David William Cohen, director of the new International Institute and professor of history, will be the first presenter in the “Rackham Conversations on Academic Priorities” series 4–6 p.m. Oct. 19 in Rackham Amphitheater.
His topic: “Constituting International Expertise: Who, What, Where, Why, How?”
Cohen will present a brief position paper outlining his thoughts on a number of questions faced by scholars. Faculty respondents to his presentation include Alan V. Deardorff, chair and professor of economics; Homer A. Neal, vice president for research and professor of physics; Rebecca J. Scott, professor of history; and Edward A. Snyder, director of the William Davidson Institute and associate professor of business economics and public policy. John H. D’Arms, dean of the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies, will moderate the discussion.
According to Cohen, “Important changes, including the end of the Cold War, have been accompanied by the growth of expertise in such fields as conflict resolution, debt, environmentalism, health, human rights, military conversion, human oppression, and refugee problems. Such expertise is, arguably, coming to constitute itself as an international civil society.”
That society, Cohen says, incorporates important tensions in local, national, international and professional values. References to global conversations and global norms, he says, are merely assertions of universal standards and values, and scholars have an important role in illuminating the status of these assertions.
