N ew s let t e r o f t he Am er i c a n Uni ver s i t y
S cho o l o f I nt e r na t i o na l S e r vi c e P hD P r o g r am
V o l um e 2 , I s s ue 1
Fall 2014
THE INTERNATIONALIST
D I R E C T O R ’ S U P DA T E
CONTENTS
Profile: Sharon Weiner
2
Featured Faculty
3
Fieldwork Profile
4
Visiting Fellow Profile
5
Alumni & Student
Updates
7
Recent Graduates
8
Fall Calendar
9
Greetings! After a slow-paced
summer, the school year roared
into gear with its customary
disdain for relaxed, measured
transitions. We are barely a
month and a half into the
school year, and our newest
cohort is already deeply engaged in dialogue with Waltz,
Gourevitch, Bull, Lichbach and
Zuckerman. Many advanced
students are abroad on fieldwork, with SIS representatives
currently hard at work in Haiti,
Turkey, Russia, and the Middle
East, among other global destinations. Those who
remain behind have been keeping busy themselves, between
our annual orientation party,
the welcome tea, our biweekly
colloquium series, and the usual drumbeat of research, conferences, and writing.
This school year has brought
important changes in
the administration of the Ph.D.
program. Bryan Miller, the
program coordinator, defended
his dissertation at Johns Hopkins University and moved on
to what he described as his
“dream job” at the National Academies of Science late in
the summer. Sharon Weiner,
director of doctoral studies for
the past two years, received a
prestigious fellowship from the
Council on Foreign Relations,
described in her interview in
these pages. As a consequence,
she is spending the entire academic year away from all of us,
on a well-deserved break that is
certain to improve policymaking in the US government,
but leaves us bereft of her
baked goods, home brews,
good spirits, and remarkable
leadership.
The good news is that we have
found ways to patch the
boat and keep it afloat in Sharon’s absence. Mike Rosenberger continues to be a source
of remarkable wisdom and
institutional memory in his role
as academic advisor to the
program. Kasey Neil, a Ph.D.
candidate in political theory
at Catholic University, has
stepped ably into the role of
program coordinator.
Meanwhile, safe landfall is in
sight. Boaz Atzili has agreed to
take the helm as Director in
January 2015, when I will head
off for a semester at
the Woodrow
Wilson Center.
Boaz is already
well known to
many of you
because of his
influential work
on border fixity, as well as his
central role as a mentor and
teacher within the program.
Many of our students have
benefited from his seeming omniscience as a faculty
member in our foundational IR
course sequence, as well as his
omnipresence at Ph.D.
events. Boaz will guide the
program with his typical good
humor and calm demeanor
from January until the beginning of next school year, when
Sharon returns.
During my brief stint in the
director’s position, I have been
absolutely amazed by the dynamism of our students and alums. Please continue to send in
news of your accomplishments,
personal and professional!
Best wishes for a productive
fall semester!
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
CATCHING UP
WITH
SHARON WEINER, p.2
FACULTY PROFILE:
PATRICK THADDEUS
JACKSON, p. 3
FIELDWORK PROFILE:
EMMA FAWCETT, p. 4
FELLOW PROFILE:
SARAH PERUMALLA, p. 5
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C AT C H I N G U P W I T H
S H A RO N W E I N E R
Sharon K. Weiner writes about the intersection of organizational politics and U.S. national security policy. Her book Our Own Worst Enemy? Institutional Interests and the Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons Expertise (MIT Press 2011) examines the role of organizational and partisan politics in
the success and failure of U.S. cooperative nonproliferation programs with the former Soviet Union. It was the winner of the 2012 Louis Brownlow award from the National Academy of Public
Administration. She is currently finishing a book on U.S. civil-military relations and the policy
implications of the organization of the Defense Department. Her work has appeared in International Security, Political Science Quarterly, The Nonproliferation Review, as well as other journals. She also pursues research and teaching interests in U.S. relations with South Asia, nuclear
strategy and nonproliferation, and U.S. foreign and defense policy. Sharon holds a PhD in Political Science from MIT’s Security Studies Program.
