Stanford University's Korean Studies Program (KSP) looks forward to welcoming its Koret and Pantech Fellows for the 2011-2012 academic year. Joon-woo Park, a former senior diplomat from Korea with over thirty years of foreign policy experience, will arrive in September to serve as the program's Koret Fellow. While at Stanford, he will conduct research on South Korean foreign policy, including increased U.S.-Korean collaboration on China and prospects for East Asian regional integration based on the European Union model. Katharina Zellweger, currently residing in Pyongyang as the North Korea country director for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, will join KSP in November as the Pantech Fellow. She is a Swiss national who has spent over fifteen years conducting humanitarian work in North Korea. Her research will explore how aid intervention can stimulate positive sustainable change in that country. The Koret Foundation of San Francisco and the Pantech Company and Curitel Communications (known as the Pantech Group) of Korea generously fund these fellowships.

The Korean Studies Program (KSP) at Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) announces that Katharina Zellweger, currently the North Korea country director for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), will be the program’s 2011–2012 Pantech Fellow.

Zellweger joins KSP this November after five years of living in Pyongyang, where she works side-by-side with a large North Korean staff on aid and development projects. Through her SDC and earlier work, she has witnessed modest economic and social changes not visible to most North Korea observers. Her research at Shorenstein APARC will draw on her over fifteen years of humanitarian work in North Korea and explore how aid intervention can stimulate positive sustainable change there.

While heading SDC’s Pyongyang office, Zellweger has focused on sustainable agricultural production and income generation projects. She is well versed in observing and reporting on political, social, and economic trends and developments. As the Swiss government’s top official living in North Korea, Zellweger also represents her country at official meetings with North Korean leaders when the Swiss ambassador, who resides in Beijing, is unavailable.

Prior to joining the SDC, Zellweger worked for nearly thirty years at the Caritas Internationalis office in Hong Kong, the center of its international activities. She organized and led aid and development projects related to North Korea for ten years there. Her work included collaborating with the media to generate national and international awareness about North Korean humanitarian issues.

Zellweger holds an MA in international administration from the School of International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont, and a Swiss diploma in trade, commerce, and business administration. She also apprenticed with Switzerland’s national agricultural management program.

In 2006, the Vatican named Zellweger as a Dame of St. Gregory the Great, and in 2005 South Korea’s Tji Hak-soon Justice and Peace Foundation honored her with its annual award. She is an active member of the International Women’s Forum and of the Kadoorie Charitable Trust.

“No one in the world has more experience than Director Zellweger in dealing with North Korean humanitarian and development issues,” says KSP director Gi-Wook Shin. “We are delighted that she will join us to reflect on and teach about her experiences and insights gained over a lifetime of work in that troubled country.”

Established in 2004, the Pantech Fellowship for Mid-Career Professionals, generously funded by Pantech Co., Ltd., and Curitel Communications, Inc. (known as the Pantech Group), is intended to cultivate a diverse international community of scholars and professionals committed to and capable of grappling with challenges posed by developments in Korea.

In September, Joon-woo Park, a former senior diplomat from Korea, will join the Korean Studies Program (KSP) at Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) as the program’s 2011–2012 Koret Fellow.

Park brings over thirty years of foreign policy experience to Stanford, including a deep understanding of the U.S.-Korea relationship, bilateral relations, and major Northeast Asian regional issues. In view of Korea’s increasingly important presence as a global economic and political leader, Park will explore foreign policy strategies for furthering this presence. In addition, he will consider possibilities for increased U.S.-Korea collaboration in their China relations and prospects for East Asian regional integration based on the European Union (EU) model. He will also teach a Center for East Asian Studies course during the winter quarter, entitled Korea's Foreign Policy in Transition.

Park first served overseas in the mid 1980s at the Korean embassy in Washington, DC, during which time he studied at the prestigious Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at the Johns Hopkins University. He played a critical role in strengthening Korea’s foreign relations over the years, serving in numerous key posts, including that of ambassador to the EU and Singapore, director-general of the Asian and Pacific Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT), and presidential advisor on foreign affairs. Park worked closely for over twenty years with Ban Ki-moon, the former South Korean diplomat who is now the secretary-general of the United Nations.

In 2010, while serving as ambassador to the EU, Park signed the EU-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in Brussels. That same year he also completed the Framework Agreement, strengthening EU-South Korea collaboration on significant global issues, such as human rights, the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, and climate change. Park’s experience with such major bilateral agreements comes as the proposed Korea-U.S. FTA is nearing ratification.

Park worked for seven years at the Korean embassies in Tokyo and Beijing, gaining significant in-the-field expertise with Northeast Asian regional issues. During his tenure as director-general of MOFAT’s Asian and Pacific Affairs Bureau, he handled sensitive, longstanding issues relating to regional history, such as the depiction of historical events in Japanese textbooks and the treatment of the history of the Goguryeo kingdom in China’s Northeast Project. Such issues of history and memory are among Shorenstein APARC’s current key areas of research.

In addition to his studies at SAIS, Park holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in law, both from Seoul National University. He also served as a Visiting Fellow at Keio University in 1990.

