution and the teaching thereof. The discussion will also include my own perspective as a biology professor, having been raised in a creationist Christian community in Middle America. From Arkansas to Ankara, from Kirksville to Karachi, we will talk about why evolution education is such a pressing issue.
Sponsored with the Department of Science and Mathematics

Thursday, October 20, 2011, 7pm, MG2001
Stephanie A. Malin, PhD Candidate, Environmental Sociology; Sociology of Globalization/Development, Utah State University
Uranium Communities and Nuclear Renaissance: Energy and Environmental Justice on the Colorado Plateau
Abstract: Global renewal of nuclear energy – a nuclear renaissance – has been proposed as one viable solution to reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts. For example, in 2010 the Obama Administration approved $50 billion in loans for new nuclear reactor construction, and China has been rapidly adding to their cadre of such facilities. I contend such assertions and actions must be examined sociologically; we must avoid framing nuclear power as a socially sustainable ‘renewable energy’ without first empirically examining emergent social impacts, especially in rural communities embedded within global systems such as uranium markets. In this presentation, I focus on the first phase of the nuclear fuel cycle – namely, uranium mining and milling – tracing the emergence of competing discourses and patterns of political mobilization in response to renewed uranium processing on the Colorado Plateau in the western US. Specifically, I examine the regulatory and social movement contexts surrounding Energy Fuels, Inc.’s acquisition of both a special use permit and radioactive materials license to build Piñon Ridge Uranium Mill in Colorado’s Paradox Valley. As the first uranium mill permitted in the US since the Cold War’s end, the Piñon Ridge Uranium Mill provides a natural laboratory to study energy policy formation, land use conflict, and potential spaces for conflict resolution that are globally relevant, given nuclear power’s global use and controversy, and given that China will be a buyer of the yellowcake from PR Mill. I draw from mixed data sources, including in-depth interviews, regulatory and historical-archival analyses, and a household survey instrument distributed to residents in four communities closest to the proposed mill site. As such, this presentation helps illuminate local, rural effects of energy policy in our increasingly globalized economy.
Sponsored with the Department of Society and Environment

Thursday, November 17, 7pm, MG2001
Dr. Marc Rice, Department of Music, Truman State University
The Revolution will be You Tubed: Global Protest, the New Media, and Music
Abstract: Recent political uprisings, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, have been accompanied by the use of Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube. Protests that would have been shielded from the outside world a decade ago are now witnessed by the entire Global community, thanks to the opportunities afforded by the New Media. This presentation will examine how music videos uploaded via the New Media are being used to communicate, organize, and give voice to the issues and protests now occurring in Iran, Libya, Egypt, and elsewhere.

Thursday, February 24, 7pm, BH 176 (Baldwin Little Theater)
TSU International Students
Cultural Perspectives on Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty in Higher Education
Plagiarism, citing sources and group work are not viewed uniformly across all cultures. Depending upon where you are in the world, different ideologies persist, transforming classroom environments and student-professor relationships. In some cultures, sharing notes and answers, even on tests, is acceptable to both professors and students alike in order to improve the class as a whole. In other cultures, citing a well-known source in a paper can be insulting to a professor, indicating that he or she is not educated enough to know the source. Concepts of intellectual property in the United States can therefore be a huge cultural stumbling block to international students. A diverse panel of Truman international students will discuss their own cultures’ perspectives on plagiarism and academic dishonesty, how they differ from views in the United States, as well as how they have adjusted to expectations in this country.

Spring 2011 Global Issues Colloquium series

Thursday, February 3, 7pm, BH 176 (Baldwin Little Theater)
TSU International Students
Cultural Perspectives on Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty in Higher Education
Plagiarism, citing sources and group work are not viewed uniformly across all cultures. Depending upon where you are in the world, different ideologies persist, transforming classroom environments and student-professor relationships. In some cultures, sharing notes and answers, even on tests, is acceptable to both professors and students alike in order to improve the class as a whole. In other cultures, citing a well-known source in a paper can be insulting to a professor, indicating that he or she is not educated enough to know the source. Concepts of intellectual property in the United States can therefore be a huge cultural stumbling block to international students. A diverse panel of Truman international students will discuss their own cultures’ perspectives on plagiarism and academic dishonesty, how they differ from views in the United States, as well as how they have adjusted to expectations in this country.

Thursday, March 31, 7pm, BH 176 (Baldwin Little Theater)
Lester Kurtz, Department of Sociology & Anthropology, George Mason University
Gods, Guns, and Gandhi: Rethinking Terrorism
How might we prevent and respond to horrific acts of terrorism? Our first response has been to pick up a gun or send in the troops, but that has not proven successful. It has mired the world in war and turned battlegrounds into terrorist recruiting camps rather than destroying the terrorist organizations. Alternative responses may prove difficult to envision but more fruitful in the long run – we will analyze the roots of terrorism in religion and economics, and map out some nonviolent responses.

April 21, 7pm, BH 176 (Baldwin Little Theater)
Ted Howard, Executive Director, Democracy Collaborative, University of Maryland
Cooperating for Economic Development
The current economic downturn has been caused in part by extremely competitive “me-first” attitudes in finance and business. The Evergreen Cooperative Initiative in Cleveland, Ohio, which Ted Howard helped launch in 2008, seeks to help build a different mode of economic development that is more sustainable, not only economically but also socially and environmentally, on the basis of cooperation and mutual support. The project helps create mutually beneficial economic linkages between universities, hospitals and hotels on the one hand and the local community on the other, by incubating worker cooperatives which provide goods or services for these large institutions (for example, laundry services, greenhouse vegetables, and solar energy installations). Howard will discuss the experiences of this initiative so far, which may serve as a model and inspiration for efforts elsewhere (including Truman State University as it seeks to become more sustainable in cooperation with the larger Kirksville and Adair County community).

Date: Thursday, November 18, 7:00pm – 9:00pm Global Issues Colloquium
Category : Academics Location : Magruder Hall 2001

Most scholars agree that globalization gives rise to income volatility; as for other consequences there is less of a consensus. Truman State University political science professor Dr. Jaekwon Suh will explore how domestic political institutions mediate the relationship between globalization and state autonomy. Dr. Suh will discuss the “cushion effect” theory of democracy against external shocks showing how globalization’s influence on state autonomy disappears once the degree of conflict management institutional development is taken into account.

Date : Thursday, 28 October 2010       From : 7:00pm   To : 9:00pm
Category : Academics       Location : Magruder Hall 2001

Event Description :
There are two sides to the global food crisis debate. On the one hand, there is have cost-effective but controversial methods of food production, pioneered by corporate farming and its agricultural economists and agricultural business conglomerates. These methods utilize high capital, high technology, and low labor techniques to squeeze profit and degrade food quality. On the flip side, there are the activists, the social scientists and non-governmental organizations, who are trying to feed the world by adopting methods that include human power and labor with an emphasis on food quality, not quantity. Dr. Bill Heffernan (University of Missouri) will be discussing both sides of the argument.

For more information, see Food Circles Networking Project: Connecting Farmers, Consumers, and Communities.

Join the food crisis listserv.