Congratulations on your fellowship. What
are you doing during your time away?
In September, I began a year as a Council on
Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow
in Nuclear Security. CFR has a variety of
International Affairs Fellowships that are intended to place academics in a government
position for one year. The idea is that the government will benefit from their expertise, and
they, in turn, will gain valuable experience and
knowledge to inform their scholarship.
I’ll spend six months as a budget examiner for
the National Security Division of the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) in the Executive Office of the President. Then I’ll go for
the last six months to the Pentagon and work
with the Joint Staff in the J-5 directorate which
deals with Strategic Plans and Policy.
How do you see this experience fitting in
with your research?
As an academic, I’ve been fortunate enough to
be able to do research and write on a variety of
topics, but the most common theme in my
work is the relationship between bureaucratic
politics and process and national security policy outcomes.
For example, my first book looks at how three
different national security bureaucracies implemented a nonproliferation program with
Russia. I argue that US relations with Russia
suffered, and this nonproliferation program
was largely unsuccessful, because each of
these bureaucracies skewed the job they were
given to look more like traditional missions
they valued. The result was a set of suboptimal programs that did little to discourage nuclear, biological or chemical weapons proliferation and which eventually helped cause Russia to lose interest in such efforts.
I am currently finishing another project
that looks at the organization of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff and argues that structural
changes to the relationship between the
chiefs of staff of the Army, Navy, and
Air Force, and the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff have inadvertently reduced the ability of civilians to control
the military, especially with respect to
defense budgets.
As a CFR fellow, I will be looking at
similar structural issues. In this case, I
am examining decision making for the
US nuclear arsenal and trying to understand how bureaucratic routines and processes have changed since the Cold War.
Bureaucracy, inherently, fights change
and innovation. My goal is to understand
the degree to which U.S. nuclear decision
making bureaucracies still maintain assumptions that are a product of the Cold
War and the legacy of US-Soviet Relations. In other words, to what extent is
U.S. nuclear policy and strategic thought
still stuck in the Cold War?
What has been the biggest challenge of
moving from academia to the public
sector?
To be honest, the biggest challenge is
realizing I’m expected to go to the same
office, at the same time, five days a week
and dress up!
As a professor, I certainly work many,
many hours a week but often many of
those hours are at home, in a coffee
house with students, or from 1 to 3 in the
morning, and I wrote at least one of my
articles while wearing pajamas. Working
for the White House, they expect different standards.
The other biggest challenge is learning the
jargon. I speak bureaucracy and my
“pentagonese” is pretty good. But this
budget lingo at OMB was largely new to
me. More than once I’ve gone into my
boss’s office with an email he sent and
explained that I wanted to help, and I understood each word in his email, but really
I had absolutely no idea what he was asking me to do. I’m pleased to add, however,
that after 4 weeks on the job I now understand at least 80% of what is said. Probably.
How has your time in government affected your view of the relationship between academics and the public sector?
One of my co-workers at OMB is actually
a former SIS PhD student. In fact, I was
the chair of his dissertation committee!
This was a student I used to teach. Now he
is teaching me. To know that in some
small way I contributed to his ability to be
better than me, smarter, and more accomplished is incredibly rewarding.
I think this is the goal of everyone who
advises PhD students at SIS: enable them
to become better than you. I just get to see
this in action now!
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F E AT U R E D F AC U LT Y :
P AT R I C K T H A D D E U S J AC K S O N
Patrick Thaddeus Jackson (known to many as “PTJ”) is Professor of International Relations and
Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education at SIS. He previously taught at Columbia University and
New York University. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in 2001. In
2003-4, he served as President of the International Studies Association-Northeast; in 2012-2013, he did
so again. He was formerly Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Relations and Development, and
is currently Series Editor of the University of Michigan Press' book series Configurations: Critical
Studies of World Politics, and Co-Editor of ISQ Online. He was named the 2012 U.S. Professor of the
Year for the District of Columbia by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
What interested you in International
Relations?
