Global Issues Colloquium

Magruder Hall 2001
Thursdays, 7:00 pm

January 22
Wolfgang Hoeschele, Geography -- Truman State University and Ma’ikwe Schaub Ludwig, Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage
Local Responses to International Financial Crises: Past and Present
Hoeschele, a Geographer, will examine how ordinary people respond to international financial crises like the current global crisis. Using a discussion of the use of local currencies in Austria during the Great Depression and in Argentina during the 2000-2003 crisis as his starting point, he will advance theoretical perspectives on the economy that open up more possibilities for local action now or in the future. In addition Ludwig, an author and Sustainability Educator, will share her real life experience of living in a local ecovillage whose goal is to demonstrate and promote ecologically sustainable lifestyles. The lessons of Dancing Rabbit, and similar projects, can be replicated elsewhere and contribute to preventing another Great Depression.

February 12
Julie Flowerday, Anthropology & Sociology -- Truman State University
Writing Colonial History under Postcolonial Conditions: The Unfinished Study
In this presentation Flowerday, a Sociologist, asks why David Lorimer, a British soldier and scholar who studied a language classed as a restprache in a small community of Hunza, located in the present-day Northern Areas of Pakistan, never published the results of his 1930s research. The answer she offers is based on unresolved borders separating the nation-states of Pakistan and India, a condition that continues to this day.

March 19
Jason McDonald, History -- Truman State University
The Immigration Debate Reconsidered: A Global Perspective
McDonald, a historian, takes a global but historical approach to immigration in the United States and other major receiving regions of the world, identifying similarities and differences in broad trends, thereby setting the US experience in a global context. He will also examine the relationship between migration and globalization, examining the influence of migration upon international relations, the de-territorialization of culture, and transnational communities.

April 16
Jennifer Leigh Disney, Winthrop University
Women’s Activism and Feminist Agency in Mozambique and Nicaragua
Based on her recent book by the same title, Disney’s presentation will trace the mobilization of women in two revolutionary contexts, comparing the strategies and outcomes of various organizational forms developed in Mozambique and in Nicaragua over the past thirty years. She will also explore how the military struggles against colonialism and imperialism fostered feminist agency leading to the evolution of each movement and how it changed in a post-revolutionary climate.