Upcoming Events

Description

Please join us for a celebration of the Harney Program’s Director from 1999 to 2021, Professor Jeffrey Reitz! The morning will include an all-star panel featuring three of Jeff’s former doctoral students, Professors Rupa Banerjee, Emily Laxer, and Wendell Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey; a keynote address by Professor Richard Alba, and a short address by Professor Reitz. A lunch reception will follow.

Schedule

08:00 AM – 08:45 AM: Breakfast

08:45 AM – 09:00 AM: Welcoming remarks from Prof. Phil Triadafilopoulos

09:00 AM – 10:30 AM: Panel featuring Professors Rupa Banerjee, Emily Laxer, and Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey

10:30 AM – 11:00 AM  Coffee Break

11:00 AM – 12:30 PM  Keynote address by Professor Richard Alba

12:30 AM – 12:45 PM  Remarks by Jeffrey Reitz

12:45 AM – 02:00 PM  Lunch Reception

About the Speakers

The seeds of Richard Alba’s interest in ethnicity were sown during his childhood in the Bronx of the 1940s and 1950s and nurtured intellectually at Columbia University, where he received his undergraduate and graduate education, completing his Ph.D. in 1974. He was distinguished professor of sociology at the University at Albany, CUNY, until coming to the Graduate Center in September 2008. He is also on the staff of the GC’s Center for Urban Research and was its acting director during the 2011–12 school year. Increasingly, his teaching and research have taken on a comparative focus, encompassing the immigration societies of North America and Western Europe. He has carried out research in France and in Germany, with the support of Fulbright grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the German Marshall Fund, and the Russell Sage Foundation. In 2003–04, he was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. His research has also received grant support from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. His latest books are The Next Generation: Immigrant Youth in a Comparative Perspective (2011), coedited with Mary Waters, and Blurring the Color Line: The New Chance for a More Integrated America (2009). His books include Ethnic Identity: The Transformation of White America (1990); Italian Americans: Into the Twilight of Ethnicity (1985); and, most recently, Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration (2003), cowritten with Victor Nee. He has been elected president of the Eastern Sociological Society and vice president of the American Sociological Association

Jeffrey G. Reitz (Ph.D., FRSC) is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, and R.F. Harney Professor Emeritus of Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies.  He has published extensively on immigration and inter-group relations in Canada from comparative perspectives and has frequently contributed to discussions of policies on immigration, multiculturalism, and minority group employment in Canada.  He is the co-author of Multiculturalism and Social Cohesion: Potentials and Challenges of Diversity (2009); recent articles have appeared in the International Migration Review, Ethnic and Racial Studies, the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and Social Science Research.  Professor Reitz served as Chair in the University of Toronto’s Department of Sociology from 1980-1985, and he contributed for many years at the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management.  From 1999-2020, he was R.F. Harney Professor and Director of the Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies Program, and in 2002 brought the program to the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.  In 2000-2001 he was the Mackenzie King Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies at Harvard University, and he has been visiting professor or visiting scholar at other universities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, and Mexico.  During 2012-2014 he was Marie Curie International Fellow at l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, and 2017-2018 he was Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the City University of New York Graduate Centre.  He is a Research Fellow with the Institute for Research on Public Policy in Montreal.

Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey (Nii Laryea Osabu I, Atrékor Wé Oblahii kè Oblayéé Mantsè) is William Dawson Chair, Assistant Professor, and specialist in post-Reconstruction U.S. and African Diaspora history at McGill University. He is the author of Cross-Border Cosmopolitans: The Making of a Pan-African North America (UNC Press). He is working on two new book projects. The first examines nineteenth-century African-led abolitionism and warfare along the Gulf of Guinea Coast. The second interrogates the roots of counterinsurgency in the United States and the Americas broadly from the 1870s to the 1970s. Adjetey is the back-to-back recipient of McGill’s two teaching commendations: 2023 Principal’s Prize for Excellence in Teaching, and 2022 H. Noel Fieldhouse Award for Distinguished Teaching. He earned his Honours B.A. from the University of Toronto (St. Michael’s College), and an M.A. in Ethnic, Immigration, and Pluralism Studies and Political Science, also at U of T. He earned his Ph.D., M.A., and M.Phil. from Yale University. Before pursuing an academic career, Adjetey worked in youth gang prevention and intervention in north Toronto.