These days I am only interested in
“International Relations” as an object of study,
and in particular as a case of academic
knowledge formed under rather pronounced
disciplinary constraints: International
Relations, and in particular, U.S. International
Relations, as a subset of U.S. Political Science.
Although my Ph.D. is in Political Science, I
have spent my whole career arguing with—
mainly inveighing against—the dominant
theoretical and methodological currents in that
discipline, since I have never been convinced
that rationalist individualism plus quantitative
neopositivism was any kind of royal road to
Scientific Truth. Intellectually, I find myself at
home in international studies understood as a
global inter-discipline, a kind of interstitial
intellectual space for thinking through pressing
global challenges. And I go to a lot of
European conferences, where the operative
definition of the field is considerably broader
than it is in the United States.
communities or even individuals against or in
dialogue with that largest of human stories. Or
about the limits of “the human” itself.
More to the point, I did not get into this field
because I was concerned about any particular
international political or economic issue, or
because I wanted to make a contribution to the
improvement of any particular global or local
situation. The selection of international studies
was, for me, almost an accident, but a
fortuitous one.
novels are another story), the novels of Isaac
Asimov, Iain M. Banks, etc.
Did you always want to work in academia?
How did you choose your career path?
Yes. Always. When I was very young I
participated in some psychological research on
“gifted and talented” children at the University
of California at Davis, and as one part of that
project I was once asked to “teach a class” on
something I was interested in—at the time it
was Egyptian hieroglyphics. So I drew on the
chalkboard and talked to a roomful of graduate
Tell us a bit about your research.
students, who were of course actually interested
These days most of my “research” involves
in me as a research subject instead of the
enrollment projections for undergraduate
topic…but I felt, to put it bluntly, right at home.
courses! I have been able to produce a few
I never really felt that much at home again until
short pieces on philosophical or conceptual
I got to college myself, and after one disastrous
topics like relativism and causation since
summer trying to work a real job in politics (I
becoming Associate Dean in Summer 2012, but was a door-to-door canvasser for a campaign,
nothing I would really call “research.” I am
well, I was for the six weeks until they fired
presently revising my 2011 book The Conduct me) I decided that I was not really interested in
of Inquiry in International Relations for a
leaving academia ever again.
second edition, which is due out in Fall 2015. I
am also working on two short book chapters on What makes SIS a good place to study IR?
seminal social theorists—Max Weber and Hans
Morgenthau—for edited volumes. The next big Unlike virtually every other place to do a Ph.D.
But that wasn’t really the question. I got into
in international relations in the United States,
this field because I was and remain fascinated book I plan to write is a reconsideration of
by questions of identity, language, and power, Weber’s theoretical and methodological work SIS is not a sub-unit of a Political Science
in the light of a more Wittgenstenian/
Department. That means that SIS is, by design,
particularly the ways that our operative
pragmatist approach to language (as opposed to not a disciplinary place. It’s more conducive to
discourses and rhetorical commonplaces (or:
the kind of inter-discipline I think international
our local cultural resources) shape, and allow the neo-Kantianism with which some
studies actually is on a global scale: global
us to shape, our senses of self—our subjectivi- interpreters of Weber like to operate, and as
strongly opposed to the neopositivism which
topics examined through, and at the intersection
ties, if you will. We become who we are by
forms the serious misunderstanding of Weber
of, different disciplinary lenses. So doing a
imagining and envisioning ourselves as
with which we are still saddled all too often).
