Travers Lecture Series on U.S. Foreign Policy

Throughout the 2009-2010 academic year, the Institute of International Studies and the Institute of Governmental Studies will co-sponsor a series of lectures and seminars on the foreign policy challenges facing the Obama administration. This series has been 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/.

Fall 2009 Schedule of Speakers

Check back at this page for further details on individual events as the date of each seminar comes nearer.

Wednesday, November 18th
4 p.m., 223 Moses Hall

"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
4 p.m., Toll Room, Alumni House

"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
7:30 p.m., I-House Auditorium

"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

Thursday, November 12th
7:30 p.m., I-House Auditorium

"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
12 p.m., 223 Moses Hall

"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
4 p.m., Lipman Room, 8th Floor, Barrows Hall

"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
12 p.m., 109 Moses Hall, IGS Library

"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.

Forthcoming in the 2009-10 Academic year:

--Steve Coll, President of New America Foundation, and a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine; author of "The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century."

--Ahmed Rashid, author of the No. 1 NY Times bestseller, "Taliban" and "Descent Into Chaos"