"Networks in the Postcolonial World," Topic of Saturday's Public Seminar Series at Williams College

Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., April 13, 2010 — On April 17, Vijay Prashad, professor of international studies at Trinity College, will deliver a lecture on “The Poorer Nations.” The lecture is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. and is part of a series of panels and discussions titled, “From Bandung to Tehran: Transnational Networks in the Postcolonial World.” All events will take place in Griffin Hall, room 3, on the Williams College campus and are open to the public.

Prashad specializes in South Asian history, planetary history, theories of globality and globalization, and race and racialization. The author of 11 books, he has most recently published “The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World.” The book, an alternative history of the Cold War from the point of view of the world’s poor, was selected by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop as the nonfiction book of 2008.

He is the author of many scholarly articles, a columnist for Frontline Magazine, and a contributing editor of Himal South Asia and for Naked Punch Asia. Prashad is on the board of the National Priorities Project, a research organization devoted to clarifying federal data so people can understand how their tax dollars are spent.

Prashad has also taught at Syracuse, Cornell, and New York universities. He received his B.A. from Pomona College in 1989 and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1994.

The day’s events will also include three panels.

The first panel, “The 1950s,” will be held at 9 a.m. Panelists include Devyn Benson, assistant professor of history and Africana Studies at Williams; Robson Taj Frazier, assistant professor at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism; and Christopher Lee, assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science.

Magnus Bernhardsson, associate professor of history at Williams, will moderate the first panel. Bernhardsson’s academic interests include the political and cultural history of Hashmite Iraq. He is the author of a number of books, including “Reclaiming a Plundered Past: Archaeology and Nationalism in Modern Iraq.” At Williams, he teaches courses on The Modern Middle East and Iraq and Iran in the Twentieth Century. Bernhardsson received his B.A. from the University of Iceland in 1990 and his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1999.

The second panel, “The 1960s,” is scheduled for 10:45 a.m. Panelists include Ryan Irwin, Dissertation Fellow at Yale University; Judy Wu, associate professor of history at Ohio State University; Mark Lawrence, associate professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin; and Jeffrey Byrne, senior instructor at the University of British Columbia at Vancouver.

Jessica Chapman, assistant professor of history at Williams, will moderate the second panel. Chapman’s academic interests include modern Vietnam, French decolonization, and the Cold War. She is working on a book titled, “Debating the Will of Heaven: South Vietnamese Politics and Nationalism in International Perspective.” At Williams, she teaches courses on The United States and the World, 1914 to the Present and The Cold War, 1945-1991. Chapman received her B.A. from Valparaiso University in 1999 and her Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 2006.

The last panel of the day, “The 1970s,” will be held at 2:30 p.m., immediately following Prashad’s lecture. Panelists include Victor McFarland, Ph.D. candidate at Yale University; Paul Chamberlin, postdoctoral fellow at Williams; Peiro Gleijeses, professor of American Foreign Policy at the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

Douglas Little, Professor of History at Clark University, will moderate the panel. Little’s academic interests include American diplomatic history and America’s response to radical Islam between the 1967 Six Day War and the 1979 Iranian Revolution. His most recent book, published in 2002, is “American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945.” At Clark, he teaches courses on War and Peace in the Middle East and U.S. Policy in the Middle East Since 1945. Little received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin in 1972 and his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1978

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Event: Katie

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