Ph.D. here allows you to have a much broader
particular kinds of actors, and the stories that
After
that,
I
would
bet
that
I
will
write
the
book
education than, say, I got at Columbia. There
we tell ourselves about who we are also tell us
on science fiction and international studies that can be no SIS-wide “line” on what to study or
what we want, what we should do, and who
how to study it; we’re too intellectually diverse
we should and shouldn’t do it to or with. The has been kicking around in my head for some
years now (and informs the “social/science/
a place. In other programs, you sometimes get
international realm always struck me as the
fiction” course I teach from time to time), with such a line, whether explicitly through
biggest arena in which to explore those
legislation (“around here we only do
questions, the last conceptual place left where the working title of Alien Others: Science
Fiction as International Theory. Chapters on
nomothetic social science,” for instance) or
we could think about things like the human
Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars
tacitly through a certain harmony of
race as a whole and what kinds of stories
(even though those films are high fantasy, not expectations that reinforces itself through hiring
might be appropriate to it, or about the
science fiction proper; the “extended universe” practices and socialization. (Cont. on page 6)
maintenance of the boundaries of smaller
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F I E L DW O R K P RO F I L E : E M M A F AW C E T T
Emma Fawcett is in her third year of the SIS PhD Program with a concentration in International Development. Prior to beginning her doctoral
studies, she worked for several years in human resources in the private sector. She holds an MS in nonprofit management and global policy from
The New School and a BA in Political Science and Spanish from Rutgers University. Her current fieldwork is taking her to the Dominican
Republic, Haiti, Cuba, and the Mexican Caribbean.
it creates camaraderie among cohort-mates and
a supportive environment in which to take on
2014 in the field. As such, I elected to rearrange
the challenges of doctoral study.
my assistantship for the 2014-2015 academic
I’ve been interested in IR for as long as I can
year and work as an RA/TA during the summer
remember – I was in an International Studies
Where are you for your fieldwork and what and spring, rather than fall and spring. This
magnet program in my high school district,
meant that I was able to spend the summer
are you doing?
and always knew that I’d go on to pursue it in
working for Dr. Cathy Schneider, making
higher education, as well. I took a gap year
My dissertation looks at the political economy fieldwork preparations, and doing background
after high school and spent several months
of tourism and development in several
research. These assistantship arrangements
teaching English in Guatemala. That
Caribbean tourism destinations. I examine the have to be made quite far in advance. When
experience cemented my fascination with
relationship between the state and the private
preparing for a fieldwork trip, I try to arrange
international development and my regional
sector in creating tourism policy and generating as many interviews as possible from home –
interest in Latin America and the Caribbean – investment, and then explore the development- logistics in developing countries can be a bit
I’ve been hooked ever since! Since that time, I related impacts of that relationship in a
tricky, so I try to hit the ground running, to the
have traveled, studied, and worked throughout particular tourism pole. My cases are the
extent possible. (Cont. on page 6)
the region: studying abroad in Merida,
Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, and the
Mexico; taking language classes in Peru;
Mexican Caribbean.
volunteering in Venezuela; doing fieldwork in
Oaxaca, Mexico; backpacking through
I just spent three weeks in the Dominican
Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Bolivia; and
Republic, conducting interviews with
consulting and doing fieldwork in Haiti and
government officials, entrepreneurs, tourism
the Dominican Republic.
sector employees, researchers, and activists in
both Santo Domingo and Bávaro-Punta Cana.
I worked on a value chain analysis of the
My time in the DR was very productive and
Haitian apparel industry, and the process made full of surprises – I certainly hadn’t expected to
me curious about the role of the private sector trespass on a Punta Cana beach with a local
in development (strategies for attracting FDI, activist to better understand how beach access
measuring outcomes, how to mobilize big
has been restricted for local residents, but being
business and calibrate policies for poverty
chased away by security guards makes for a
reduction, etc.) which is reflected in my
good story!
dissertation research.
I am headed to Port-au-Prince, Haiti this weekend, and will travel to Mexico and Cuba later
What brought you to SIS? What are the
this fall.
highlights of your SIS experience so far?
What interested you in International
Relations?
SIS was my first choice, and it has definitely
been the right fit for me. I was drawn to the
scholar-practitioner approach, which reminded
me quite a bit of The New School. The DC
location is also an enormous asset – there are
endless events and networking opportunities.
I’ve worked at the Inter-American
Development Bank on a consulting assignment
since January – that’s just one example of an
opportunity that was available to me because
of AU’s location and connections, that likely
would not have been available at another
university.
What advice do you have for those considering their own fieldwork?
Do pre-dissertation fieldwork on your cases
and topic. I had a Tinker Foundation grant for
the summer of 2013, and was able to pilot my
research design in the Dominican Republic and
Cuba. (I also had prior fieldwork experience in
Haiti and Mexico.) This made the prospectus
development process considerably easier,
helped me develop a network of contacts well
in advance, and helped me feel more confident
when it came time for the “real thing.”
