Before appointment as Chief of Mission in Kabul, Ambassador Eikenberry had a thirty-five year career in the United States Army, retiring in April 2009 with the rank of Lieutenant General.  His military operational posts included commander and staff officer with mechanized, light, airborne, and ranger infantry units in the continental U.S., Hawaii, Korea, Italy, and Afghanistan as the Commander of the American-led Coalition forces from 2005-2007.

He has served in various policy and political-military positions, including Deputy Chairman of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Military Committee in Brussels, Belgium; Director for Strategic Planning and Policy for U.S. Pacific Command at Camp Smith, Hawaii; U.S. Security Coordinator and Chief of the Office of Military Cooperation in Kabul, Afghanistan; Assistant Army and later Defense Attaché at the United States Embassy in Beijing, China; Senior Country Director for China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense; and Deputy Director for Strategy, Plans, and Policy on the Army Staff.

He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, has master’s degrees from Harvard University in East Asian Studies and Stanford University in Political Science, and was a National Security Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. 

Ambassador Eikenberry earned an Interpreter’s Certificate in Mandarin Chinese from the British Foreign Commonwealth Office while studying at the  United Kingdom Ministry of Defense Chinese Language School in Hong Kong and has an Advanced Degree in Chinese History from Nanjing University in the People’s Republic of China.

His military awards include the Defense Distinguished and Superior Service Medals, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Ranger Tab, Combat and Expert Infantryman badges, and master parachutist wings.  He has received the Department of State Distinguished, Superior, and Meritorious Honor Awards, Director of Central Intelligence Award, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Distinguished Civilian Service and Department of the Army Meritorious Civilian Service Awards.  His foreign and international decorations include the Canadian Meritorious Service Cross, French Legion of Honor, Czech Republic Meritorious Cross, Hungarian Alliance Medal, Afghanistan’s Ghazi Amir Amanullah Khan and Akbar Khan Medals, and NATO Meritorious Service Medal.

Ambassador Eikenberry serves as a Trustee for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relation, the American Academy of Diplomacy, and the Council of American Ambassadors, and was previously the President of the Foreign Area Officers Association.  He has published numerous articles on U.S. military training, tactics, and strategy, and on Chinese ancient military history and Asia-Pacific security issues.  He has a commercial pilot’s license and instrument rating, and also enjoys sailing and scuba diving.  He is married to Ching Eikenberry.

Karl Eikenberry

Payne Distinguished Lecturer, Freeman Spogli Institute for 
International Studies at Stanford University

During its first term as a member of the UN Human Rights Council - the United States has capitalized on the human rights challenges that have erupted during the "Arab Spring" to change the agenda at the Human Rights Council and reform the body through action. The cases of Libya, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen have been brought to the top of the Human Rights Council agenda in the past 9 months. The new found ability of the Council to create effective mechanisms to confront crisis situations marks an important turning point for the Human Rights Council, as it becomes an effective vehicle through which the international community addresses human rights situations.

Speaker biography:

Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe is the first United States Permanent Representative to the UN Human Rights Council. She was previously an affiliated scholar at CISAC. Her research focused on norms on use of force, UN reform, and the international rule of law. Her Ph.D. dissertation addressed conflicting legal and ethical justifications for humanitarian military intervention.

She received her B.A. from Dartmouth College, a Masters in Theology from Harvard University, her J.D. from Stanford Law School, an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University, and her Ph.D. in Ethics from the University of California’s Graduate Theological Union.

What are the limits of literary freedom? Writers' claims for autonomy have encountered legal restrictions to their freedom of speech.  As suggested by Foucault, censorship has shaped the very notion of authorship. This talk will confront the diverging conceptions of the author’s responsibility in France and the beliefs in the power of writing that underlie them through the debates surrounding literary trials, including the cases of Béranger, Courier, Flaubert, Baudelaire, the naturalists, and the purge trials after World War II. In reaction to these conceptions, writers developed their own code of ethics, which contributed to the emergence of an autonomous literary field and to the construction of the figure of the public  intellectual, embodied by Zola and by Sartre.

Gisèle Sapiro is Research director at the CNRS and Director of Studies at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales. She is also head of the Centre européen de sociologie et de science politique, Paris, and been a visiting professor at the University of Freiburg and at NYU, among other places. Her interests include the sociology of intellectuals, literature, publishing and translation. She is the author of La Guerre des écrivains, 1940-1953 (Fayard, 1999; forthcoming in English translation with Duke University Press), La Responsabilité de l’écrivain. Littérature, droit et morale en France (19e-20e siècles) (Seuil, 2011), and of numerous articles published in journals of sociology, history, political science, aesthetics and literature, cultural studies and French studies. She is also editor or co-editor of Pour une histoire des sciences sociales (Fayard, 2004), Pierre Bourdieu, sociologue (Fayard, 2004), Translatio. Le marché de la traduction en France à l’heure de la mondialisation (CNRS Editions, 2008), Les Contradictions de la globalisation éditoriale (Nouveau Monde, 2009), and L’Espace intellectuel en Europe (La Découverte, 2009).

