FSI researchers work to understand continuity and change in societies as they confront their problems and opportunities. This includes the implications of migration and human trafficking. What happens to a society when young girls exit the sex trade? How do groups moving between locations impact societies, economies, self-identity and citizenship? What are the ethnic challenges faced by an increasingly diverse European Union? From a policy perspective, scholars also work to investigate the consequences of security-related measures for society and its values.
The Europe Center reflects much of FSI’s agenda of investigating societies, serving as a forum for experts to research the cultures, religions and people of Europe. The Center sponsors several seminars and lectures, as well as visiting scholars.
Societal research also addresses issues of demography and aging, such as the social and economic challenges of providing health care for an aging population. How do older adults make decisions, and what societal tools need to be in place to ensure the resulting decisions are well-informed? FSI regularly brings in international scholars to look at these issues. They discuss how adults care for their older parents in rural China as well as the economic aspects of aging populations in China and India.
One Alliance, Two Lenses
Thitinan Pongsudhirak
Stanford Humanities Center
424 Santa Teresa St.
Stanford, CA 94305
Thitinan Pongsudhirak is a high-profile expert on contemporary political,
economic, and foreign-policy issues in Thailand today He is also a
prolific author; witness his op ed, "Moving beyond Thaksin," in
the 25 February 2010 Wall Street Journal.
Pongsudhirak is not senior in years, but he is in stature. His
career path has been meteoric since he earned his BA in political science
with distinction at UC-Santa Barbara not long ago. In 2001 he received
the United Kingdom's Best Dissertation Prize for his doctoral thesis at
the London School of Economics on the political economy of Thailand's
1997 economic crisis.
Since 2006 he has held an associate professorship in international
relations at Thailand's premier institution of higher education,
Chulalongkorn University, while simultaneously heading the Institute of
Security and International Studies, the country's leading think tank on
foreign affairs.
His many publications include: "After the Red Uprising," Far East
Economic Review, May 2009; "Why Thais Are Angry," The New York
Times, 18 April 2009; "Thailand Since the Coup," Journal of
Democracy, October-December 2008; and "Thaksin: Competitive
Authoritarian and Flawed Dissident," in Dissident Democrats: The
Challenge of Democratic Leadership in Asia, ed. John Kane et al.
(2008). He has written on bilateral free-trade areas in Asia,
co-authored a book on Thailand's trade policy, and is admired by
Southeast Asianist historians for having insightfully revisited, in a
2007 essay, the sensitive matter of Thailand's role during World War
II.
He was a Salzburg Global Seminar Faculty Member in June 2009, Japan
Foundation's Cultural Leader in 2008, and a Visiting Research Fellow at
the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Singapore) in 2005. For
ten years, in tandem with his academic career, he worked as an analyst
for The Economist's Intelligence Unit.
Koret Workshop
The Koret Workshop is organized by the Korea Program to bring together an international panel of experts in Korean affairs. The Korea Program established the Koret Fellowship in 2008 with generous funding from the Koret Foundation.
Cultural Attraction and Regional Identity: "Arab" Film, Malay Pop, and Muslim Politics in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asian identity is thought to be far more elite-political than mass-cultural in nature. Is this conventional wisdom true? Audiovisual flows of popular culture across national borders have proliferated. Malaysia, for example, is flooded with Indonesian music and films, while there are a number of Malaysian actors in the Indonesian TV industry. Specifically Muslim culture has a growing presence in both countries’ soap operas, novels, songs, and cinema. In their films, Malaysian directors Yasmin Ahmad and Hatta Azad Khan reflect on notions of Islamic primacy and Malay supremacy in their country, while Arabo-Muslim-centered cinema draws audiences in Indonesia. These themes are associated in both countries with the spread of Islamic ethics, the implementation of Islamic laws, and the associated jockeying of Islamist groups for greater political leverage. Dr. Clark will use this evidence to highlight and explore the intersection of culture and politics in Southeast Asian regionalism—a dynamic, participatory, on-the-ground process that does not depend on what ASEAN diplomats say or do.
Marshall Clark is a lecturer in Indonesian studies in the School of International and Political Studies at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. Future and recent publications include Maskulinitas: Culture, Gender and Politics in Indonesia (forthcoming in 2010); a monograph on Indonesian literature, Wayang Mbeling (in Indonesian, 2008); and a chapter on Indonesian cinema in Popular Culture in Indonesia (2008). Before moving to Deakin, he taught at the University of Tasmania. His doctorate in Southeast Asian studies is from the Australian National University. At Stanford in Spring 2010 he will work on a joint research project with Dr. Juliet Pietsch on “Indonesia-Malaysia Relations: Culture, Politics and Regionalism in Southeast Asia.”
Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room
Exploring The Myths Of Japanese Entrepreneurship
Long before the current global economic crisis, Japan adopted important reforms in commerce, corporate governance, finance, and education. These changes stemming from the 1990s "lost decade" have created new opportunities for entrepreneurial activity.