I also think that SIS’s commitment to the
Plan your fieldwork as far in advance as
cohort system and providing four years of
possible. I defended my prospectus in March
funding to all students is another huge asset, as 2014, and knew that I’d want to spend Fall
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V I S T I N G F E L L OW P R O F I L E :
SARAH PERUMALLA
Sarah Perumalla is a third year PhD Fellow
at the Bremen International Graduate School
of Social Sciences (BIGSSS) in Bremen,
Germany. She is currently a visiting fellow at
SIS.
serving several multilateral environmental
agreements including the Convention on
Biological Diversity and the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change.
My research addresses when, how and why the
GEF's institutional design has changed in the
last 23 years from a neoinstitutionalist
What interested you in International
perspective to assess the underlying causal
Relations?
mechanisms of four key transformations within
the organization. Thereby I hope to contribute
Awareness and interest in the critical
substantially to the yet sparse literature on the
processes and consequences of political,
GEF and the role of multilateral financing
economic and cultural change in a globalizing mechanisms in multilevel environmental
world have accompanied me from the early
governance, their institutional development and
stages of my life. Growing up in Germany and influence in implementing and operationalizing
India, I was exposed to life on two continents, collective environmental action.
experiencing not only the rich cultural and
lingual diversity but also the different effects
What brought you to SIS? What will you be
of global political, socio-economic and
working on while you’re here?
environmental challenges.
While planning my fieldwork in DC, I was
International Relations and global governance looking to be institutionally affiliated at a local
issues more precisely drew my attention at the university to experience academic life in the
age of 15 when I joined my high school’s
United States. I found my academic home away
Model United Nations (MUN) Society.
from home at SIS through Prof. Dr. Pamela
Through this exposure, I found a keen interest Chasek from Manhattan College. She
in the prospects and challenges of
recommended the GEP program and put
institutionally converging multiple actors and me in touch with Dr. Sikina Jinnah, who took
interests to achieve common goals, which
interest in mentoring my research endeavors in
prompted me to pursue my undergraduate and DC and has since been a great help and coungraduate studies in International Politics and
sel.
History.
During my time at SIS, I'm undertaking arTell us a bit about your research.
chival research at the World Bank and
conducting expert interviews at the GEF,
Today numerous environmental problems
World Bank, UNEP and several environmental
transcend national boundaries and leave nation NGOs.
states largely incapable of tackling these issues
alone. Global environmental governance plays What are the highlights of your SIS experia crucial role in this context in enabling coor- ence so far?
dination and collective action to combat
regional and transnational environmental
I felt welcome from day one and everyone,
problems. Within this system, financing
especially Sikina Jinnah, Matt Taylor,
mechanisms i.e. development banks and other deRaismes Combes and Clement Ho have been
international financial organizations play a
very supportive. Thus far I've enjoyed
pivotal role in providing the necessary
interacting with the faculty and students at
financial support needed for state and nonvarious SIS events – be it official welcome
state actors to meet their environmental
parties, colloquia, talks or even just in the
obligations. My project aims at understanding foyer. Hanging out in the PhD suite with the
the institutional evolution and processes of
SIS PhD fellows has been a lot of fun. It's a
change in the Global Environment Facility
great atmosphere to bounce off ideas and
(GEF) - the largest source of such funding
discuss various topics with a diverse group of
available to developing countries for global
fascinating people from different cultures and
environmental initiatives and the only
backgrounds.
multi-convention funding mechanism to date,
What are your future plans and goals?
Upon completing my stay at SIS, I return to my
home university in Bremen, Germany to
complete and submit my dissertation by Fall
2015. I hope to pursue an academic career in
the field of International Relations focusing on
International Organizations in global
environmental governance.
What advice would you have for other
students interested in doing a fellowship like
yours?
Take advantage of the many opportunities at
SIS to get to know the many interesting people
at AU, who not only have many exciting
research projects and great insights into current
affairs, but also are very helpful in giving you
new ideas and impulses for your own research,
and the best recommendations for fun things to
do in DC.