Rupa Banerjee is Associate Professor of Human Resource Management at Toronto Metropolitan University, and Canadian Research Chair of Economic Inclusion, Employment and Entrepreneurship of Canada’s Immigrants. Her research examines employment outcomes of newcomers, a topic on which she has published extensively. Her research interests also include diversity and ethno-racial discrimination in the workplace. Dr. Banerjee’s current program of research focuses on the role of post-secondary institutions and employers on the migration and labour market integration of temporary residents and immigrants in Canada. Dr. Banerjee’s research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and has appeared in leading journals in the fields of immigration and labour.  Her work has contributed to the awareness of implicit bias in hiring practices and the development of a digital app that facilitates newcomer access to information and resources for settlement in Canada.

Emily Laxer is Associate Professor of Sociology at York University’s Glendon Campus, where she holds a York Research Chair in Populism, Rights, and Legality. Dr. Laxer’s research has addressed both the political underpinnings and community-based effects of state policies concerning minorities’ citizenship, rights, and belonging. This research has had particular implications for understanding debates over restricting Islamic religious signs in comparative societies. International in scope, it has been published in English and French in peer-reviewed journals in the fields of immigration, nationalism, and politics. This research also forms the basis of a sole-authored monograph, Unveiling the Nation: The Politics of Secularism in France and Québec, which received the John Porter Tradition of Excellence Book Award from the Canadian Sociological Association in 2020. Dr. Laxer’s current research program explores the relationship between contemporary populist political movements and articulations of rights and legality in Canada.

Description

Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpınar (1864-1944) was a prominent Turkish author in the late Ottoman and early republican Turkey, and now, for the first time, one of his most popular novels, Gulyabani (Ghoulyabânî), originally published in 1913, is available in English translation. A group of University of Toronto alumni have turned what was once a student club of literature enthusiasts in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations into a publishing house, and have just released their second book.

Come join the founders of Translation Attached publishing house, UofT alumni Nefise Kahraman, Karolina Dejnicka, and Yasemin Mangal, as they discuss the life and times of Gürpınar, the enduring appeal of Ghoulyabânî, and the journey of publishing the novel in English translation.

Description

Information is not yet available.

Description

How do we look back at the 50 year since the transition to democracy in July 1974? What kind of democratic practice has Greece established ever since? What is the political heritage of those intense moments of near collapse under the ongoing conflict in Cyprus and the Turkish invasion? And what did it mean for the country’s image and self-perception that the Left won the political and cultural hegemony, as is often claimed, for several decades as a result of the lingering trauma triggered by the dictatorship and its aftermath? What is certain is that while the Greek transition managed to at once democratize the country, put an end to the long post-civil war period, and pave the way to Greece’s accession to the European Union, it also set the rules of the political game in the country for the years to come.

This talk will start from this premise to look at how the memory of this real or supposed smooth change was challenged during the years of the Great Recession. While critics blamed the so-called ‘culture of Metapolitefsi’ and its underground currents for all present-day ills in that moment of intense crisis, others saw in 1974 unfinished business. Promises of a "New Metapolitefsi" on both right and left further proliferated, an invocation that made an appeal for a radical reboot that never really took place.

