June 14 – Online Guest Lecture: “Imagining the Indo-Pacific—U.S. Regional Vision and Politics” 🗓

June 14 – Online Guest Lecture: “Imagining the Indo-Pacific—U.S. Regional Vision and Politics” 🗓

Wade Turvold

Daniel K. Inouye Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies, Honolulu, Hawaiʻi

June 14, 2022, 6pm–7:30pm (s.t.)., online via Zoom. Access the event here.

Meeting-ID: 894 5748 9483
Code: 185247

Image of Wade TurvoldDuring the last decade, the U.S. has reinforced its diplomatic, economic, and military approach to the Asia-Pacific region. In accordance with the foreign policy rhetoric of partners like Japan and Australia, the Trump administration eventually published the U.S. “Free and Open Indo-Pacific Vision” (FOIP) in 2019. Since then, FOIP and its principles serve as guideline for U.S. regional policies in the Indo-Pacific, informed by its international agenda of promoting free navigation in maritime spaces and adherence to the existing international rules-based order.
Whereas some critics argue that the implementation of FOIP was a reactionary move to contain China’s ambitions in the region, the prevalent narrative in the discourse on regional security suggests that the rhetorical shift in U.S. diplomacy toward a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” should be considered in the wider context of globalization and the complex mechanisms of economic and national security interests.
Based on his professional experiences as academic instructor and former Captain of the U.S. Navy, Wade Turvold explains the principles and interests implicated by the U.S. “Free and Open Indo- Pacific” vision, and puts it into perspective with contemporary dynamics of the region

Wade Turvold is a retired U.S. Navy Captain and current faculty member of the Daniel K. Inouye Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu. He graduated with Merit from the U.S. Naval Academy (MD) in 1989 (B.Sc.), and with Distinction from the U.S. Naval War College (RI) in 2000 (M.A.). Mr. Turvold’s expertise covers issues of maritime security, strategy, national security and military operations. He served two educational assignments at the U.S. Army War College and Defence Academy (UK), and has extensive experience in the fields of security, operation and command as Naval Flight Officer. He completed numerous deployments throughout his career to the Indo-Pacific region, the Middle East, and to Europe, and participated in combat operations in Somalia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Philippines.

You can download the poster for this talk here.

Research Summer 2022

Research Summer 2022

The Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies welcomes several internationally renowned scholars in the summer term of 2022. Please join us for their contributions to our course and research program!

May 9
2–4pm, P3, Philosophicum I

Imagined Pasts: Historical Thinking and Black Immigrants
Herman L. Bennett,
City University of New York

May 10
2–4pm, 01-6182–4pm, P5, Philosophicum I

Ethnic Formation Now and the Problem with the Past 
Herman L. Bennet, City University of New York

4–6pm, P 205, Philosophicum I

Visual Arts as Research: Examples from the Studio
Ruth Stanford, Georgia State University, Atlanta

May 16
2-4pm, P3, Philosophicum I

Leaving America: Emigrant Culture When the Dream Is Over 
Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera, Universidad de Puerto Rico-Mayagüez 

May 17
10am–12pm, P106, Philosophicum I

Juanita Harrison’s “Great, Wide, Beautiful World”
Cathryn Halverson, Minot State University, North Dakota

2–4pm, P5, Philosophicum I

On the Puertoricanization of U.S. Higher Education
Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera, Universidad de Puerto Rico-Mayagüez

May 24
12–2pm, P207, Philosophicum I

From Lemonade to Homecoming: Beyoncé’s Spatial Politics
Patricia Coloma Peñate, Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia

4–6pm, P205, Philosophicum I

The Phenomenology of Heinrich Sisstrunk: A Portrait of a First Settler in the New World
Patricia Coloma Peñate, Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia

June 13
2–4pm, P3, Philosophicum I

The Muslims Are (Always) Coming!: How Religion as a Category of Analysis Complicates American Immigration Narratives
Moustafa Bayoumi, Brooklyn College, City University of New York

June 14
2–4pm, P5, Philosophicum I

“It don’t Gitmo better than this”: Why Guantanamo Bay May Be the Best Worst Place for Understanding Transnational American Studies
Moustafa Bayoumi, Brooklyn College, City University of New York

6–8pm, Online (Zoom, click here for access) Meeting ID: 894 5748 9483 Code: 185247

U.S. Regional Vision and Politics
Wade Turvold, Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, Honolulu, Hawai’i

June 15
12–2pm, 14SR01, BKM

Bonds of War: How Civil War Financial Agents Sold the World on the Union
David K. Thomson, Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, Connecticut

You can find a poster overview of all events here.

“Africans, Americans, and Colonial Germany” Symposium, Apr. 29, 2022

“Africans, Americans, and Colonial Germany” Symposium, Apr. 29, 2022

SYMPOSIUM

Africans, Americans, and Colonial Germany

An online symposium on Zoom (use meeting code 207060)

April 29, 2022

The Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies organizes a symposium on the heritage of Colonial Germany and the presence of people of African descent in German society. This trilateral investigation ranges from Germany to Africa, America and back, addresses the German engagement in the slavery trade and the institution of slavery, the violent effects of colonization still felt on site and visible in the spoils on display in the museums, and the systemic discrimination of Black people. Fellows of the Obama Institute, former and present colleagues will present aspects of their current research involving the relations between Namibia and Germany, the racist treatment of Africans, African Americans and Afro-Germans and the legacy of German colonialism in the Pacific.

We welcome Ruth Stanford (Georgia State University, USA), Heike Raphael-Hernandez (University of Würzburg, Germany), Herman Bennett (City University of New York, USA), Pia Wiegmink (University of Bonn, Germany) and a student presentation by Ahngeli Shivam (University of Mainz, Germany).

Download the poster with program here.

December 17 – “Winosburg, Ohio” – Community, Regionalism, and Cultural Mobility in Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio (1919) and Donald Ray Pollock’s Knockemstiff (2008) 🗓

December 17 – “Winosburg, Ohio” – Community, Regionalism, and Cultural Mobility in Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio (1919) and Donald Ray Pollock’s Knockemstiff (2008) 🗓

Jochen Achilles (University of Würzburg)

December 17, 2019
6–8 p.m., P 103 (Philosophicum I)

Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio and Donald Ray Pollock’s Knockemstiff are linked by common structural features as well as cultural concerns. Held side by side, both story cycles illustrate a regional history of downward mobility, as documented in Nancy Isenberg’s White Trash (2016) and J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy (2016). Phenomena unheard of in turn-of-the-century Winesburg, such as war trauma, dementia, drug addiction, and systemic violence dominate Knockemstiff. In complex ways both story cycles feed into current discussions of critical regionalism (Kenneth Frampton, Klaus Benesch, Klaus Lösch, Heike Paul) cultural mobility (Stephen Greenblatt), slow violence (Rob Nixon), and cruel optimism (Lauren Berlant).