T he I n te r n a ti o n a l
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J AC K S O N , C O N T .
(Cont. from page 3)
That can’t happen here, which is no small
part of why I am still here: far from the
“disciplinary mainstream” though I am, I
can’t be ruled beyond the pale. Nor can any
of my colleagues, including the more
“disciplinary mainstream” ones (who sometimes get excluded from departments dominated by a more “critical” sensibility). None
of us gets to seize the mantle of All Of International Studies and wield that authority as a
club to exclude anyone else from the discussion.
to this very odd form of life in which the
production of knowledge is at least to some
extent an end in itself. To do a Ph.D. in
anything is to enter a world in which the
evaluative criteria applied to a knowledge-claim
Don’t do a Ph.D. unless you have to. By that I
are more about the formal and technical aspects
mean that doing a Ph.D. should never be the
of that claim, and its relation to other people’s
result of a rational cost/benefit calculation,
claims, than they are about any broader impact
because if you come into this expecting those
kinds of returns on your investment, you are just or outcome. If that’s not a boundary that you
feel like crossing over, think very carefully
going to be disappointed. You do a Ph.D.
because you can’t rest until you know the answer before pursing a Ph.D., because what you learn
in a Ph.D. program equips you to know better.
to something, because you have a passion for
finding out more about it, because you are
called—I mean that in the sense of a vocation—
What advice do you have for those
considering a PhD at SIS? For current SIS
PhD students?
F AW C E T T , C O N T .
(Cont. from page 4)
Have a backup plan for funding or alternate
strategies for getting your fieldwork done
(arrange shorter trips, apply for institutional
affiliations that may cover housing or local
transport, etc.) – you don’t want a few
unsuccessful grant applications to
completely derail your dissertation research.
could still get some of my fieldwork done without additional funding (fortunately, flights to
the Caribbean are relatively cheap, and I don’t
mind living on rice and beans!).
As it turned out, I was fortunate enough to
secure an AU Doctoral Dissertation Grant, a
summer stipend from SIS, and a research
fellowship with a Dominican NGO, the Global
Foundation for Democracy and
This isn’t possible for all projects, but I knew Development – but having those backup
that if my applications were unsuccessful, I
strategies has helped me stretch my grant
funding as much as possible.
Know your own limitations. I knew that I didn’t want to spend months and months in the
field – and so my research design lends itself to
several shorter trips.
Be prepared to be surprised! My committee
co-chair, Dr. Daniel Bernhofen, told me shortly
before I departed for the DR to “Remember
that whatever you find, it is all ‘newness,’” and
therefore valuable for your dissertation
T he I n te r n a ti o n a l
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A L U M N I U P DAT E S
Maia Carter Hallward (’06), Associate
Professor in the Deptartment of Political Science
and International Affairs and PhD Program in
International Conflict Management at Kennesaw
State University, and fellow SIS alumna Julie
Louis F. Cooper (’05) recently published an
essay, "Reflections on U.S. Foreign Policy," at M. Norman (’09) have a forthcoming textbook
with Polity Press: Understanding Nonviolence:
the blog of the Society for U.S. Intellectual
Contours and Contexts.
History (July 16, 2014).
Mehrzad Boroujerdi (’90) was recently
named Chair of the Political Science
Department at Syracuse University.
Jamie Frueh (’99) has been promoted to full
professor at Bridgewater College, where he
serves as chair of the Department of History
and Political Science and Co-Director of the
Academic Citizenship Program. He will also
become the director of the college’s new
student engagement center once it is
formalized and launched in the fall of 2015.
Suki Hoagland (’89) has returned from nine
years in Switzerland, which included commuting
from 2010-2012 to work as Director and Clinical
Associate Professor of the Masters in
Development Practice Program at the Josef
Korbel School of International Studies at the
University of Denver. She is now a Visiting
Scholar at Stanford working with the Earth
Systems Program, an interdisciplinary
undergraduate and co-terminal masters degree
program.
