A talk by Kate Brittlebank, Senior Lecturer, School of History and Classics, University of Tasmania. From the South Asia Seminar.

A talk by journalist and author Roger Thurow. For more than thirty years, humankind has known how to grow enough food to end chronic hunger worldwide. Yet while the "Green Revolution" succeeded in South America and Asia, it never got to Africa. Now, an impending global food crisis threatens to make things worse. In the west we think of famine as a natural disaster, brought about by drought; or as the legacy of brutal dictators. But in this powerful investigative narrative, Roger Thurow and...

Alexis G. J. S. Sanderson is an Indologist and fellow at All Souls College at the University of Oxford. His field is early medieval religion in India and Southeast Asia, focusing on the history of Saivism, its relations with the state, and its influence on Buddhism and Vaishnavism. In the last 26 years, Alexis Sanderson has published over 1,400 pages of articles covering Saiva, Vaishnava, and Buddhist Tantra in South and Southeast Asia.

A talk by Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz. The current global financial crisis carries a "made in America" label. In "Freefall", Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz explains how America exported bad economics, bad policies, and bad behavior to the rest of the world, only to cobble together a haphazard and ineffective response when the markets finally seized up. Drawing on his academic expertise, his years spent shaping policy in the Clinton administration and at the World Bank, and...

A talk by American University professor Deborah Brautigam. Is China a rogue donor, as some media pundits suggest? Or is China helping the developing world pave a pathway out of poverty, as the Chinese claim? This well-timed book provides the first comprehensive account of China's aid and economic cooperation overseas. Deborah Brautigam tackles the myths and realities, explaining what the Chinese are doing, how they do it, how much aid they give, and how it all fits into their "going global"...

A talk by Michael Dodson, Associate Professor of History, Indiana University. From the South Asia Seminar.

Greg Beckett, Anthropology PhD and Collegiate Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences, and Ann Clark, Principal at Nicholas Clark Architects, Ltd, contextualize US-Haitian relations and Port-au-Prince itself, and discuss the nature of Haitian political and social life before the earthquake.

A talk by author and Earth Policy Institute founder Lester Brown. As fossil fuel prices rise, oil insecurity deepens, and concerns about climate change cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new energy economy is emerging. Wind, solar, and geothermal energy are replacing oil, coal, and natural gas, at a pace and on a scale we could not have imagined even a year ago. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, we have begun investing in energy sources that can last forever. Plan B...

Rodolfo Pastor is Minister of Culture, Arts and Sports of Honduras, and, since the coup of June 28 that overthrew the government of President Manuel Zelaya, he has also been Visiting Professor of History at Harvard University. Pastor discusses the current political situation of Honduras, the Honduran political system, as well as the upcoming election.

Special Address: Sônia Guajajara, Vice-Coordinator of COIAB: Coordenação das Organizações Indígenas da Amazônia Brasileira. Cosponsored by the University of Chicago Center for Latin American Studies and the Project on the Global Environment.

Panel 3: Science and Technology as a Basis for a New Development Model for the Amazon Tatiana Sá, Engenheira Agônoma, Diretora-Executiva da Embrapa, Brasília Adalberto Luis Val, Diretor do INPA, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Manaus, AM Mauro Barbosa de Almeida, Professor of Anthropology, UNICAMP Bertha Becker, Geógrafa, Professora Emérita da UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro, RJ Respondent: Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, Antropóloga, Professora da Universidade de Chicago

A talk by Indira Viswanathan Peterson, David B. Truman Professor of Asian Studies, Mount Holyoke College. From the South Asia Seminar.

Panel 2 - Social Movements and Chico Mendes' Legacy for the Sustainable Development of the Amazon: Mary Allegretti, Antropóloga, Consultora Independente, Curitiba, PR Ane Alencar, Geógrafa, Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia, Brasilia, DF Marianne Schmink, Professor, Director of the Tropical Conservation and Development Program, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL Ricardo Paes de Barros, Economista, Pesquisador do IPEA - Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada, Brasilia,...

Dain Borges, Director, Center for Latin American Studies Mark Hansen, Dean, Social Science Division Ambassador João Almino, Consul General of Brazil in Chicago Marina Silva, Senator, Green Party (from Brazil via video)

Panel 1 - Models of Development: An Assessment of the Last 20 Years of Public Policy for the Amazon Region: Roberto Smeraldi, Journalist, Director of Amigos da Terra - Amazônia Brasileira, São Paulo, SP Foster Brown, Pesquisador do Woods Hole Research Center e do Parque Zoobotânico, Universidade do Acre, Rio Branco, AC Phillip M. Fearnside, Ecólogo, Pesquisador do Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Manaus, AM Jorge Viana. Engenheiro Florestal, ex Governador do Acre, Rio Branco,...

20th Anniversary Roundtable with the Consuls General of Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary and Poland. A discussion concerning the historic events of two decades ago in Central and Eastern Europe, and the paths taken since then - through personal reflections and recollections of how the process developed, the spirit of the movements, the leaders, the political atmosphere, and the ways in which the transition has resonated through the past twenty years. Cosponsored by the Center for...

A talk by New York Times journalist Neil MacFarquhar. His book, "The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday" reveals a cross-section of unsung, dynamic men and women pioneering political and social change. There is the Kuwaiti sex therapist in a leather suit with matching red headscarf, and the Syrian engineer advocating a less political interpretation of the Koran. MacFarquhar interacts with Arabs and Iranians in their every day lives, removed from the violence...

A talk by Bhavani Raman, Associate Professor of History, Princeton University. From the South Asia Seminar.

Susanna Hecht, Professor of Urban Planning at the UCLA School of Public Affairs, delivers a lecture entitled, "Tropicality, Tropicalism: Forest Resurgence and the Politics of Latin American Conservation"

Carlos Fernando Chamorro is the son of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, editor of the independent daily La Prensa who was assassinated during the Somoza dictatorship. Chamorro is among the nation's most respected TV journalists, and a leading voice for press freedom and the protection of independent journalism in Nicaragua.

A talk by professor and author David Bosco. From the Berlin Airlift to the Iraq War, the UN Security Council has stood at the heart of global politics. Part public theater, part smoke-filled backroom, the Council has enjoyed notable successes and suffered ignominious failures, but it has always provided a space for the five great powers to sit down together. Five to Rule Them All tells the inside story of this remarkable diplomatic creation. Drawing on extensive research, including dozens of...

A talk by David Shulman, Renee Lang Professor of Humanistic Studies, Department of Comparative Religion, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From the South Asia Seminar.

Rafael Hernández is the editor of Temas, the leading Cuban magazine in the social sciences and the humanities, which is renowned for its contribution to intellectual controversy on the island. Hernández addresses Cuba's unique social diversity and the emergence of growing inequality that accompanied and has followed the crisis of the 1990s.

A talk by Richard Eaton, University of Arizona. From the South Asia Seminar.

A talk by C.S. Lakshmi, founder and Director of Sound & Picture Archive for Research on Women (SPARROW) in Mumbai.