Division International Studies » Conference visits

When Lady Associate Professor go to Beijing…

Catherine GOETZE — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 09:46:46 +0000

… some logitistics are needed. So it is also the case when the Head of Division Catherine Goetze, Associate Professor May Tan-Mullins and Associate Professor Anna Greenwood are going to participate in the workshop on EU researchers in China that the EU delegation in Beijing is organising coming Wednesday. As travelling is not easy with kids and family, the three are taking the opportunity to meet with other colleagues at Peking University, at the Contemporary Insitute of China’s International Relations, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. So, this week promises to be busy but hopefully it will also bring about closer contacts with our colleagues in China.

Global Emerging Voices Fellowship

ivaylogatev — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 19:21:52 +0000

This summer Ivaylo Gatev participated in the Global Emerging Voices fellowship which took him to Berlin, Paris and Turin. The fellowship, organised by the Torino
World Affairs Institute, Stiftung Mercator and Asia Centre, sought to bring together young scholars from universities and research centres across Europe and East Asia. He and eight other Fellows from India, China, Taiwan, Japan, Australia and Italy had consultation meetings at the German and French ministries of foreign affairs and engaged in activities such as round table discussions, simulation games and scenario-building exercises. The main theme of these events was the evolving relationship between the EU and Asia Pacific in the context of China’s economic rise. The week-long fellowship was an incredible experience, very useful in terms of developing contacts with people and institutions engaged in EU-China affairs. Ivaylo then attended a summer school on contemporary Chinese politics and economics held at the University of Torino. He expresses his
gratitude to Sergey Radchenko for recommending him as a participant in both
events.

Dr Kiwuwa and Dr Klantschnig at the African Studies Conference in San Francisco

Catherine GOETZE — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 04:00:32 +0000

Dr David Kiwuwa and Dr Gernot Klantschnig attended the prestigious African Studies Association meeting in San Francisco between 18 and 22 November 2010. This is one of the largest global gatherings of scholars working on Africa and takes place annually in the USA. The main theme of this year’s meeting was the African diaspora and diasporas in Africa. Dr Kiwuwa and Dr Klantschnig presented papers based on their recent fieldtrips to Rwanda and Nigeria.

Dr. May Tan-Mullins tours Great-Britain

Catherine GOETZE — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 03:41:53 +0000

Dr. May Tan-Mullins has returned from the snow-covered United Kingdom, after a ten days visit to University of Sussex (Institute of Development Studies), Cambridge University, University of Nottingham and the London School of Oriental and African Studies.

In Brighton, May attended the Rising Powers Network meeting in IDS on the 25-26^th November 2010. Sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council in UK, the rising power network is a new network that seeks to analyse the implications of China as the new ‘shaper’ of global development. The network will bridge the gap between our understanding of China’s policy interests and processes and its development impacts in low income countries, as well as implications of this for the international development community more broadly. The impacts of the network will be an analytical framework and research agenda to inform future engagements between the UK, low income countries and Chinese policy-makers, such as on energy and climate change.

The first workshop took place in Beijing in July 2010 and discussed China’s development experience and how this shapes its engagements internationally. The second workshop takes place in late September 2010 in London and is looking at how we can understand the impacts of these engagements in low income countries with a view to identifying gaps and looking at new areas to research. The third workshop is looking at how to apply the conceptual framework developed throughout the network activities to particular areas of on-going research on energy, climate change and the environment and to link these environmental themes with other themes of China’s rise as a development actor such as governance, aid, trade and investments. For more information, please access the following website for more information: http://risingpowers.open.ac.uk/

At the University of Cambridge, May was involved in a research meeting which looks at the ‘non-DAC donors’ and the role of public perspectives in shaping the future of aid. This project looks at materials such as publicly available government documentation, official press releases and media reporting on ‘foreign aid’ (as donors and recipients) to answer the following questions: to what extent and how governments seek to engage their publics; what agendas and ‘moralities’ are constructed and claimed; how donor publics and civil society groups understand and define ‘foreign aid’; and how is this publically positioned in relation to ‘development cooperation’, the ‘African renaissance’, commercial trade and investment, and ‘South-South partnership’.