Tom Long (’13) is currently a visiting research
professor in International Relations at the
Centro de Investgación y Docencia Económicas
in Mexico City. He has a forthcoming
monograph with the Mexico Institute at the
Wilson Center, entitled “NAFTA and Now:
Lessons from the Negotiations.”
Simon Nicholson (’09), Assistant Professor and
Director of the Global Environmental Politics
Program at American University SIS has a new
book with Paul Wapner: Global Environmental
Politics: From Person to Planet. He also
recently launched the Washington
Geoengineering Consortium.
S T U D E N T U P DAT E S
Davina Durgana published an article: “A
Theory of Human Trafficking Prevalence
and Forecasting: Unlikely Marriage of the
Human Security, Transnational Organized
Crime, and Human Trafficking Literatures” (2014), Vol. 1, Iss. 2, Slavery Today
Journal - A Multidisciplinary Journal of
Human Trafficking Solutions, pp. 1-23. She
also recently presented at the University of
Toledo 2014 International Human
Trafficking, Prostitution and Sex Work
Conference, the American Political Science
Association Annual Meeting, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Interdisciplinary Conference on Human
Trafficking. She is Associate Professor at the
School for International Training Graduate
Institute in DC and Senior Technical Advisor
on Human Trafficking at
SeraphimGLOBAL.
Emma Fawcett is currently doing dissertation
research on tourism and development in the
Dominican Republic (Santo Domingo and
Bavaro-Punta Cana), Haiti (Port-au-Prince),
Cuba, and Mexico. She is currently a Research
Fellow at the Global Foundation for Democracy
and Development (FUNGLODE) in Santo
Domingo.
Yelena Osipova published a paper, “From Gastronationalism to Gastrodiplomacy: Reversing
the Securitization of the Dolma in the South
Caucasus,” in Public Diplomacy Magazine,
Winter 2014, pp. 18-22. She was also awarded a
Dissertation Grant from the USC Center on
Public Diplomacy, the Global Excellence
Scholarship by the Gulbenkian Foundation, and
a Doctoral Student Research Award by
American University’s Vice-Provost’s Office.
She will spend this October and November
doing dissertation fieldwork in Moscow,
Russia.
Chayanit Poonyarat presented her paper
"Seasons of Insurgency: The Promises and
Curses of Violent Actions" at the 3rd
Southeast Asian Studies Symposium, organized by Project Southeast Asia, University of
Oxford, during March 22-23, 2014 at
University of Oxford. Her article "Seasons of
Insurgency: The Promises and Curses of
Violent Actions" is forthcoming in the journal
Peace & Policy, Vol. 20 (2015).
Timothy Seidel was recently awarded the
Randall Research Scholarship from
Nonviolence International to support his
upcoming fieldwork.
Di Wu recently published two pieces,
“100,000 Strong: Networks and Partnerships
within U.S.-China Public Diplomacy" and
"Celebrity, Network, Meaning, and Fun: the
ALS Ice Bucket Challenge", on the Center on
Public Diplomacy Blog.
If you have updates you would like to share with the SIS community in The International,
please send them to Kasey Neil at kneil@american.edu.
T he I n te r n a ti o n a l
P age 8
R E C E N T G R A D UAT E S
Sebastian Bitar (Spring 2014)
Dissertation: “US Military Bases, Quais-Bases, and Domestic Politics in Latin America”
Committee: Patrick T. Jackson, SIS (Dissertation Chair); Arlene Tickner, SIS; and Eric Hershberg, SPA
Kia Hall (Spring 2014)
Dissertation: “Baking Ereba, Expanding Capabilities: A Study of Food, Family & Nation among the Garifuna
of Honduras”
Committee: Christine B.N. Chin, SIS (Dissertation Chair); Loubna Skalli-Hanna, SIS; Rachel Watkins, CAS;
Consuelo Hernandez, CAS
Zaw Oo (Spring 2014)
Dissertation: “From Grabbing Hand to Helping Hand: Political Economy of State-Building, Rent-Seeking and
Economic Reform in Burma and Vietnam”
Committee: Deborah Brautigam, SIS (Dissertation Chair); David Hirschmann, SIS; and Narendran
Kumarakulasingam, SIS
Courtney Radsch (Spring 2014)
Dissertation: “Digital Dissidence & Political Change: Cyberactivism and Citizen Journalism in Egypt”
Committee: Patrick T. Jackson, SIS (Dissertation Chair); Diane Singerman, SPA; and Marwan Kraidy (Univ.