Kostis Kornetis is Assistant Professor of Contemporary History at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM). He has taught at Brown, New York University, and the University of Sheffield, and was CONEX-Marie Curie Experienced Fellow at Carlos III, Madrid, and Santander Fellow in Iberian Studies at St Antony’s College, Oxford. He is the author of Children of the Dictatorship. Student Resistance, Cultural Politics and the ‘long 1960s’ in Greece (Berghahn Books, 2013) and co-editor of Consumption and Gender in Southern Europe since the “Long 1960s” (Bloomsbury, 2016), Rethinking Democratisation in Spain, Greece and Portugal (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), and The 1969 Greek Case at the Council of Europe. A Game Changer for Human Rights (Bloomsbury, 2024). His next monograph A Collective Biography of Southern European Democratization. The Age of Transitions is forthcoming with OUP.

Sponsored by the Hellenic Heritage Foundation (HHF), the Hellenic Canadian Academic Association of Ontario (HCAAO), the Hellenic Studies Initiative at the Munk School, the HHF Chair in Modern Greek Studies at York University, and the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies.

Description

Session begins at noon, Eastern Standard Time

Part of the series “Scholars in dialogue: six conversations on the modern Middle East", co-presented by the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy,  IE University Madrid, and Sciences Po – Paris School of International Affairs.

About the Session

What are the conflicts and peace-making efforts over time?  What are the consequences of these events for Palestinian and Israeli society today?  What are the controversies in understanding and interpreting these histories?

Speakers

Bernard Avishai is Visiting Professor at Dartmouth during the summer and fall quarters. He is former Adjunct Professor of Business at the Hebrew University and taught also at MIT and Duke. He splits his time between Jerusalem and New Hampshire. He is a past strategy editor of Harvard Business Review and former International Director of Intellectual Capital at KPMG. For the past ten years, he has contributed regularly to The New Yorker about Israeli affairs and global business; and has written for Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, and many other publications. A Guggenheim fellow, he is the author of four books, including The Tragedy of Zionism: Revolution and Democracy in the Land of Israel, The Hebrew Republic: How Secular Democracy and Global Enterprise Will Bring Israel Peace at Last, and Promiscuous: Portnoy’s Complaint and Our Doomed Pursuit of Happiness. His doctorate, in political economy, is from the University of Toronto.  

Ezzedine Fishere is a Senior Lecturer at Dartmouth College, a novelist, and a diplomat. He taught at the American University in Cairo (2008-2016), worked for International Crisis Group (2007 – 2008); advised the Egyptian foreign minister (2005 – 2007); was a senior political adviser to multiple UN missions in the Middle East (2001- 2004). He also worked at the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv (1999 -2001), served as rapporteur for the "Independent Commission on Reforming the Arab League" and was a speech writer for the League’s Secretary-General (2011-2013). Fishere published nine novels, depicting social and political conditions in Egypt as well as the questions of identity construction and transformation. Many of these were translated to English, French and Italian.  Fishere was part of Egypt’s attempted democratic transition. He advised pro-democracy groupings and presidential candidates. He briefly served as an independent on a government committee monitoring democratic transition in the Fall of 2013, then denounced the return of authoritarianism at the hand of its military.  Fishere studied political science at Cairo University (B.Sc.1987), the University of Ottawa, (M.A, 1995) and l’Université de Montréal (Ph.D., 1998). He also studied public administration at the École nationale d’administration (ENA, Paris 1992).  

Moderator

Emily Bazelon is a staff writer at th New York Times Magazine, the Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School, and a co-host of Slate’s Political Gabfest, a popular weekly podcast. She is the author of two national bestsellers published by Penguin Random House: Charged, about the power of prosecutors, and Sticks and Stones, about how to prevent bullying. Charged won a Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Emily was also a finalist for a National Magazine Award in 2023. Before joining th Times Magazine in 2014, Emily was a writer and editor for nine years a Slate. She is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School.  

Description

Join APSIA for their VOHs this spring! The goal of the VOHs is to celebrate APSIA member school programs in a more intimate setting than a fair and expand prospective students’ knowledge of different degree options. These open houses allow for in-depth conversations about programs. Each session will last for 75-90 minutes The open houses will take place on Zoom. Sessions will not be recorded.