At the University of Nottingham, May visited the School of Politics and Geography Department for new research collaboration and funding opportunities. In London, May visited ex-students who were pursuing postgraduate studies in well-established universities such as London School of Economics. It was gratifying to see UNNC students progress onto bright paths of academia. At the same time, during May’s stay in United Kingdom, there were a series of protests and demonstrations against the university fee hikes. In Brighton, May ran into a group of three thousands students demonstrating, which later became a bit smelly with students throwing rotten eggs at stores and breaking out into small groups of jostling matches with the police. In London, the aftermath of the tensions were manifested on the Nelson Column in Trafalgar Square through graffiti. Overall, it was an interesting and fruitful trip for a round-bellied May.

Why Democracy for the Post-Socialist Societies Workshop

Catherine GOETZE — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 05:43:42 +0000

On 5 November 2010 the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at Cambridge University hosted a workshop on democracy in the post-socialist world. The aim of the workshop was to bring together various strands of research and theorising in the post-communist societies, China and the West on what kind of democracy may develop as a consequence of market reforms which had been adopted. Ivaylo Gatev of the Division of International Studies presented a paper comparing the effects of political and economic liberalisation on state capacity in Eastern Europe and East Asia.

Dr. Sergey Radchenko attended 2010 LSE-FGV Cold War History School

Catherine GOETZE — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 03:30:58 +0000

From30 September to 1 October, 2010, Dr. Sergey Radchenko was away for the 2010 LSE-FGV Cold War History School in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As an instructor, He addressed the following topics: “The Soviet Union and the origins of the Cold War,” “The Sino-Soviet Split” and “Gorbachev and the end of the Cold War.”

From the conference website:

The 2010 LSE-FGV Cold War History School in Rio de Janeiro focused on the recent scholarship related to the global Cold War, with a special emphasis on Latin America, Asia and Europe. Key topics explored during the School included the role of ideology and the spread of ideas across continents, the rise of the Third World and Third Worldism, the Cold War in Latin America and in Brazil, and different paths to economic development during the Cold War era.The School is primarily designed for up to 50 advanced graduate students, doctoral candidates and young faculty in Latin America drawn from history and the social sciences broadly defined.

other details:

http://cpdoc.fgv.br/relacoesinternacionais/coldwarschool/prog

Dr. David Emmanuel Kiwuwa’s research work on Rwanda(Africa)

Catherine GOETZE — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 03:30:10 +0000

In August, Dr. David Emmanuel Kiwuwa was member of the Commonwealth Electoral Monitoring Mission in Rwanda as an observer of the Rwandan Presidential Elections. This election is the second since the Rwandan civil war, and this time four candidates were nominated, Paul Kagame of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, Jean Damascène Ntawukuriryayo of Social Democratic Party, Prosper Higiro of Liberal Party and Alvera Mukabaramba of the Party for Progress and Concord. Dr. Kiwuwa said “this is a key aspect of democratisation, a subject which some of the students have engaged with in their Comparative Politics class. It also brings to mind the challenges and modalities of undertaking field work research and consequently its benefits.”

Moreover, during a Biannual African Studies Conference in Oxford University, Dr.Kiwuwa delivered a paper on the Rwanda 2010 Presidential and 2008 Parliamentary Elections. This conference was also addressed by the US under Secretary for Africa, Johnnie Carson.

Conferencing on Asia during the Cold War

Catherine GOETZE — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 08:46:41 +0000

On March 8-9, 2010 Sergey Radchenko took part in a conference “New International Order of Asia in the 1950s-60s” hosted by the University of Tokyo in Tokyo, Japan. He presented a paper on “Decolonization and the Soviet Union’s Asia policy.” This was followed by a research visit to the Slavic Research Center of the University of Hokkaido. On February 27-28, 2010 he took part in a workshop “China and the Communist World in the Second Half of the Cold War” in Budapest, Hungary, presenting a paper on ”The demise of the Intekit: Soviet sinology and the Sino-Soviet rapprochement”. He also carried out research at the Hungarian National Archive for his book project on the end of the Cold War in East Asia.