Following a presentation of new cross-sectional data on 60,000 operating Japanese corporations started in the last decade, the panel will discuss the state of Japanese entrepreneurship. What companies are forming? Who is behind them? What are their potential fates?
This discussion is part of continuing research being undertaken by SPRIE's Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship and is presented in conjunction with Entrepreneurship Week at Stanford.
About the Panelists
Richard Dasher
Kenji E. Kushida is a Graduate Researcher at the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE) and a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at University of California Berkeley.
Bechtel Conference Center
Richard Dasher
U.S.-Asia Technology Management Center
School of Engineering
Stanford, CA
At Stanford University, Dr. Dasher has directed the US-Asia Technology Management Center since 1994, and he has been Executive Director of the Center for Integrated Systems since 1998. He holds Consulting Professor appointments at Stanford in the Departments of Electrical Engineering (technology management), Asian Languages and Cultures (Japanese business), and at the Asia-Pacific Research Center for his work with the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He is also faculty adviser to student-run organizations such as the Asia-Pacific Student Entrepreneurship Society and the Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford.
From 2004, Dr. Dasher became the first non-Japanese person ever asked to join the governance of a Japanese national university, serving a term as a Board Director (理事) of Tohoku University . He continued as a member of the Management Council (経営協議会) until March 2010, and he now serves as Senior Advisor to the President (総長顧問) of Tohoku University. Dr. Dasher has been a member of the high-profile Program Committee of the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) of the Japanese Ministry of Education (MEXT) since 2007. He has served on the Multidisciplinary Assessment Committee of the C$500 million Canada Foundation for Innovation Leading Edge Fund in 2007 and again in 2010, and as a member of the Phase I and Phase II Review Panels of the C$200 million Canada Excellence Research Chairs Program in 2008 and again in 2010. He was a distinguished reviewer of the Hong Kong S.A.R. study on innovation in 2008–09, and since 2007 he has been a member of the Foresight Panel of the German Ministry of Education and Research. From 2001–03, Dr. Dasher was on the International Planning Committee advising the Japanese Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy in regard to the formation of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology.
As allowed by Stanford policy, Dr. Dasher maintains an active management consulting practice, through which he is an advisor to start-up companies and large firms in the U.S., Japan, and China. He has been a board director of Tokyo-based ZyCube Inc. since 2006, and he is founder and chairman of Pearl Executive Shuttle in Valdosta, Georgia, U.S.A. In the non-profit sector, he is a Board Director of the Japan Society of Northern California and the Keizai Society U.S. – Japan Business Forum, and he is an advisor to organizations such as the Chinese Information and Networking Association, the Silicon Valley – China Wireless Technology Association, and the International Foundation for Entrepreneurship in Science and Technology (iFEST). In 2010 he served as a consultant to The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) in regard to their establishment of a worldwide remote mentoring program for entrepreneurs. Dr. Dasher frequently gives speeches and seminars throughout Japan and Asia, as well as in the U.S. Recent appearances include the Nikkei Shimbun Business Innovation Forum, the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, speaking tours of Japan co-sponsored by METI and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, and guest lectures at Chubu University, Kochi University of Technology, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, and the University of Tokyo.
From 1990–93, Dr. Dasher was a board director of two privately-held Japanese companies in Tokyo, at which he developed new business in international licensing of media rights packages and other intellectual properties. From 1986–90, he was Director of the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute advanced field schools in Japan and Korea, which provide full-time language and area training to U.S. and select Commonwealth country diplomats assigned to those countries. He received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Linguistics from Stanford University and, along with Prof. Elizabeth Closs Traugott, he is co-author of the often-cited book Regularity in Semantic Change (Cambridge University Press, 2002). He received the Bachelor of Music degree in clarinet and orchestra conducting from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he served on the faculty from 1978-85.
The Long Shadow of Vietnam
Please join Marvin Kalb to discuss the impact of the Vietnam War on presidential/strategic decisions about national security issues.
Marvin Kalb is also a contributing news analyst for National Public Radio and Fox News Channel. In addition, he is frequently called upon to comment on major issues of the day by many of the nation's other leading news organizations.
Kalb had a distinguished 30-year broadcast career, working for both CBS News and NBC News, where he served as Chief Diplomatic Correspondent, Moscow Bureau Chief, and moderator of Meet the Press. Among his many honors are two Peabody Awards, the DuPont Prize from Columbia University, the 2006 Fourth Estate Award from the National Press Club and more than a half-dozen Overseas Press Club awards. He has lectured at many universities, here and abroad. Kalb was the founding director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
A graduate of the City College of New York, Kalb has an M.A. from Harvard and was zeroing in on his Ph.D. in Russian history when he left Cambridge in 1956 for a Moscow assignment with the State Department. The following year, he joined CBS News, the last correspondent hired by Edward R. Murrow. Kalb has authored or co-authored 10 nonfiction books and two best-selling novels. His latest book, The Media and the War on Terrorism (co-edited with Stephen Hess), was the recipient of the 2004 Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism. He is currently engaged in research for a book on U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and its impact on American politics and foreign policy.
Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room