Professor Todd Foglesong is going to be presenting on this topic and Rejeanne Puran will attend the meeting to answer questions on Admissions.

Description

As the United States hurtles towards the 2024 presidential election, the integrity of its constitutional system faces serious questions. The last several years alone have brought both jurisprudential revolution and legislative gridlock; democratic backsliding and enervated governance; deepening partisan division and disappearing common ground; an attempted insurrection and protracted efforts to hold those responsible to account. In turn, these challenges have fuelled a range of proposed solutions, from disempowering the Supreme Court and bolstering electoral democracy to retrenching national power and reviving an assertive federalism. Against this fraught backdrop, the 2024 Bissell-Heyd Symposium will probe the question raised by these developments: Is American constitutionalism in crisis? Engaging this topic requires clarifying what crisis entails, as well as identifying both past cases and present causes of constitutional infirmity. Animated by the conviction that such questions are best answered by situating contemporary American constitutional politics within both historical and comparative context, the symposium will feature three keynote speakers: Maggie Blackhawk (New York University Law School), Jonathan Gienapp (Stanford University), and Rogers Smith (University of Pennsylvania). These addresses will be complemented by a series of thematic panels probing the meaning, history, and dimensions of constitutional crisis.

Schedule

Thursday, May 9

03:00pm – 04:30pm | Panel 1: What is Constitutional Crisis?

05:00pm – 06:30pm | Keynote 1

Friday, May 10

08:30am – 09:00am | Breakfast

09:00am – 10:30am | Panel 2: Constitutional Crisis in Historical Perspective

10:30am – 12:00pm | Panel 3: Dimensions of Crisis

12:00pm – 01:00pm | Lunch & Break

01:00pm – 02:30pm | Keynote 2

02:30pm – 04:00pm | Panel 4: Averting Crisis

04:00pm – 04:30pm | Break

04:30pm – 06:00pm | Keynote 3

 Organized by the Centre for the Study of the United States, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto. Co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science, the David R. Cameron Distinguished Professorship in Law and Politics and the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy.

Description

Information is not yet available.

Description

Session begins at noon, Eastern Standard Time

Part of the series “Scholars in dialogue: six conversations on the modern Middle East", co-presented by the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy,  IE University Madrid, and Sciences Po – Paris School of International Affairs.
 

About the Session

What are the conflicts and peace-making efforts over time?  What are the consequences of these events for Palestinian and Israeli society today?  What are the controversies in understanding and interpreting these histories?

Speakers

Bernard Avishai is Visiting Professor at Dartmouth during the summer and fall quarters. He is former Adjunct Professor of Business at the Hebrew University and taught also at MIT and Duke. He splits his time between Jerusalem and New Hampshire. He is a past strategy editor of Harvard Business Review and former International Director of Intellectual Capital at KPMG. For the past ten years, he has contributed regularly to The New Yorker about Israeli affairs and global business; and has written for Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, and many other publications. A Guggenheim fellow, he is the author of four books, including The Tragedy of Zionism: Revolution and Democracy in the Land of Israel, The Hebrew Republic: How Secular Democracy and Global Enterprise Will Bring Israel Peace at Last, and Promiscuous: Portnoy’s Complaint and Our Doomed Pursuit of Happiness. His doctorate, in political economy, is from the University of Toronto.  