Pennsylvania)
Daniel Dye (Summer 2014)
Dissertation: “‘Whether Autumn Should Follow Summer…’: Globalization Discourse and British Party
Politics”
Committee: Stephen Silvia, SIS (Dissertation Chair); Aaron Boesenecker, SIS; and Michelle Egan, SIS
Katherine Reese (Summer 2014)
Dissertation: “ The Road Ahead: American Automobility and the Politics of the Future”
Committee: Paul Wapner, SIS (Dissertation Chair); Ken Conca, SIS; and Patrick Jackson, SIS
S I S F A L L C A L E N DA R
Teaching Seminar with
Patrick Thaddeus Jackson
October 13 at 3pm
PhD Lounge
At this open meeting, we'll
discuss the resources that are
available on campus for those
interested in improving their
teaching skills, as well as
discuss what themes would be
interesting to explore as a
community in a Ph.D. seminar
series on teaching.
In addition to being our
Associate Dean for
Undergraduate Studies, PTJ
received the 2012 U.S.
Professor of the Year Award
for the District of Columbia
from the Carnegie Foundation.
He has been an innovator in the
use of podcasts, flipped
lectures, Star Wars, and science
fiction in the teaching of IR,
and has successfully
incorporated his teaching into a
highly successful research
trajectory.
All are encouraged to join in
the conversation! Coffee and
baked goods will be provided.
External Funding
Training
October 30, 12-2pm
On October 30, from 12-2pm,
the International Affairs Research Institute will be hosting
a training session on external
funding.
IARI serves as a resource for
faculty and doctoral students as
they pursue funding for their
research.
August 22
PhD Orientation and Beginning of the Year Reception
September 3
Colloquium: Tim Siedel, “Narrating Nonviolence: Postcolonial
Interrogations of Resistance in Palestine.”
September 10 New PhD Student Welcome Reception
October 1
Colloquium: Prof. Jordan Tama
October 13
Teaching Seminar with Patrick Thaddeus Jackson
3pm, PhD Lounge
October 15
Colloquium: Edward Lucas, “Do People or Events Make the
Difference? Evidence from Domestic Revolutions”
October 29
Colloquium: Prof. Agustina Giraudy
October 30
Training Session on External Funding Opportunities
November 12 Colloquium: Davina Durgana, “Correlates of Trafficking:
Measuring Human Insecurity of Vulnerable Minors to Human
Trafficking in the United States”
December 5
Town Hall: 4:00-5:15pm
Reception: 5:30-7:00pm
FALL COLLOQUIA
Colloquia give students an opportunity to gain feedback on their presentations as well as to engage in the
process of critiquing and formulating responses to the work of others. This year’s first presenter, Tim
Seidel, reflects on the experience:
At this year's first SIS PhD Colloquium, I presented an initial draft of my paper "Narrating Nonviolence:
Postcolonial Interrogations of Resistance in Palestine." I am preparing this paper for presentation at the
Middle East Studies Association annual meeting later this semester. In it, I attempt to set a theoretical
framework from which 1) to examine how nonviolent resistance has been discursively fixed or
destabilized and 2) uncover alternative possibilities for articulating nonviolent resistance in Palestine. The
conversation was productive and the feedback from colleagues helpfully contributed to tightening up and
clarifying some of my paper's main points. While those of us in the room represented a variety of
methodological and theoretical approaches, the collegial atmosphere reflected a methodological
hospitality that I greatly appreciated. This is one of the strengths of our PhD program, not simply an
openness to methodological diversity, but an engagement across methodological and disciplinary
difference.
Additional Fall Colloquia will take place on October 1, 15, 29, and November 12 at 3:00 pm.