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1. Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine with Professor Noura Erakat

Author:
Noura Erakat
Publication Date:
02-2024
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), Rutgers University School of Law
Abstract:
Justice for Some offers a new approach to understanding the Palestinian struggle for freedom, told through the power and control of international law. Focusing on key junctures across a century-long arc —from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to present-day wars in Gaza- the book shows how the strategic deployment of law has shaped current conditions. Over the past century, the law has done more to advance Israel's interests than the Palestinians'. But this outcome was never inevitable. Law is politics, and its meaning and application depend on the political intervention of states and people alike. Within the law, change is possible. International law can serve the cause of freedom when it is mobilized in support of a political movement. Presenting the promise and risk of international law, Justice for Some calls for renewed action and attention to the Question of Palestine.
Topic:
International Law, Politics, History, Political Movements, Palestinians, and Book Talk
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

2. Korea: A New History of South and North – A Book Talk by Victor Cha and Ramon Pacheco Pardo

Author:
Victor D. Cha, Ramon Pacheco Pardo, and Jonathan Corrado
Publication Date:
04-2024
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
Victor Cha and Ramon Pacheco Pardo will talk about their new book, Korea: A New History of South and North, which charts the balance of power politics that ravaged Korea in the late 19th-early 20th centuries, the division of the two Koreas and their divergent paths thereafter. The book also includes original data on unification and how the great powers view a future single Korea.
Topic:
History, Power Politics, Conflict, Unification, and Book Talk
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, and North Korea

3. A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy with Nathan Thrall

Author:
Nathan Thrall
Publication Date:
11-2024
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), Rutgers University School of Law
Abstract:
Immersive and gripping, Nathan Thrall’s Pulitzer prize winning book A Day in the Life of Abed Salama is an indelibly human portrait of the struggle over Israel/Palestine that offers a new understanding of the tragic history and reality of one of the most contested places on earth.
Topic:
Human Rights, Palestinians, and Book Talk
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and West Bank

4. Toward A Comparative History of Sexual Violence and War - A Book Talk with Feminist Chizuko Ueno

Author:
Chizuko Ueno and Carol Gluck
Publication Date:
05-2024
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
Speaker: Chizuko Ueno, Professor Emerita University of Tokyo, Chief Director of the Non Profit Organization, Women’s Action Network Moderator: Carol Gluck, George Sansom Professor Emerita of History, Columbia University Sexual violence in war is a perennial and a global phenomenon. The “comfort women” system of sexual slavery in Asia and sexual assaults by Allied soldiers in Europe during World War II, the rape camps in Bosnia in the 1990s war in the former Yugoslavia -- the list is long and continues to this day. Based on her book, A Comparative History of War and Sexual Violence, Ueno explores a range of issues, including the discourse of victimhood and the question of agency, rape as a weapon of war, and also love and “horizontal collaboration” between enemies. A provocative argument from Japan’s leading feminist and influential social activist. Speaker Bio: Chizuko Ueno is an emeritas professor at the University of Tokyo. Chief Director of the Non Profit Organization, Women’s Action Network ( http://wan.or.jp/) . A leading feminist theorist and an influential social critic, a prolific author of books and articles and a high-profile intellectual in Japan. In 1994, one of her many acclaimed books, Kindai Kazoku no Seiritsu to Shuen (The Rise and Fall of the Modern Family), won the coveted Suntory Academic Award. English publications are available as follows; The Modern Family in Japan: Its Rise and Fall (2009), Nationalism and Gender (2004). Asahi Shinbun Award winner in 2012 for her contribution to feminism and women’s studies, in addition to studies of care. Received Hän Honor from the Finnish government in 2019 for the contribution to promote gender equality. Selected as a member of American Academy of Art and Sciences in 2020. Event sponsored by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and co-sponsored by the Japan Research Program.
Topic:
War, History, Sexual Violence, Comfort Women, and Book Talk
Political Geography:
Japan, Europe, Asia, and Balkans

5. The New Crusades: Islamophobia and the Global War on Muslims — by Khaled A. Beydoun

Author:
Khaled A. Beydoun
Publication Date:
11-2023
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), Rutgers University School of Law
Abstract:
Discover a groundbreaking exploration of Islamophobia on a global scale in 'The New Crusades' by Khaled A. Beydoun. This seminal book offers an unprecedented deep dive into how both democratic and authoritarian regimes worldwide are exploiting Islamophobia to target Muslim populations. Beydoun meticulously analyzes the impact of the American War on Terror, revealing its pivotal role in amplifying and interconnecting anti-Muslim campaigns across continents. From Europe to Asia, the Middle East, and beyond, 'The New Crusades' provides a critical and intimate examination of Islamophobia's diverse manifestations. This is the first book to offer such a comprehensive analysis, making it a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the complexities of global Islamophobia and its far-reaching consequences.
Topic:
Authoritarianism, Democracy, Islamophobia, Muslims, and Book Talk
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, Asia, and Global Focus