Ezzedine Fishere is a Senior Lecturer at Dartmouth College, a novelist, and a diplomat. He taught at the American University in Cairo (2008-2016), worked for International Crisis Group (2007 – 2008); advised the Egyptian foreign minister (2005 – 2007); was a senior political adviser to multiple UN missions in the Middle East (2001- 2004). He also worked at the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv (1999 -2001), served as rapporteur for the "Independent Commission on Reforming the Arab League" and was a speech writer for the League’s Secretary-General (2011-2013). Fishere published nine novels, depicting social and political conditions in Egypt as well as the questions of identity construction and transformation. Many of these were translated to English, French and Italian.  Fishere was part of Egypt’s attempted democratic transition. He advised pro-democracy groupings and presidential candidates. He briefly served as an independent on a government committee monitoring democratic transition in the Fall of 2013, then denounced the return of authoritarianism at the hand of its military.  Fishere studied political science at Cairo University (B.Sc.1987), the University of Ottawa, (M.A, 1995) and l’Université de Montréal (Ph.D., 1998). He also studied public administration at the École nationale d’administration (ENA, Paris 1992).  

Moderator

Emily Bazelon is a staff writer at th New York Times Magazine, the Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School, and a co-host of Slate’s Political Gabfest, a popular weekly podcast. She is the author of two national bestsellers published by Penguin Random House: Charged, about the power of prosecutors, and Sticks and Stones, about how to prevent bullying. Charged won a Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Emily was also a finalist for a National Magazine Award in 2023. Before joining th Times Magazine in 2014, Emily was a writer and editor for nine years a Slate. She is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School.  

Description

Location: William Doo Auditorium | 45 Willcocks St.

Join us for Imperial Heat, the second in the Ecologies of Empire Salon series hosted by the TWIG Research Kitchen. Imperial Heat asks us to consider what we can know about colonialism, empire, and the governance of raced and gendered difference if we begin by exploring infrastructures of thermal comfort. Featuring Hi’ilei Hobart, author of Cooling the Tropics: Ice, Indigeneity, and Hawaiian Refreshment (Duke 2022) and Bharat Venkat, Director of the UCLA Heat Lab, this discussion will help us understand heating and cooling as political and deeply historicized processes with much to tell us about bodies, technoscience, and power. Our conversation will be moderated by Waqas Butt, author of Life Beyond Waste: Work and Infrastructure in Urban Pakistan (Stanford 2023).

CART captioning will be provided. The William Doo auditorium is wheelchair accessible.

Co-Sponsors: CSUS, TWIG Research Kitchen, Ziibing Lab

Description

Session begins at noon, Eastern Standard Time

Part of the series “Scholars in dialogue: six conversations on the modern Middle East", co-presented by the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy,  IE University Madrid, and Sciences Po – Paris School of International Affairs.

About the Session

How do American and Middle East states’ interests and behaviour affect the Israeli / Palestinian conflict historically and today?

Panelists

Elham Fakhro is a Research Associate at the Chatham House MENA program, and a Research Fellow at Exeter University’s Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies. She previously acted as Senior Gulf Analyst with the International Crisis Group and as a Lecturer at NYU Abu Dhabi. She holds a doctorate from St Antony’s College, Oxford University and is the author of a forthcoming book on the Abraham Accords, and Arab normalisation with Israel (Columbia University Press, 2024).

Hussein Ibish is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. He is a weekly columnist for The National (UAE), former columnist for Bloomberg, regular contributor to The New York Times and The Daily Beast, and frequent contributor to many other U.S. and Middle Eastern publications. He has made thousands of radio and television appearances and was the Washington, DC correspondent for the Daily Star (Beirut).   

Ibish is the editor and principal author of three major studies of Hate Crimes and Discrimination against Arab Americans, and numerous chapters on Arab-American Race relations, civil liberties and media representation in the U.S.  He wrote, along with Ali Abunimah, “The Palestinian Right of Return” (ADC, 2001) and “The Media and the New Intifada” in The New Intifada (Verso, 2001). He is the editor, along with Saliba Sarsar, of Principles and Pragmatism (ATFP, 2006). His most recent book is What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda? Why Ending the Occupation and Peace with Israel is Still the Palestinian National Goal (ATFP, 2009).  

