Letter from the New World

Second year MIS-IHP student Barbara Martin sends a note on her exchange semester at Yale:

"While my fellow graduate students are either discovering an exciting new life in our renowned “Genève Internationale”, or slowly (reluctantly?) settling back into a familiar academic setting, I find myself among the “happy few” who will be abroad this semester.

Tokyo, Singapore, Paris, Seoul, Washington, Boston… Some of us are now half a world away, experimenting life in a new environment, sometimes disorienting at first. This is an experience many of you will now be familiar with, for you come from the most varied horizons. Cultural shock is a notion most of us have personally experienced. So had I. I had lived in Ireland and in Russia, and overcome the rainy Irish winter and the rudeness of Russian bureaucrats. But every new country represents a new challenge, no matter how deceivingly “familiar” its culture can seem.

And so I embarked on a my first trip to the United States of America, this mythical land of wonders most Europeans unavowedly dream of. My destination was not a city, but a simple name, crystal-clear and exhaling a legendary scent: Yale!

And yet the place I came to was no fantasy, no fabulous realm of higher learning but an (almost) ordinary university, positively anchored in reality – albeit with this inimitable fairy-tale tinge that old stones and gothic style can confer to a centuries-old institution.

I soon found out that Yale was New Haven, just as New Haven was Yale – or not quite? Scattered across downtown New Haven, Yale is omnipresent, and the streets of this charming old town are flooded with students sporting Yale colors. But were one to stray just a few blocks away from this vast campus, a completely different picture would reveal itself: that of a de facto segregated town where the African American minority looks up in dismay and envy to the “rich Yale kids”.

Most students choose to ignore this disturbing picture, even though it always reappears at some point in one way or another – be it the Black lady begging at the street corner or the “Black males” whose misdemeanors regularly fill the police campus reports sent to every student.

I did not close my eyes on the ambiguity of New Haven. In fact, I chose – probably in a reckless move – to live on one of the “worst” streets of New Haven. But worst from which point of view? True, it is an all-black neighborhood, apparently home to a few drug dealers. But diversity does not bother me, and the friendly smiles and greetings I get every day on my way to class are something I would never dream of encountering in Geneva.

But what about classes, then? Does Yale really live up to its legend? Well, I have to say it does. Admittedly, the high quality standard of our institute’s teaching staff is only equaled, not significantly surpassed. And the same shortcomings are to be found there as well: overcrowded seminars contrast with empty classes and ineffective class registration systems leave students frustrated… However, the main difference lies in the proportions : instead of our institute’s few small scattered buildings, it is a whole town of residential colleges and campus buildings, with a library that is literally a cathedral devoted to higher learning, encompassing a dozen floors stacked with books on all subjects and in all possible languages… The campus is impressive, and so are the means devoted to the students. Not a day passes without a reception, a free banquet or a party organized by one department or another. Yes, Yale is indeed breathtaking.

And yet nothing in this world comes really for free. Luckily, I do not have to pay the exorbitant tuition fees that other students are subject to. But I do have to fulfill the other part of the contract, and study as hard as I am required to. And living up to increased expectations is not always an easy task, but it is a tremendous challenge I readily accepted.

By December, this little world will definitely have become mine, just as Geneva became, or will soon become yours. A little corner of our life we will never forget, for we gave it our best, and were accordingly rewarded.

Salutations from New Haven!"

PowerPoint - where do you fall?

Yesterday's New York Times article "We Have Met The Enemy And He Is PowerPoint" takes note of the growing backlash against the Microsoft tool in military circles. The main critiques presented are: that producing a good presentation takes a bit too much time; that it "makes us stupid", reducing complex ideas beyond their essence; bullet points don't permit deeper connections between subjects - everything appears linear; that they convey much less information that a brief (5-page analysis could); and finally, that the graphic nature of tool means that the creator can get away without valid analysis of the issue at hand.

While I use PowerPoint quite frequently for presentations, I would have to agree with many of these critiques, particularly the critique that it is a reductionist tool. I find PowerPoint useful in that it is an easy way to organize "true" visuals - photos, charts, etc. However, in as much as I can, I avoid using it too present the entirety of my presentation - I would hope that my interlocutors could take that away from my presentation proper!

Where do you fall on the PowerPoint debate?

How to present a paper

I ran across this article written by former American Historical Association President Linda Kerber on how to present a paper - I think there are lots of good tips, including on proper length, the difference between written and spoken work, and just some basic pointers. Have a look!

THE CONCEPT OF MIXED MIGRATION: REFLECTING ON TODAY'S MIGRATORY POLICIES, MOVEMENTS AND PARADIGMS SHIFTS

From the Programme for the Study of Global Migration:

A conference on THE CONCEPT OF MIXED MIGRATION: REFLECTING ON TODAY'S MIGRATORY POLICIES, MOVEMENTS AND PARADIGMS SHIFTS.

Date: 8-9 April 2010

Place: AJF

Full programme here.

