Emory Report

September 7 , 1999

Volume 52, No. 3

International affairs A look ahead for the Halle Institute The Halle Institute for Global Learning enters its third year this fall with an ambitious schedule of international visitors, faculty research and study programs, and special events. According to Director Marion Creekmore, the institute's 1999-2000 highlights include a series of programs on South Asia, a new faculty initiative in Germany and a high-profile seminar on peace and security in the Korean peninsula. Heading the programs on South Asia will be Indian scholar and political commentator Rajmohan Gandhi (grandson of Mahatma Gandhi) who comes to Emory Jan. 24 through Feb. 11, 2000, as the institute's second Distinguished Halle Fellow. In addition to being the grandson of a leader revered around the world, Gandhi is a research scholar and political commentator, a biographer of his grandfather and other leaders of the Indian independence movement, a former member of the Indian parliament, and the 1990 Indian chief delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva. His areas of expertise include Indian/Pakistani relations, independence movements on the Indian subcontinent, ethnic conflict and resolution, national security and economic issues. During his visit, Gandhi will participate in a number of classes and seminars across campus as well as give public lectures and press interviews; he will also collaborate on events with other educational institutions in the area. Plans are under way for several activities focusing on the Gandhi legacy of nonviolent social protest, including a program in which Rajmohan Gandhi and former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young will analyze the role of this philosophy in the Indian independence and American civil rights movements. To set the stage for Gandhi's visit, in August the institute hosted a luncheon for Sri Ram Jethmalani, Indian minister for Law, Justice and Company Affairs, who discussed the Indian-Pakistani conflict over Kashmir. In mid-October the institute will welcome Stephen Cohen, a top U.S. scholar on South Asia, to campus for a series of classroom and public lectures. An expert on security issues affecting the Indian subcontinent, Cohen heads the South Asian program at The Brookings Institution in Washington. In addition to the focus on the Indian subcontinent, the Halle Institute is organizing a Nov. 11 panel discussion on peace and stability in the Korean peninsula, where the demilitarized zone between South and North Korea is the most heavily armed border in the world. Panel participants include several world-renowned experts on Korea who also have strong ties to Emory: President Jimmy Carter, former Ambassador to South Korea and Emory President Emeritus James Laney, and Emory alumnus Lee Hong-koo '57Ox, '59C, a prominent scholar who now serves as South Korean ambassador to the United States. Turning to Europe, the Institute is entering its third year of an intensive faculty research seminar series headed by Distinguished Halle Professor Thomas Remington. Each year about a dozen faculty members are chosen for the program, which encourages cross-disciplinary discussion of individual research related to questions of identity and institutional development in contemporary Europe. As with previous seminar participants, the 1999-2000 group will travel together to Europe next summer to meet with European scholars engaged in research complementary to theirs, and then will publish their research under the aegis of the Halle Institute. On Aug. 30, Emory hosted Walther Leisler Kiep, former parliamentarian and treasurer of the largest German political party, at a Halle luncheon. Currently chairman of the Atlantik-Bru¨cke e.V., an organization that seeks to increase American awareness and understanding of contemporary Germany, Kiep on the challenges facing Germany and a uniting Europe (see story above). The institute is launching a new faculty study abroad program to Germany next spring, with selected faculty members participating in an intensive program that will include meetings with senior political, business and educational leaders of the country and visits to German universities. In the spring of 2001, the institute will offer a similar program for another faculty group to India. Return to September 7, 1999, contents page