Ibish previously served as a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine, and executive director of the Hala Salaam Maksoud Foundation for Arab-American Leadership from 2004-09. He has a PhD in comparative literature from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Daniel C. Kurtzer is the S. Daniel Abraham Professor of Middle East Policy Studies at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. During a 29-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service, Ambassador Kurtzer served as the United States Ambassador to Israel and as the United States Ambassador to Egypt. He was also a speechwriter and member of the Secretary of State George P. Shultz’s Policy Planning Staff; he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs and as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research.

Kurtzer was a member of the Middle East peace team for Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Secretary of State Warren Christopher. He played an instrumental role in formulating and executing American policy, in particular helping to bring about the Madrid peace conference. Following that breakthrough, Kurtzer was named as the coordinator of the multilateral peace talks; served as the U.S. representative to the bilateral talks between Israel and the Palestinians and between Israel and Syria; and chaired the U.S. delegation to the multilateral refugee negotiations.

Kurtzer is the co-author of Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East; co-author of The Peace Puzzle: America’s Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace, 1989-2011; and editor of Pathways to Peace: America and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. After retiring from the State Department, he served as a member of Secretary of State John Kerry’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board, and as an advisor to the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. In 2007, he was named the first Commissioner of the professional Israel Baseball League.   

Ambassador Kurtzer received his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University.

Nimrod Novik was the Senior Policy Advisor to the late Prime Minister Shimon Peres, a Special Ambassador of the State of Israel and an Advisor to the Israeli National Security Council.  He is a member of three organizations dedicated to securing Israel’s future as a strong Jewish democracy, via separation from the Palestinians in an eventual two-state solution: Commanders for Israel’s Security (CIS), an organization of over 550 former IDF generals, as well as Mossad, Shin Bet and Foreign Service equivalents; The Israel Policy Forum (IPF), an American Jewish organization that provides policymakers and community leaders with policy analysis and educational resources, and The Economic Cooperation Foundation (ECF), the NGO that launched the Oslo Process and has been involved in all phases of Israeli-Palestinian and regional negotiations since. He has long been involved in back-channel diplomacy employing a network of security and diplomatic contacts in the region and beyond.

Moderator

Cristina Gallach, international official and journalist, served as United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information (2015-17), and as a member of the Spanish government for six years (2018-2024) in multiple roles, including State Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Iberoamérica and the Caribbean. As UN Under-Secretary-General, she was directed global, regional, and local communications of the UN system on major current affairs and strategic agendas, with special emphasis on the 2030 sustainable development agenda, climate action, and peace and security issues.  As a senior EU Official and communication director for the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy (1999-2009), she participated in all EU plans, activities and joint international initiatives related to the Middle East, including the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Prior to that, she worked for NATO as communications advisor to the Secretary General.  Her long career in journalism includes international reporting in Central and Eastern Europe, Brussels, and as a correspondent in the former Soviet Union, based in Moscow. She graduated from the Journalism and Communications faculty in the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, holds an MIA from Columbia University (New York), and an Honorary Doctorate degree from Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona.

Description

Yaroslav Trofimov, the author of “Our Enemies Will Vanish,” discusses the outlook for Ukraine as Russia renews its offensives and the international support for Kyiv starts to fray. 

Yaroslav Trofimov is the author of three books of narrative non-fiction and one novel. He has worked around the world as a foreign correspondent of The Wall Street Journal since 1999, and has served as the newspaper’s chief foreign-affairs correspondent since 2018. Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting in 2023, for his work on Ukraine, and in 2022, for his work on Afghanistan. His honors include an Overseas Press Club award for coverage of India as well as the Washington Institute gold medal for the best book on the Middle East.

Description

Session begins at noon, Eastern Standard Time

Part of the series “Scholars in dialogue: six conversations on the modern Middle East", co-presented by the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy,  IE University Madrid, and Sciences Po – Paris School of International Affairs.

About the Session

What diplomatic initiatives could reduce the cost of the conflict?  What can we do now to resolve the immediate crisis that will enable some progress down the road?

