Spring 2009 Colloquiums

Local Responses to International Financial Crises: Past and Present

Wolfgang Hoeschele, Truman State University and Ma’ikwe Schaub Ludwig, Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage

Thursday, Jan. 22, 7 p.m. MG 2001

Hoeschele, a Geographer, will examine how ordinary people respond to international financial crises like the current global crisis. Using a discussion of the use of local currencies in Austria during the Great Depression and in Argentina during the 2000-2003 crisis as his starting point, he will advance theoretical perspectives on the economy that open up more possibilities for local action now or in the future. In addition Ludwig, an author and Sustainability Educator, will share her real life experience of living in a local ecovillage whose goal is to demonstrate and promote ecologically sustainable lifestyles. The lessons of Dancing Rabbit, and similar projects, can be replicated elsewhere and contribute to preventing another Great Depression.


 

Writing Colonial History under Postcolonial Conditions: The Unfinished Study

Julie Flowerday, Truman State University

Thursday, Feb. 12, 7 p.m. MG 2001

In this presentation Flowerday, a Sociologist, asks why David Lorimer, a British soldier and scholar who studied a language classed as a restprache in a small community of Hunza, located in the present-day Northern Areas of Pakistan, never published the results of his 1930s research. The answer she offers is based on unresolved borders separating the nation-states of Pakistan and India, a condition that continues to this day.


 

The Immigration Debate Reconsidered: A Global Perspective

Jason McDonald, Truman State University

Thursday, March 19, 7 p.m. MG 2001

McDonald, a historian, takes a global but historical approach to immigration in the United States and other major receiving regions of the world, identifying similarities and differences in broad trends, thereby setting the US experience in a global context. He will also examine the relationship between migration and globalization, examining the influence of migration upon international relations, the de-territorialization of culture, and transnational communities.


 

Women’s Activism and Feminist Agency in Mozambique and Nicaragua

Jennifer Leigh Disney, Winthrop University

Thursday April 16, 7 p.m. MG 2001

Based on her recent book by the same title, Disney’s presentation will trace the mobilization of women in two revolutionary contexts, comparing the strategies and outcomes of various organizational forms developed in Mozambique and in Nicaragua over the past thirty years. She will also explore how the military struggles against colonialism and imperialism fostered feminist agency leading to the evolution of each movement and how it changed in a post-revolutionary climate.