Lander University will host internationally known scholar Dr. Alexis Dudden on Thursday, Nov. 14, for a lecture and participation in a panel discussion on building peace in the Korean Peninsula.
Drs. Daniel Pardieck, associate professor of environmental geology, and Franklin Rausch, assistant professor of history, are coordinating the event, funded by a grant of $1,054 from the U.S. Institute of Peace to Support Public Education for Peacebuilding (USIP).
Dudden, a professor of history at the University of Connecticut and visiting Fellow at Princeton University's Institute for International and Regional Studies, is an expert on international relations in East Asia and has written books on the subject. She obtained her doctoral degree in history from the University of Chicago and specializes in modern Japan and Korea and international history.
At 4 p.m., Dudden will give a public lecture on the causes of conflict in the Korean Peninsula, focusing on the division between North and South Korea and the conflict over different islands in the region. She will offer an assessment of the possibility of overcoming the difficulties and building lasting peace in that area. The lecture will be held in Room 300 in Lander's Carnell Learning Center.
At 7 p.m. that evening, Dudden will take part in a panel discussion focusing on what can be done to build peace in the region. The public is invited to participate in the discussion, which will be held in Room 150 in Lander's Science Center.
Po Hu, dean of International Programs at Lander and a native of China, said, "As Asian countries grow in global importance on every corner of the international stage, and with the U.S. government's foreign policy emphasis shifting from the West to Asia in a so-called 'America's Pacific Century,' our success in dealing with international issues largely depends upon our ability to understand and adapt to the cultures and systems that produce them."
USIP president Jim Marshall said his organization is pleased to support Lander's contribution to the national conversation around international conflict and methods for resolving conflicts nonviolently. USIP is the independent, nonpartisan conflict management center created by Congress to prevent and mitigate international conflict without resorting to violence.