Faculty Achievements: Spring 2021

Jane Gordon (and Lewis Gordon) are co-executive editors of the new open-access journal, Philosophy and Global Affairs. In their introduction to Volume 1 of the new journal, they describe the project as “devoted to theoretical analyses and critical reflection on issues of global significance to the contemporary world.”

The British International Studies Association (BISA) organized an online roundtable this past March on Christine Sylvester’s book, Curating and Re-Curating the American Wars in Vietnam and Iraq.

Dr. Sylvester also participated in three separate panels at the remote ISA annual conference in April. She was joined at the conference by students in her graduate course on Critical War Studies, who attended the four-day remote conference, thanks to the department’s sponsorship.

Beth Ginsberg co-organized a career panel entitled “Diverse Journeys: Social Sciences Alumni Career Panel.” She also participated in “The Capital Insurrection: The Political Aftermath,” an online panel sponsored by the Department of Political Science.

Fred Lee and the Indigeneity, Race, Ethnicity, and Politics MA Program organized a talk on April 1, 2021, given by Dr. Geraldine Heng, the Perceval Professor at the University of Texas. The title of her talk was “The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages.” There were 57 attendees at the event.

Jeremy Pressman and several colleagues wrote in the Monkey Cage blog of the Washington Post about protests during the Trump Administration. The piece is entitled “The Trump years launched the biggest sustained protest movement in U.S. history. It’s not over.”

Zehra Arat presented two papers at virtual conferences: (1) “What is in a Name: Reclaiming Third World Feminism” (at the 10th International Feminist Journal of Politics conference on “Feminist Connections in Global Politics,”  February 17-20, 2021) and  (2) “Promoting Human Rights in the Age of Neoliberalism: The UN’s Balancing Act,” (at the annual convention of the International Studies Association,” April 5-9, 2021).

Dr. Arat and Shareen Hertel co-authored a paper entitled “Connecting the Theory and Practice of Human Rights: Scholar-NGO Partnerships,” which they also presented at the International Studies Association conference.

Meina Cai received an award from the Charles Koch Foundation at the University of Pittsburgh for her project entitled “The Center for Governance and Markets.”

Dr. Cai’s article entitled “The Politics of Land Property Rights” (co-authored with Ilia Murtazashvili and Jennifer Murtazashvili) was published in the Journal of Institutional Economics. The article was a finalist for the 2021 Elinor Ostrom Prize.

Dr. Cai and Prakash Kashwan earned UConn Humanities Institute Faculty Fellowships for the 2021-2022 academic year. 

UConn President Thomas Katsouleas complimented Dr. Kashwan for his work on the intersection between humans, politics and nature.  According to Katsouleas, Kashwan’s “commitment to thoroughly studying a proposed solution to environmental problems instead of rushing for the quick fix ensures that solutions are equitable and consider unintended consequences.”

Dr. Kashwan published two journal articles earlier this year:  (1) “Climate Justice in the Global North: An Introduction” in Case Studies in the Environment (2021); and (2) “The UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants, National Policies, and Forestland Rights of India’s Adivasis” in The International Journal of Human Rights (2021).

Dr. Kashwan was quoted in the Huffington Post on the recent international debates about net zero climate policies. A twitter thread he wrote elaborating on his comments in the HuffPost report can be found here: https://twitter.com/PKashwan/status/1378375588495437824. He was also quoted on the social and political dimensions of forest restoration in a report published on January 29, 2021 in the National Academy of Sciences blog Journal Club: http://blog.pnas.org/2021/01/to-predict-the-success-of-tree-planting-schemes-look-to-villagers-involvement/

Dr. Kashwan’s research on solar geoengineering governance received  coverage in The New York Times in light of the March 25 release of a National Academy of Sciences report on the topic. (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/climate/geoengineering-sunlight.html and  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/solar-geoengineering-should-be-investigated-scientists-say/). 

Dr. Kashwan gave an invited Public Seminar, “Beyond the Romance of Ideologies: The Ostrom Approach to the Commons and its Applications to Contemporary World Challenges” at the Centre for the Study of Governance & Society at King’s College in London on Feb 25, 2021. (https://csgs.kcl.ac.uk/event/prakash-kashwan-zoom-seminar-beyond-the-romance-of-ideologies-the-ostrom-approach-to-commons-and-its-applications-to-contemporary-world-challenges/

Michael Morrell was elected to a three-year term in the University Senate.

Yonatan Morse recently published an article entitled “Rebuilding, Rebranding, and Competitive Landscapes: A Set-Theoretic Analysis of Authoritarian Successor Parties” in the journal Democratization. He also wrote a post for the blog Presidential Power titled “Should we Take Decentralization in Cameroon Seriously?” on February 2, 2021 (https://presidential-power.net/?p=11553) and he was quoted in a BBC piece titled “Electoral Autocracy: The Downgrading of India’s Democracy” on March 16, 2021 (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56393944).