Speakers

Daniel Byman is a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, director of the Security Studies Program there, and a Senior Fellow with the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Byman is also Foreign Policy Editor for Lawfare and a part-time Senior Advisor to the Department of State as part of the International Security Advisory Board. In addition to serving as Vice Dean for the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, he was a senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, a Professional Staff Member with both the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States (“The 9-11 Commission”) and the Joint 9/11 Inquiry Staff of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, the Research Director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy at the RAND Corporation, and as an analyst of the Middle East for the U.S. intelligence community.  Dr. Byman has written widely on topics related to terrorism, insurgency, intelligence, social media, artificial intelligence, and the Middle East. He is the author of nine books, and his most recent is Spreading Hate: The White Power Movement Goes Global (Oxford, 2022). He is author or co-author of almost 200 academic and policy articles, monographs, and book chapters as well as numerous opinion pieces in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and other leading journals.   

Thomas Fletcher is Principal of Hertford College, Oxford University. He was previously Foreign Policy Adviser to three UK Prime Ministers (2007-11) and the United Kingdom’s Ambassador to Lebanon (2011-15). More recently, he was a Visiting Professor at New York University (2015-20), advised the Global Business Coalition for Education, and chaired the International Advisory Council of the Creative Industries Federation. In 2018, he founded The Foundation for Opportunity which supports good people doing good things in public life. Fletcher has published four books. The Naked Diplomat: Power and Politics in the Digital Age’ (Harper Collins, June 2016), Ten Survival Skills for a World in Flux (Harper Collins, February 2022), The Ambassador (Canelo, August 2022) and The Assassin (Canelo, 2024). He presented the BBC series ‘The Battle for Liberal Democracy’ (2023), led a review of British diplomacy for the UK Foreign Office in 2016, and on the future of the United Nations for the UN Secretary General in

Julie Trottier is director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France, and adjunct lecturer at Sciences Po Paris, in the Master’s program on Environmental Policy. She served as a consultant to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization water governance program from 2020 to 2022. She co-authored a proposal for an Israeli-Palestinian water accord, acting for Friends of the Earth Middle East within their contract with the Geneva Initiative.  Over the past 29 years, her research has focused on the social and political aspects of scientific discourse and technological choices concerning water, including, in particular, water in the Palestinian territories.   Following a PhD in political science at Louvain, Belgium, and a post-doc at McGill University, Canada, she became a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford, UK, and lectured at Newcastle University, UK. She has undertaken research in Jerusalem in 1998-1999, and 2012-2018.  

Moderator

Steve Paikin is the host of TVO’s flagship current affairs program The Agenda with Steve Paikin He co-hosts the weekly provincial affairs #onpoli podcast and contributes weekly columns to tvo.org. He is an officer of the Order of Canada and a member of the Order of Ontario   

Description

Session begins at noon, Eastern Standard Time

Part of the series “Scholars in dialogue: six conversations on the modern Middle East", co-presented by the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy,  IE University Madrid, and Sciences Po – Paris School of International Affairs.

About the Session

Are any proposals for a permanent peace more realistic today than they have been for the last 50 years?  What leverage do outsiders have and what do the two parties have to do to achieve peace and stability?

Panelists

Itamar Rabinovich is Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern History at Tel Aviv University. He is Israel’s former ambassador to the United States and former Chief Negotiator with Syria in the mid- 1990s, and former President of Tel Aviv University (1999-2007). He is President of the Dan David Foundation (sponsor of the world’s largest history prize), President Emeritus and Counselor of the Israel Institute (Washington and Tel Aviv), and a Distinguished Fellow of the Brooking Institution’s Foreign Policy Program. He is the Vice Chairman of the Institute for National Security Studies, an external institute of Tel Aviv University and Israel’s leading think tank. He is also a senior research fellow at the Dayan Center for Middle Eastern studies, and is co-editor of the Center’s review journal, Bustan.

