Upcoming Events

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

This event is sponsored by the International Telecommunications Society. The academic host is the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto, and the corprate host is TELUS Communications.

Description

In Ukrainian literature, the war gave rise to a whole layer of works written by both veteran writers, combatants, and professional writers. These works are strikingly different from works written during the previous wars, including the literature of Ukrainian resistance. The specific realities of the Ukrainian-Russian war (such as its hybridity, the transfer of hostilities to the information space, the use of enemy propaganda and provocation, crimes against Ukrainian citizens in the occupied territories and the humanitarian consequences of the occupation, the problems of refugees and internally displaced persons, advocacy for Ukraine abroad, etc.) have led to the search for a new artistic language and new artistic means that Ukrainian literature has not yet had in its arsenal. War is an absurd reality in which each of us is looking for his or her own way to survive the trauma and maintain sanity. It is interesting to see what tools fiction has to describe the realities of war, to live through and comprehend the dramatic experiences and traumas that cannot be avoided in wartime. Using the material of the latest Ukrainian works about the war, Halyna Kruk will analyse the forms and formation of war narratives, the transformation of the documentary into fiction, the depth of existential experiences, and the possibilities of fiction as a therapeutic practice of talking through personal and collective traumatic experiences.

Halyna Kruk (1974) is a poet and prose writer, translator, and scholar from Lviv, Ukraine. She is the author of six books of poetry, The BookWar (2023), An Adult Woman (2017), Co(an)existence (2013), The Face beyond the Photograph (2005), Footprints on Sand and Journeys in Search of a Home (both 1997), collection of short stories Anyone but me (2021), and four books for children. Her Marko Travels Around the World and The Littlest One have been translated into 15 languages. She is a winner of numerous literary awards abroad and in Ukraine, among them The Sundara Ramaswamy Prize, The 2023 Women in Arts Award, The 2022 Kovaliv Fund Prize for her proze book Anyone but me, The Best Book Award of BookForum 2021, Smoloskyp Poetry Award, Bohdan Ihor Antonych Prize and “Hranoslov” Award. She has been shortlisted for shortlist for The 2024 Griffin Poetry Prize. Her works have been translated into more than 30 languages. The latest of Kruk’s books of poems A Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails (2023) and Lost in Living (2024) were published in biligual Ukrainian-English version in U.S. (in translation of Amelia Glaser, Yulia Ilchuk, Ali Kinsella and Dzvinia Orlowsky). Kruk holds a PhD in Ukrainian baroque literature (2001) and is a member of the Ukrainian PEN. She lives in Lviv and teaches European and Ukrainian baroque literature at the Ivan Franko National University in Lviv.

Description

Oleksandra Matviichuk is a human rights defender working in Ukraine and the OSCE region. At present she heads the human rights organization Center for Civil Liberties and also coordinates the work of the initiative group Euromaidan SOS. Aimed at protecting human rights and establishing democracy in Ukraine and the OSCE region, the Center for Civil Liberties develops legislative changes, exercises public oversight over law enforcement and judicial agencies, conducts educational activities for young people, and implements international solidarity programs.

The Euromaidan SOS initiative group was created in response to the brutal dispersal of a peaceful student rally in Kyiv on November 30, 2013. During three months of mass protests that were called the Revolution of Dignity, several thousand volunteers provided round-the-clock legal and other aid to persecuted people throughout the country. Since the end of the protests and beginning of Russian aggression in Ukraine, the initiative has been monitoring political persecution in occupied Crimea, documenting war crimes and crimes against humanity during the hybrid war in the Donbas, and conducting the #LetMyPeopleGo and #SaveOlegSentsov international campaigns to release political prisoners detained by Russian authorities.

Oleksandra Matviichuk has experience in creating horizontal structures for massive involvement of people in human rights activities against attacks on rights and freedoms, as well as a multi-year practice of documenting violations during armed conflict. She is the author of a number of reports to various UN bodies, the Council of Europe, the European Union, the OSCE, and the International Criminal Court.

In 2016 Matviichuk received the Democracy Defender Award for "Exclusive Contribution to Promoting Democracy and Human Rights" from missions to the OSCE. In 2017 she became the first woman to participate in the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program of Stanford University.

With the new armed aggression in February 2022, Matviichuk, together with other partners, created the “Tribunal for Putin” initiative to document international crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in all regions of Ukraine which were attacked by the Russian Federation.

In 2022 Oleksandra Matviichuk was awarded with the Right Livelihood Award and recognized as one of the 25 most influential women in the world by The Financial Times. The same year, the Center for Civil Liberties, which Oleksandra Matviichuk heads, received the Nobel Peace Prize.

This event is part of the Canadian Speaking Tour of Oleksandra Matviichuk, initiated by the Canada-Ukraine Foundation 

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

ABOUT THE TALK

Ethnicity is central to politics throughout the Malay world, but the meaning and significance of ethnicity—and of social categories like “Malay”—is contested, dynamic, and multifaceted. This talk is an overview of an ongoing book project, tentatively entitled Ethnic Orders, which adopts a comparative and historical perspective on Malayness as a social category. Drawing insights from the fields such as philosophy, history, and linguistic anthropology, and focusing closely on the politics of social status, Ethnic Orders introduces a "conventional theory of ethnicity" that makes sense of the diverse meanings and experiences of Malayness in Southeast Asia over the past 500 years. By thinking carefully about ethnicity in the Malay world, the talk introduces a fresh perspective on status and social categories that readily applies to contemporary debates about identity around the world.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Thomas Pepinsky is the Walter F. LaFeber Professor of Government and Public Policy at Cornell University, and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. His research focuses issues of political economy, identity, and democracy, past and present, with a special focus on maritime Southeast Asia.

Description

ABOUT THE BOOK

Two decades ago, a group of Indonesian agricultural workers began occupying the agribusiness plantation near their homes. In the years since, members of this remarkable movement have reclaimed collective control of their land and cultivated diverse agricultural forests on it, repairing the damage done over nearly a century of abuse. Countering Dispossession, Reclaiming Land is their story. David E. Gilbert offers an account of the ways these workers-turned-activists mobilized to move beyond industrial agriculture’s exploitation of workers and the environment, illustrating how emancipatory and ecologically attuned ways of living with land are possible. At a time when capitalism has remade landscapes and reordered society, the Casiavera reclaiming movement stands as an inspiring example of what struggles for social and environmental justice can achieve.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

David Gilbert is an environmental anthropologist with a special interest in social movements, ecological change, and post-development theory. He is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He held previous positions as a Ciriacy Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellow at University of California, Berkeley and lecturer at Stanford University. He holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Stanford University.

Description

Information is not yet available.