Busy weekend for International Studies staff

Catherine GOETZE — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 02:52:44 +0000

Last weekend was very busy for staff of the Division International Studies. Gernot Klantschnig went fundraising the hard way: he ran the Shanghai Half-Marathon (21 km!!) as part of the UNNC team, composed of Annegret Brandau from the Division Sustainable Development, Carsten Tietje from Engineering, Emily Zhang from administration, Julie Miles, the wife of the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, and, last but not least, our Provost himself, Roger Woods.

Carsten Tietje, Annegret Brandau, Gernot Klantschnig at the Shanghai Half-Marathon

Gernot, Annegret, Carsten and Julie had decided to use this race for charity fundraising, a very British tradition. The runners ask friends, family, colleagues and actually everybody interested to donate money for the team and the team will, if they accomplish their task successfully, pass on those donations to a charity of their choice. If the sportsmen fail their task, there are no donations. The donations are thus a motivation for the runners to go all to the end of their race and it has the wonderful side effect of making the lives of other people better. In this case, all runners accomplished the race (Julie Miles in even less than two hours!), cheered and supported by many colleagues and friends from UNNC, among other Sergey Radchenko from our division. All collected donations will now go to COCOA whose mission is to improve the fate of children and babies in China’s orphanage by providing equipment, medicine and trained staff. If you want to support the UNNC team now and now more about the charity run you can still do so at http://www.justgiving.com/UNNC-Team.

At the same time as Gernot was running through the streets of Shanghai, the Head of Division, Catherine Goetze, was mobilizing against AIDS at the UNNC Youth Volunteer’s Association’s “Take AIDS seriously, respect LIFE sincerely” campaign. In the icy wind around Wanda Plaza, the YVA had arranged for a formidable show. The UNNC cheerleader team started the action with their great stunts which attracted a larger public. Followed speeches from representatives of Yinzhou District and of Catherine Goetze, and with games for the public to inform and discuss about AIDS.

"Take AIDS seriously, respect LIFE sincerely" campaign at Wanda Plaza

The relatively low incidence of AIDS and the fact that anti-retroviral therapies are now saving more and more lives should not make people believe that AIDS is a disease only others get, Catherine warned. The disease continues to spread and is touching now also low-risk populations as information and prevention are still not sufficient to make people stop taking risks. AIDS is a sexually transmissible disease and everyone having sexual relationships (and most adults do, don’t they?) can get infected. The full text of the speech can be found here. UNAIDS has just published its annual report on the state of HIV and AIDS in the world with a well-researched section on China: http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/HIVData/EpiUpdate/EpiUpdArchive/2009/default.asp

While Gernot and Catherine were fighting the cold winds of China’s beginning winter, May Tan-Mullins was off to Bali where she is participating in a meeting of the National Bureau of Asian Research (http://www.nbr.org). Let’s hope that there is as much work as sun, otherwise we would all have to get jealous for such a great conference location…

Sergey Radchenko at conference “The End of the Cold War and the Third World”

Catherine GOETZE — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 03:31:39 +0000

From September 24 to September 26, 2009 UNNC International Studies division Lecturer Sergey Radchenko took part in a conference “The End of the Cold War and the Third World.” The conference explored the impact of the end of the Cold War on the Third World: in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. How did the great transformation of the world in the late 1980s affect regional conflicts and client relationships? Who “won” and who “lost” in the Third World and why do so many Cold War-era problems remain unresolved? The conference was organized jointly by Sergey Radchenko (UNNC) and Artemy Kalinovsky (LSE) and held at the IDEAS centre of the London School of Economics. Participants included eminent scholars and young researchers from the LSE, Cornell University, George Washington University, Harvard University, John Hopkins University, King’ College London, UNNC and other leading institutions across the world. It is expected that conference papers will be published in an edited volume for use by scholars and policy analysts. Negotiations with a publisher are underway.