The Life Raft Debate

A week ago one of my favorite public radio shows aired an interesting story on the Life Raft Debate, which has taken place under the aegis of the University of Montevallo (in Alabama) Philosophy Club for about the past 10 years. The premise of the debate, as explained on the broadcast [FYI you can listen to the broadcast streaming here; the relevant section is about 42 minutes in, but be forewarned, the point of the story is, in part, to chastize pandering in public discourse], is that the audience is on a life raft, and that they can only select one of the faculty members on stage to join their life raft, thus surviving. Each of the faculty members on stage – from departments like English, Art History, Computer Science, Math, History, etc. – have to argue why their discipline would be the most useful to the raft – a parallel with the question of “what is the value of a liberal arts degree”?

One of the history professors who participated in a past debate was quoted as having argued that, in a life raft situation, the value of a historian was to provide instruction on how to be a benevolent dictator to the dictator which would inevitably arise in the chaos of a life raft situation. While this is amusing (and nefarious!), it begs an examination of what value to attribute to the discipline of history. How about this as a springboard for a discussion?

Go for the Gold: Obama, Reagan, and Nuclear Weapons

Sometime in the next few weeks, Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev will sign a follow-on agreement to the expired Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that eliminated the firepower equivalent to that wielded by the Death Star. Consequent Senate deliberations over a new treaty are sure to feature accusations that the Russians intend to lie, cheat, and steal, rather than uphold their end of the bargain. Senators opposed to the treaty will invoke Ronald Reagan's name with lusty enthusiasm. Already, Senator Jon Kyl, the number two Republican in the chamber, has indicated his willingness to fight along these lines, and on these terms.

Senators who invoke Reagan in 2010 would have bitterly opposed him in 1988, after he signed the first treaty ever to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons. His admirers forget that for five months after December 1987, when Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty eliminating four Soviet missiles for NATO's every one, Republican Senators like Jesse Helms and Dan Quayle held up ratification on the grounds that the Soviets could not be trusted. "Believe it or not there are elements who are hinting it would be a bad treaty," President Reagan wrote in his diary after meeting with Republican leaders on the eve of Gorbachev's arrival.

The delay over INF ratification mattered then, because it made finalizing a START agreement impossible before the end of Reagan's presidency. A delay over a new START would matter now, because rehashing the same arguments of Helms and Quayle distracts from the more important question: what role should the United States assign its nuclear arsenal after President Obama has received a Nobel Prize, in part, for announcing in Prague last year his quest to eliminate nuclear weapons?

Proponents of low-yield, “bunker busting” nuclear bombs, argue that such weapons would provide a more credible threat to deter state-sponsored terrorism, and that they might prove indispensible to strike hardened targets in any potential military engagement with Iran or North Korea. Opponents fear that a new generation of less powerful nuclear weapons would lower the threshold by which the United States -- or another nuclear power -- might use them.

Neither position is so hawkish or dovish as the other might contend, and President Obama has shrewdly indicated his preference for zero nuclear weapons without vilifying those who may disagree. He has also managed to sidestep any meaningful debate about just how to get from point A to point B. This is a national discussion worth having; unfortunately, it is also one where complex matters of military strategy, long-term forecasting, and alliance management are likely to be obscured by political demagogy.

Obama can silence the Cheney Family Choir, however, simply by invoking recent history. Perhaps he might declare that his own attitude toward nuclear weapons derives not from Jimmy Carter but Ronald Reagan. Both men spoke of abolishing nuclear weapons, but only Reagan achieved any real success. And in the last year of his presidency, he wanted to eliminate still more nuclear weapons. "We need to go for the gold," Reagan instructed Secretary of State George Shultz in February 1988, when the administration was deliberating over whether to pursue a last-minute START agreement.

Like Reagan, Obama should go for the gold. The elder statesmen already in his corner could not be more distinguished. For the past few years, Shultz (arguably the best secretary of state since Dean Acheson) as well as Henry Kissinger (who would argue) have joined with Democrats William Perry and Sam Nunn in beating the drum for a "world free of nuclear weapons." A new documentary they have produced, Nuclear Tipping Point, illustrates that no matter how prudent their keepers, no matter the safeguards, these weapons continue to imperil our planet.

For the moment, support for nuclear abolition is growing. Unlike climate change, affirming one's support does not entail the everyday guilt that accompanies purchasing bottled water. The real test is coming, however, not just when the Senate takes on a new START but the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty after rejecting it over a decade ago. Critics will raise questions to which there are no perfect answers; the Obama administration should answer truthfully. Yes, whatever emerges to replace START will have its flaws. No, we cannot be one hundred percent sure that the Russians will not cheat. Neither questions nor answers have changed significantly over the past twenty years. But we do know today that Russia is no longer a sprawling empire with an ideological ax to grind. And we know conclusively that arms reductions contributed to ending one cold war, and that there is no compelling reason to begin another.

James Graham Wilson is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Virginia, and a 2009-2010 Gallatin Fellow at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.

Public Lecture invitation

From the Programme for the Study of Global Migration:

The Politics of Privatised Immigration Detention

Given by Stephen Nathan of the Public Services International Research Unit at the University of Greenwich

Tuesday 2 March 2010, 12:15

Location: Room CV 342 (third floor)
La Voie Creuse, 16 - 1202 Geneva