Last Thursday I had the pleasure of attending the Frank W. Woods Lecture given by Professor Miles Kahler of the School of International Service at American University, and the presentation of the Frank W. Woods Medal to Simmon Li!
I’ve spent time with Simmon at the annual PCJ Hart House Farm retreat and on several occasions at other events. I can say first hand that he is an incredible student of PCJ and I can think of no one more deserving of the award. Now an alumnus of the program, Simmon has been involved with the PCJ community in a number of ways; as the director of our annual conference, as a class rep, and as the social coordinator for the student society. He has also been an active mentor to students new to the program, and gave me a lot of valuable advice in my first year in PCJ. Simmon spoke graciously upon receiving his award, but the quote that struck me was this: “Service was an important part of what I wanted to accomplish”. I think this is key to what we are trying to do in PCJ. As a student body we are widely diverse, but we have at least this one thing in common – we want to make our corner of the world a better place, the best way we know how.
Following the presentation of the medal, Professor Kahler delivered an insightful lecture about the changing nature of statehood and the nation-state over the last hundred years. His key argument was the many of the core principles of a nation state: control of currency, border delimitation, and legal jurisdiction are coming under attack by new principles of nationalism. He mentioned the recent Scottish referendum and the desire for independence by Catalonia, as well as the Islamic State militants and how new conceptions of “nationalism” are being created in the wake of the global financial crisis and instability in many parts of the world.
Ultimately, Professor Kahler seemed to be asking whether or not the traditional, Westphalian conception of the nation state would still be relevant in the coming years. Perhaps we will see alternatives to traditional statehood for failed states, and perhaps new acknowledgements for cultural groups who desire self-determination.
This year’s lecture was a highly relevant to what we’ve been talking about a lot in PCJ460. In considering statehood, particularly for post-colonial young states, borders are often arbitrary lines on a map that have little relevance to the actual geographic locations of cultural groups. Perhaps the post-colonial world would look completely different if “states” had arisen through a more organic process of conflict and negotiation, as they did in Europe and (to an extent) North America. Maybe this is something the world will be forced to revisit with increasing fluidity of the global economy, which is highly dependent on transnational trade and jurisdiction.
I enjoyed the lecture, and being able to connect it to other things I’ve learned in PCJ definitely shows the value in coming out to Munk School talks and events! Not only are these a great way to meet people and network, but the Woods Lecture also gave me a lot of insight into some of the concepts I encounter regularly in academia.
Don’t forget to come out to our next Graduate Speaker Series talk, on November 11th! Check out the events page for more details.