6. Muslim Prisoner Litigation with Professor Spearlt

Author:
Spearlt
Publication Date:
11-2023
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), Rutgers University School of Law
Abstract:
Since the early 1960s, incarcerated Muslims have used legal action to establish their rights to religious freedom behind bars and improve the conditions of their incarceration, safeguarding the civil rights not only of imprisoned Muslims but of all those confined to carceral settings. Spearlt will discuss this missing chapter in the history of Islam in America while illuminating new perspectives on the role of religious expression and experience in the courtroom.
Topic:
Religion, History, Law, Incarceration, Litigation, Muslims, and Book Talk
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

7. The Racial Muslim with Professor Sahar Aziz, in conversation with Deborah Amos

Author:
Sahar Aziz and Deborah Amos
Publication Date:
04-2023
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), Rutgers University School of Law
Abstract:
The Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice at Rutgers University-Newark proudly continues its Race and Religion series with the next spring 2023 signature book talk featuring Sahar Aziz, Rutgers Professor of Law, Chancellor's Social Justice Scholar, founding Director of the Center for Security, Race, and Rights and acclaimed author of The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom. Professor Aziz will be in conversation with Deborah Amos, Ferris Professor of Journalism in Residence at Princeton University and Award-Winning International Correspondent for National Public Radio.
Topic:
Immigrants, Racism, Freedom of Religion, Muslims, and Book Talk
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

8. Public Interest and State Legitimation: Early Modern England, Japan, and China–Book Talk, Wenkai He

Author:
Wenkai He and Junyan Jiang
Publication Date:
12-2023
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
Wenkai He is an associate professor of Social Science in the Division of Social Science at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He conducts deep and contextualized historical analysis of state formation in England, Japan, and China from the 16th to 19th century. He will give a talk on his second book, Public Interest and State Legitimation: Early Modern England, Japan, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), which investigates the connections between state capacity, state legitimation and the expansion of political participation. He demonstrates how in each case a public interest-based discourse of state legitimation provided a common platform upon which state and society collaborated to provide public goods such as famine relief and large-scale infrastructural facilities. Each discourse of state legitimation entailed ‘passive rights’ that allowed subordinates to justify their demands on the state to redress welfare grievances. Conflicts between domestic welfare and other dimensions of public interest, however, could instigate cross-regional and cross-sectoral mass petitions for fundamental political reforms that were likewise justified by the state’s proclaimed duty to safeguard the public interest; these mass petitions might ultimately transform the state. Such a political ‘great divergence’ occurred in England (1760s-1780s) and Japan (1870s-1880s), but not in China.
Topic:
History, State Formation, Book Talk, and Public Interest
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Europe, Asia, and England

9. As Equals: The Oei Women of Java – A Book Talk by Daryl Yeap

Author:
Daryl Yeap, Lien-Hang Nguyen, and Jim Cheng
Publication Date:
11-2023
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
In this talk, Daryl Yeap presents her new book “As Equals: The Oei Women of Java”. The book tells the fascinating story of Oei Hui-lan (aka Madame Wellington Koo), Ida Oei and Lucy Ho Oei, daughters and wife of Asia's richest man at the turn of the 20th century -- Oei Tiong-ham. Born at the height of Sinophobic fears and at a time when the great majority of Chinese women continued to live under the Confucian veil, the three women defied social conventions and punctured through cultural stereotypes – showing to the world that they were the epitome of the modern woman - - sophisticated, educated, sexually aware, and above all, fiercely independent. The talk will focus on the early years and the circumstances that shaped their lives – from the elaborate social networks of the Chinese community in the Dutch East Indies to the colonial policies in South East Asia.
Topic:
Women, History, Colonialism, Book Talk, and Sinophobia
Political Geography:
China, Southeast Asia, and Rojava

10. Book Talk with Jessamyn Abel, Author of "Dream Super-Express"

Author:
Jessamyn Abel, Takuya Tsunoda, and Ariana King
Publication Date:
10-2023
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
A symbol of the "new Japan" displayed at World's Fairs, depicted in travel posters, and celebrated as the product of a national spirit of innovation, the Tōkaidō Shinkansen—the first bullet train, dubbed the "dream super-express"—represents the bold aspirations of a nation rebranding itself after military defeat, but also the deep problems caused by the unbridled postwar drive for economic growth. At the dawn of the space age, how could a train become such an important symbol? In Dream Super-Express (Stanford University Press, 2022), Jessamyn Abel contends that understanding the various, often contradictory, images of the bullet train reveals how infrastructure operates beyond its intended use as a means of transportation to perform cultural and sociological functions.
Topic:
History, Infrastructure, Sociology, Culture, Economic Growth, and Book Talk
Political Geography:
Japan and Asia