Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs

Xan Smiley’s career in journalism has spanned more than half a century, predominantly as a writer and editor for The Economist, focusing on coverage of sub-Saharan Africa, Russia and the Soviet Union, the Middle East, the European Union, and the United States. In this lecture, Xan will analyze the success and failures of The Economist’s (and his own) coverage of events that have shaped the world.

The Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs program on Autocracy and Democracy presents “Leaders in the Middlebury East and North Africa: How Ideology Shapes Foreign Policy” with Dr. Sercan Canbolat, inaugural director of Abrahamic Programs at the University of Connecticut’s (UConn) Global Affairs and a postdoctoral research associate UConn’s Department of Political Science.

The Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs program on Global Health and Medicine presents Gender-Based Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean: reflections on the prevalence, prevention of, and policy response to this public health and human rights crisis, with Sophie Morse, Philip R. Lee Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, San Francisco and Women’s Health Policy Researcher.

The Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs Program on Global Health and Medicine presents “Junk Food Politics: How Beverage and Fast Food Industries are Reshaping Emerging Economies” by Eduardo J. Gómez, professor in the Department of Community and Population Health and director of the Institute of Health Policy and Politics, Lehigh University.

A Beneficiary Showcase of Ukrainian Resilience through Art

This third annual event celebrates the culture and resilience of the nation of Ukraine with music, poetry, film, and more.  Featuring the New York Crimean Tatar Ensemble, with a parade of performances by the Middlebury College Choir, the student band Chapel Hill, Middlebury College’s Ukrainian students, and other special guests. Admission is free, and information about donating to Ukrainian relief organizations will be provided.

The opening of the first McDonald’s in Moscow on January 31, 1990, was widely seen as proof of the Soviet Union opening up to the outside world after years of Cold War isolation. McDonald’s decision to pull out of Russia within months of its full-scale attack on Ukraine in early 2022 was thus naturally seen as the end of an era. This talk will look at how we got from Point A to Point B. Why did Soviet leaders agree to allow McDonald’s in, first as a joint venture with the Moscow city soviet, and what did they hope to get out of it?

The Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs Program in Global Political Economy presents “How Equality Helped Italy Fight Corruption” with Lucia Manzi, SUNY Plattsburgh. Organized by Gary WInslett, Assistant Professor of Political Science.

In 1992, the “Clean Hands” anti-corruption operation resulted in hundreds of convictions and permanently changed the Italian political landscape. How was this breakthrough possible? Prof. Manzi shows how egalitarian changes in prosecutorial institutions helped the Italian government more effectively fight the Mafia as well as terrorist organizations.

The Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs program on Global and International History presents Aparna Kapadia, associate professor of history at Williams College and ” Walking with the Mahatma: Kasturba Gandhi’s Political Life.”

Fritz Bartel is a diplomatic historian at Texas A&M University. His book on the end of the Cold War (Harvard University Press, 2022), The Triumph of Broken Promises, has been widely praised for its political-economic interpretation of the demise of the Soviet Union and the rise of neo-liberalism in the United States.

Co-sponsored by the International Politics & Economics program

“Israel’s Strategic Position in a Volatile Middle East” by Daniel Kurtzer, professor in Middle Eastern Policy Studies at Princeton University, former Ambassador of the United States to Israel (2001-2005) and Egypt (1997-2001). Sponsored by Rohatyn Center for International Affairs, Department of Political Science, Scott Center for Spiritual, Religious Life, Jewish Studies Program and Hillel.