Prof. Zehra Arat, who is a 2023-24 UConn Humanities Institute Fellow working on a book manuscript on human rights norms in Turkey, was nominated for the Ann Snitow Prize, for an outstanding feminist intellectual/artist and activist working in the United States (Decision will be made in December). Prof. Arat also published an article with Prof. Shareen Hertel: “Rights Beyond Words: Mapping Human Rights Scholar-Organization Partnerships,” in Human Rights Quarterly 45:2 (May 2023), 239-259. Finally, Prof. Arat attended the APSA conference in September and presented a paper co-authored with San Lee, “Intersectionality: A Feminist Analytical Tool for Advancing Women’s Rights”; a single authored paper, “Between Human Rights and Neoliberalism: The UN’s Balancing Act;” chaired a panel “Citizenship beyond Borders: Theorizing Un/Belonging in the World;” and served as the discussant of the panel on “Populism and Right-Wing Politics with a Gender Lens”
Prof. Talbot Andrews was an invited speaker at a Resources for the Future event in D.C. (Sept 28-29) for academics and policymakers on how to effectively govern solar geoengineering to prevent climate change. Also, Prof. Andrews’ article “The road to reelection is paved with good intentions” was accepted at the Journal of Politics. In this article, Andrews finds that voters care not only about policy outcomes, but also take into account their incumbent’s intentions when casting their vote.
Prof. Shareen Hertel and Prof. Sebastian Wogenstein (UConn Literatures, Culture & Languages) co-direct the Connecticut Baden-Wurttemberg Human Rights Research Consortium, which has just been awarded a combined grant of $516,015.00 jointly through the Baden Wurttemberg Ministry for Science Research and the Arts and UConn’s Office of Global Affairs ($247,586) to fund continued programming in public outreach projects, exhibitions, and working groups on human rights themes. Prof. David Richards and Prof. Zehra Arat are also participants in several of the four working groups central to the Consortium (e.g., on Human Rights and Science and Technology / Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights / Human Rights and International Relations / Human Rights Education and Solidarity) while POLS Doctoral Student Cory Runstedler is a member of the HRRC Graduate Student Working Group.
Prof. Kimberly Bergendahl, as one of the first CLAS’s Accessibility Fellows, helps train faculty, advocate for accessibility resources, and encourage integrating disability into the UConn experience.
Prof. Evan Perkoski was interviewed on Connecticut Public Radio’s Where We Live program on the recruitment tactics of violent right-wing organizations. He has co-edited a special report that will soon be distributed to the US Department of Homeland Security on the link between the recruitment patterns and behavior of terrorist organizations.
Prof. Jeremy Pressman and Prof. David Richards presented a paper co-written with graduate students Spencer Hayes and Minju Lee at APSA in August. The paper was titled “Evaluating Israel’s Claim of Exceptional Treatment about Human Rights Violations”.
In May, Prof. David Richards and graduate students Spencer Hayes and San Lee participated in a workshop on human rights measurement sponsored by the Center for Nonviolence & Peace Studies at the University of Rhode Island. In August, Prof. David Richards participated in a workshop sponsored by Arizona State University on “Human Rights and Democratic Backsliding”.
Arthur House, the former chief cybersecurity risk officer for the state of Connecticut and who is currently teaching a POLS course in cybersecurity at UConn was cited in a Hartford Courant article on massive cybersecurity breach in CT.