International & Global Studies

St. Francis of Assisi is celebrated as the patron saint of animals and is also recognized as a symbol of pacifism and brotherhood. How then could the figure of St. Francis end up serving the Fascist political project, most tellingly by being declared the Patron Saint of (Fascist) Italy in 1939? Why, and how, would this scrawny Saint become the emblem of a nation dedicated to war?

Nathan Pippenger, Associate Professor of Political Science, US Naval Academy

Why did Russia invade Ukraine, how is the war (un)likely to end, and why?

The Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs program on Global and International History presents “The Manchu Conquest of China in World History” with Nicola Di Cosmo. 

Faculty, staff, and students are invited to a conversation with Kenneth Stern, drafter of the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, and Emma Saltzberg of the Diaspora Alliance, on its implications for teaching, research, and campus policy. Speakers will explore how universities can address antisemitism while safeguarding academic freedom and open discourse.

This event will be in hybrid format, with virtual speakers.
Register via the Middlebury website at: go/AAUPIHRA/

The Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs program on Science, Technology, Environment and Global Affairs presents “Bridging Science and Community for Climate Solutions” with Kyla Westphal.

Come hear how village residents, local officials, and urban investors draw on customary norms, family networks, and bureaucratic documents in order to conduct land sales and to produce vast areas of commercial forestry in Tanzania.

In this talk, Greenhalgh (Professor of Chinese Society Emerita at Harvard University) tells the story of how, during 1995-2015, industry leader Coca-Cola mobilized allies in academia to create a soda-defense science that would protect profits by advocating exercise, not dietary restraint, as the priority solution to obesity, a view few experts accept.

This lecture by Jason Springs (Professor of Religion, Ethics, and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame) introduces a novel understanding of what restorative justice is and how it should be implemented. It explores the ways in which restorative justice ethics and practices exhibit moral and spiritual dynamics, and what difference such “lived religious” dynamics can make in transforming structural violence.

The Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs program on Autocracy and Democracy  presents Feyaad Allie and “Power, Exclusion, and Identity: The Politics of Muslim Marginalization in India.”