Travers Lecture Series on U.S. Foreign Policy

During the 2009-2010 academic year, the Institute of International Studies and the Institute of Governmental Studies will co-sponsored a series of lectures and seminars on the foreign policy challenges facing the Obama administration. This series was made possible by a contribution from the Charles and Louise Travers Endowment. For more information, please contact iis@berkeley.edu or visit http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/.

Schedule of Speakers, 2009-10

2010

Thursday, April 8th

"Nuclear Weapon Policy and International Security"
Speaker: Siegfried Hecker, Professor (research) in the Department of Management Science and Engineering, a senior fellow at FSI, and co-director of CISAC at Stanford University; emeritus director of Los Alamos National Laboratory

Tuesday, March 16th

"The Status of Israeli and Palestinian Negotiations"
Speaker: Robert Malley, Middle East and North Africa Program Director, International Crisis Group

Thursday, February 25th

"Laws of Conflict in a Post Modern World and the Lessons of the Classical Tradition"
Speaker: Victor Davis Hanson, Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a professor of Classics Emeritus at CSU Fresno; and nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services.

Co-sponsors: The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), and the California Association of Scholars

2009

Wednesday, November 18th

"The U.S. at the Cassandra Crossing: The False Prophecy of America's Decline"
Speaker: Josef Joffe, publisher-editor of the German weekly Die Zeit; Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; Visiting Professor, Political Science; Fellow, Hoover Institution

Monday, November 16th

"The Future of Chimerica" (Tentative Topic)
Speaker: Niall Ferguson, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and William Ziegler Professor at Harvard Business School; author of "The Ascent of Money"

Thursday, November 12th

"Democracy Development as a Foreign Policy Goal"
Speaker: Ambassador Jeremy Kinsman, Canada's Ambassador to the EU, 2002- 2007; Regents Lecturer at UC Berkeley
Comments by Pradeep Chhibber, Director of the Institute of International Studies and Edward W. Walker, Executive Director, Berkeley Program in Eurasian and East European Studies

Sponsored by the Institute of International Studies, the Institute of Governmental Studies, the Travers Department of Political Science, the Canadian Studies Program and International House

Tuesday, October 20

"The Non Use of Nuclear Weapons"
Speaker: T.V. Paul, James McGill Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science at McGill University, Montreal

T.V. Paul will analyze the factors accounting for the non-use of nuclear weapons since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He will also discuss the future of this tradition.

Thursday, October 1

"Iran After the Election"
Speaker: Karim Sadjadpour, Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Karim Sadjadpour will discuss the impact of Iran's elections on the balance of power within Iran and on its foreign policy. Sadjadpour will also assess the implications of recent events on US policy options.

Monday, September 21

"Dealing with Iran"
Speaker: Robert Baer, Author of "The Devil We Know"

Drawing on the history of Iran's emergence as a regional hegemon, Baer will analyze Iran's strategy and tactics and discuss U.S. policy options in the region in the wake of new regional realities.