Co-sponsored by:  The Europe Center, Department of French and Italian, Taube Center for Jewish Studies, Center for the Study of the Novel, Department of Sociology, DLCL Research Unit on Literature and Ethics, Hebrew Literature Workshop, and the French Culture Workshop

Event Summary

Sapiro describes how writers during the inter-war period were targeted for social and political subversion, and even accused of being responsible for the French military defeat. The belief in the power of the written word, a legacy from the French Revolution, along with the Catholic fear of the dangers of reading, contributed to the perception of the printed word as a vehicle for inciting crime. Censorship was prevalent, with many prosecutions for writing and publishing carried out during the 19th century.

Sapiro traces how this repression led to the development of two competing ideas of professional ethics around writing: the idea of art for art's sake, and the political commitment of public intellectuals. She also describes the application of objective and subjective responsibility theories, ideas about criminality, and the absence of a professional ethics in writing, to the laws of free press during this period. Sapiro outlines several specific cases of prosecution against prominent authors in France, and the variety of arguments used in the defense - sometimes unsuccessfully.

A discussion session following the talk raised such questions as: How does the identity of the author relate to concepts of citizenship? Could the trials of authors be considered a form of censorship? Were there structural similarities between the trials and the public debate? Was there any reaction in the literary realm? Was there ever any criticism about the legal mechanism as the appropriate arena for discussing this moral debate? Why wasn't the debate held within the government?

Greek Nationalism had an early start in late 18th century because of the preponderance of the Greek language in Balkan institutions of learning. The early enlightenment was transmitted by learned prelates before the French Revolution launched its anti-clerical onslaught. Whereas 19th-century exponents of nationalism were children of the secular enlightenment, the second half of the century was dominated by the romantic and irredentist nationalism of Konstantine Paparrigopoulos that believed in the cultural, not racial, continuity of the Greeks. Turkish Nationalism was a late comer in the Balkans. The views of the Young Ottomans constituted at first ambiguous attempt before the Young Turks and Ziya Gökalp made their nationalist mark. Ataturk evicted religion from the Gökalp blueprint and kept the other two pillars, secular nationalism and modernization. Both Greek and Turkish 20th century nationalisms were influenced by the French post-1870 prototype.

Thanos Veremis is Professor Emeritus of Political History in Department of European and International Studies at the University of Athens and Founding Member of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP). He has held teaching and research positions at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London), Harvard University’s Center for European Studies, Princeton University’s the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, St. Antony’s College (Oxford), the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and the Hellenic Observatory of the LSE. From 2004 to 2010, he served as President of Greece’s National Council for Education. His publications include Modern Greece: A History since 1821 (with J. Koliopoulos, 2010); The Balkans: Construction and Deconstruction of States (2005), Greece: The Modern Sequel (with J. Koliopoulos, 2002), Greece (with M. Dragoumis, 1998) and The Military in Greek Politics (1997).

Mediterranean Studies Forum, 2011-12 Greece & Turkey Lecture Series. 
Co-sponsored by The Europe Center

The complex triangular relationship between China, Taiwan, and the United States has a long and storied history, and most recently, China’s meteoric economic rise has forced a reconsideration of positions by all parties involved. China is on target to become the largest world economy in terms of purchasing power parity within the next decade, and this explosive economic growth is coupled with military expansion that challenges the existing security circumstances in the region. These developments, in turn, have put Taiwan on a path towards economic dependence, international isolation, and security threats, and Beijing’s increasing leverage in Washington allows for yet further indirect influence on cross-Strait relations.

Dr. Yeong-kuang Ger will discuss the background surrounding these issues to provide a context for analysis on the future of this important triangular relationship, and will address in particular the policy moves made by all three parties in adjustment to this changing status quo, as well as the strategy of President Ma’s administration since his election in 2008. Dr. Ger will conclude with a discussion of the implications of these developments for the United States moving forward, with an emphasis on Taiwan’s geopolitical importance to the peace and prosperity of the region as a whole.

Dr. Yeong-kuang Ger is a Member of the Control Yuan of the Republic of China, and a Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Graduate Institute of National Development at National Taiwan University. Dr. Ger received his undergraduate degree from National Taiwan University, and his Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2009 he was awarded the Freedom Medal of Honor by the Philippine Council for World Freedom. 

In addition to his responsibilities with the Yuan and NTU, he acts as a Board Member of the American Association for Chinese Studies; and he is also a Member of the Review Committee, Center for Asian Studies, Chu Hai College in Hong Kong. Dr Ger has authored nine books and over 80 journal articles and conference papers on politics, culture, development and security in Taiwan and East Asia. His recent books include: Political Parties and Electoral Politics (2011); Security Challenges in the Asia Pacific Region: The Taiwan Factor with M.J. Vinod and S.Y. Surendra Kumar (2009); Ideology and Development: Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s Thoughts and Taiwan’s Developmental Experience (2005); and Party Politics and Democratic Development (2001).