Spring 2012 Lecture Series
All lectures are on Fridays at 12:00pm.
"Creative Approaches to Global Development"
Friday Forum is a free weekly lecture series held during the fall and spring semesters that strives to raise awareness about national and international trends and events. The Spring 2012 series will offer a comparative exploration of global development models for the 21st Century. Speakers will provide analysis of comparative approaches to different policy problems and explore various subfields within development (economic, environment, public health, etc.) with a focus on the varying approaches and policies offered by different countries, regions, nongovermental, and intergovernmental institutions.
February 3
Scientific Animations Without Borders: Using Mobile Media to Promote Global Development
Barry Pittendrigh, Professor, C.W. Kearns, C.L. Metcalf and W.P. Flint Endowed Chair in Insect Toxicology, University of Illinois
Currently, there exist a number of innovative solutions in the scientific literature that can help the poorest people on the planet. However, much of this is in a form, e.g., articles in scientific journals, that the true target audience cannot easily access due to a variety of barriers, such as literacy level. Learn how scientific animations are being used to increase accessibility of important development, health and environmental sustainability information to the approximately one billion low-literate learners on the planet that are in need of this important knowledge.
February 10
Art as Empowerment
Alexis Hefley, Founder/President, Peter Kasule, Artistic Director, Peter Mugga, Audio Supervisor & Assistant Production Manager, and Rukia Nalwoga, Teacher, Empower African Children/Spirit of Uganda
Empower African Children (EAC) is a non-profit organization based in Dallas, TX and Kampala, Uganda that provides a fresh new approach that unlocks the potential of this generation through an innovative education. Its holistic approach to education provides tools for success in life, creating confident, skillful, visionary leaders. Spirit of Uganda exemplifies Empower African Children’s three strategic initiatives: to provide a transformative whole-child education, to create global connections, and to prepare students for a lifetime of leadership. Learn more about EAC’s wok in Uganda and beyond and how programs like Spirit of Uganda are creating powerful youth ambassadors and leaders for their communities. Spirit of Uganda will be performed at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on February 10. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit: http://www.krannertcenter.com/performance.aspx?id=201161593922186128174107141
February 17
Wisdom on Wall Street
Rev. Axel Gehrmann, Unitarian Universalist Church of Urbana-Champaign
The Occupy Wall Street movement has drawn national attention to the growing disparity of wealth within this country, as well as its moral and political implications. By reflecting on the actions of the financial industry during the housing boom and the housing bust, we may discover that the financial crisis provides both incentive and opportunity for far-reaching social and moral transformation.The Rev. Axel H. Gehrmann has served as minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Urbana-Champaign since 1996. He received his Master of Divinity degree from Starr King School for the Ministry, in Berkeley, CA in 1988, and has served congregations in Stuttgart, Germany and Watertown, NY.
February 24
From Structural Adjustment to the Post-Washington Consensus and Beyond: Paradigm Shifts in Development Aid
Matthew Winters, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Illinois
At the conclusion of the Cold War, new ideological space opened up for foreign aid to be more clearly dedicated to economic development and poverty alleviation. At the same moment, intellectual tides were turning against structural adjustment programming, which had stimulated little economic growth over the previous decade and, in fact, was accused of having led to increased, rather than decreased, immiseration. By the late 1990s, there had been a discursive shift away from the neoliberal economic policies of the Washington Consensus, and the international development industry was discussing good governance and the need to combat corruption; the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund replaced their structural adjustment lending with so-called poverty reduction lending. The turn of the millennium brought the poverty-focused Millennium Development Goals, and the first decade of the 21st century brought a series of conferences on aid effectiveness and the rising prominence of evidence-based foreign aid. How great are the changes that the development industry has seen over the past 30 years? How different is the post-Washington Consensus era from that which preceded it? And what are the implications of these changes for economic development and poverty alleviation?
March 2
Assisted Development: Foreign Aid in the New World
Ashwini Chhatre, Professor, Department of Geography, University of Illinois
Official development assistance, or foreign aid, has had a contentious history during the second half of the 20th century. Beginning with the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe after the WWII, foreign aid has been central to debates not only around poverty and development, but also as a manipulative tool of geopolitics and neocolonialism. Since the end of the century, however, the nature and scope of development assistance has shifted considerably. Whereas project-based interventions by national or international agencies were the norm 20 years ago, these have ceded prominence to a focus on collaborative initiatives (The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria), the rise of consumer-driven non-governmental programs (Fair Trade), and an emphasis on universal values (human rights, environment, democracy). Three historical developments have contributed to this shift, and will be the focus of this lecture: 1) the end of the cold war; 2) the rise of ‘emerging economies’ such as China, India, and Brazil; and 3) the globalization of production and consumption. I will end with a speculative assessment of the future of development assistance.
March 9
Comparing Religions in the Anthropocene
Robert McKim, Professor, Department of Religion and Department of Philosophy, University of Illinois
"The anthropocene," is a term that many are now giving our era, on account of the scale of the human impact on the planet. Robert McKim offers a comparative look at some of the world’s religions with respect to their helpfulness in guiding people as they deal with the global environmental crisis.
March 30
Can Globalization Promote Human Rights?
Rhoda Howard- Hassman, Canada Research Chair in International Human Rights (2003); Professor, Department of Global Studies and Balsillie School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University
April 6
The Making of a Successful Multilateral Environmental Agreement: Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and its Montreal Protocol
Sotiria Koloutsou-Vakakis, Lecturer and Research Scientist, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois
This lecture invites you to think and discuss on a number of questions, such as: How are multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) made? How does that affect their success? What is the yardstick for measuring MEA success? Why is the Montreal Protocol an effectiveness outlier among numerous MEAs of doubtful effectiveness? Why is it so hard to transfer the lessons learned from the Montreal Protocol to other MEAs?
April 13
Debts and Deficits: Combating Recession in the U.S., Latin America, and Eurozone
Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research
Mark Weisbrot offers a look at how each of the major regional world economies is fairing through the current economic recession as well as the approaches implemented to stop it. Who has the best plan and will it be enough?