Professor Rabinovich is the author of more than ten volumes on the Modern History and Politics of the Middle East, as well as numerous essays and papers. Recent books include Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader, Statesman (published by Yale University Press in 2017, and available also in German); Syrian Requiem: The Civil War and Its Aftermath (published by Princeton University Press in 2021), and Middle Eastern Maze: Israel, the Arabs, and the Region, 1948 – 2022 (published by the Brookings Institution Press in 2023).

Professor Rabinovich has held visiting appointments and fellowships in academic institutions around the globe. He is a member of the American Philosophical Society, a foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded the Honorary Grand Golden Cross of the Austrian Republic and made a Commandeur l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the Government of the French Republic. In 2009 he was awarded the Korn-Gerstenman Prize for contribution to peace in the Middle East.  

Shibley Telhami is the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development, the Director of the University of Maryland’s Critical Issues Poll, and a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Before coming to the University of Maryland, he taught at several universities, including the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his doctorate in political science. He has authored and edited numerous books, including one forthcoming book: Peace Derailed: Obama, Trump, Biden, and the Decline of Diplomacy on Israel/Palestine, 2011-2022 (co-authored). His most recent book is a co-edited with contributions volume, The One State Reality: What is Israel/Palestine? which was published in March 2023 with Cornell University Press. He has advised every U.S. administration from George H.W. Bush to Barack Obama. Telhami was selected by the Carnegie Corporation of New York along with the New York Times as one of the "Great Immigrants" for 2013 and the Washingtonian Magazine listed him as one of the “Most Influential People on Foreign Affairs” in both 2022 and 2023 He is also the recipient of many awards including the University of Maryland’s Distinguished Service Award and the University of Maryland’s Honors College Outstanding Faculty Award.

Moderator

Steve Paikin is the host of TVO’s flagship current affairs program The Agenda with Steve Paikin He co-hosts the weekly provincial affairs #onpoli podcast and contributes weekly columns to tvo.org. He is an officer of the Order of Canada and a member of the Order of Ontario   

Description

Throughout history, technological advancements have played a pivotal role in societal development, yet their benefits have often been unevenly distributed. In his latest book, Power and Progress, co-authored with Simon Johnson, Daron Acemoglu, a prominent economist and author of the bestseller Why Nations Fail, embarks on a bold reinterpretation of economics and history, examining how technology shapes our world.

In this webinar, Professor Acemoglu will present his compelling analysis of a thousand years of technological progress and its societal impacts. From the agricultural advancements of the Middle Ages to the digital revolution of the present day, he will explore how these innovations have often served the interests of a select few while sidelining broader prosperity. Key themes of the webinar include:

How has the historical pattern of technology predominantly benefited the elite at the expense of the masses?
What impact do digital technologies and artificial intelligence have on modern economies and democracies?
What strategies can be employed to redirect technological innovation in order to empower and democratize society?

This webinar is an essential resource for policy makers, economists, historians, and anyone interested in the intersection of technology and society. It offers a unique perspective on redirecting the course of technological advancement towards a more equitable future. Professor Acemoglu’s insights, grounded in extensive research and analysis, provide a roadmap for harnessing technological progress to benefit the majority.

Join us to gain a deeper understanding of the historical and contemporary role of technology in shaping our world and how we can steer its course towards a more inclusive and prosperous future.

Sponsors

International Telecommunications Society

Academic Host – Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Corporate Host – TELUS Communications

Description

The combined Master of Global Affairs/Master of Business Administration (MGA/MBA) program provides students with an opportunity to integrate a truly international approach and perspective into their study of business and bring a business perspective to the study of global affairs. In three years, students earn two professional degrees from the University of Toronto — one from the Munk School and one from the Rotman School of Management.

Come Join us for a Joint Admissions Information Session with Admissions Officers from the UofT’s Rotman School of Management and Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy.

You will have the opportunity to learn more about this amazing combined degree program, the curriculum, degree requirements, how to apply, unparalleled employment statistics and much more.

Description

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