“With South Korea playing an ever larger role not only in East Asia but also globally, we could not be more pleased to have Ambassador Park join us,” says KSP director Gi-Wook Shin. “He is one of his country’s most experienced and capable diplomats, and his presence at Shorenstein APARC will allow us to put a sharper forcus on Korea’s role in world affairs.”

The Koret Fellowship was established in 2008 through the generosity of the Koret Foundation to promote intellectual diversity and breadth in KSP, bringing leading professionals in Asia and the United States to Stanford to study U.S.-Korea relations. The fellows conduct their own research on the bilateral relationship, with an emphasis on contemporary relations, with the broad aim of fostering greater understanding and closer ties between the two countries.

On Monday, June 13, 2011, as part of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory's colloquium series, Richard Morse from the Program on Energy on Sustainable Development led the talk on “Addressing the ‘Coal Renaissance’ in a Post-Kyoto World.” Morse discussed the outlook for global carbon policy, how international coal markets are evolving, and what strategies and technologies might realistically be used to reduce emissions from coal. This Included discussions on the latest developments in Europe, China, and the US in carbon policy, and an analysis of international coal markets highlighting key issues for the future of Chinese energy consumption.

On June 4, 2011, SPICE co-sponsored a conference, “Teaching Human Rights in a Global Context,” with the Program on Human Rights (Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, FSI), the Division of International Comparative and Area Studies (ICA), and the Stanford Humanities Center. Fifty community college and high school faculty attended a full day of lectures, panel discussions, and small-group work. Dr. Helen Stacy, Director of the Program on Human Rights, set the context for the conference, and her remarks were followed by a lecture on “The Globalization of Human Rights Education” by Professor Francisco Ramirez, Stanford School of Education. 

Educators discussed, shared, and learned about each other’s experiences of teaching human rights in a wide range of world areas, academic disciplines, and classroom settings. The rudiments of syllabus construction, methods of incorporating a human rights component into traditional courses, sample lesson plans, best ways to make use of interdisciplinary pedagogic resources and materials, and strategies for reaching diverse student populations were topics of discussion. One panel, “Incorporating Human Rights into Your Syllabus,” was facilitated by SPICE’s Jonas Edman. Jonas, Michael Lopez of the Program on Human Rights, and Dr. Robert Wessling, Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies, ICA, served as the primary organizers of the conference, and Dr. Laura Hubbard, Center for African Studies, ICA, served as the emcee. Megan Gorman, Center for Latin American Studies, ICA, and John Groschwitz, Center for East Asian Studies, ICA, also contributed to the organization and promotion of the conference.

As a follow-up to the conference, ICA and the Program on Human Rights will sponsor a limited number of year-long Human Rights Curricular Fellows in the coming 2011–12 academic year. Fellows must teach at an accredited California community college. Also, Jonas will be developing curricular lessons in consultation with some of the educators who attended the conference.

The conference was funded primarily by the Department of Education (Title VI) and ICA. 

The Europe Center at the Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and The Stanford Center for Innovation in Learning announce the Stig and Brita-Stina Hagstrom Memorial Fund in memory of Stig and Brita-Stina Hagstrom to be used to support fellowships and activities designed to support Stanford-Sweden international exchange.

The Stig and Brita-Stina Hagstrom Memorial Fund is dedicated to build upon and grow the relationship originally fostered by Stig Hagstrom between Stanford University and Sweden in academic and cultural aspects by funding official speakers, students, and events to the benefit of the University and Swedish society.

Gifts in support of this fund will be used for the provision of cross-cultural opportunities for collaboration, both academic and social (for example, coffee afternoons, film nights, speaker events).

Contact and donor information: Those wishing to donate to the Stig and Brita-Stina Hagstrom Memorial Fund may use the contact below.

Checks, made payable to Stanford University--in Memory of Stig and Brita-Stina Hagstrom, may be sent to:

Neil Penick
Hagstrom Memorial Fund
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

Email: npenick@stanford.edu
Tel: (650) 723-8681

Details on the programming in the Stanford-Sweden relationship may be found below.

NEWS RELEASE

April 27, 2011

Contact:

Marie-Pierre Ulloa

Executive Officer for International Programs, Stanford Humanities Center,

(650) 724 8106, mpulloa@stanford.edu

International Scholars in Residence at the Humanities Center 2011-2012

Distinguished scholars from Australia, Hong Kong - Ghana, Spain, the United Kingdom and France chosen as joint Stanford Humanities Center/FSI international visitors.

The Stanford Humanities Center and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) are pleased to announce that four international scholars have been chosen to come to Stanford in 2011-12 as part of a jointly sponsored international program entering its third year. Nominated by Stanford departments and research centers, the international scholars will be on campus for four-week residencies. They will have offices at the Humanities Center and will be affiliated with their nominating unit, the Humanities Center, and FSI.

A major purpose of the residencies is to bring high-profile international scholars into the intellectual life of the university, targeting scholars whose research and writing engage with the missions of both the Humanities Center and FSI.

The following six scholars have chosen to be in residence during the 2011-2012 academic year:

• Adams Bodomo (October-November 2011) is the Chair of the Department of Linguistics in the School of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong and the Director of the University’s African Studies Program. A linguist hailing from Ghana, his primary expertise resides in the structure of West-African languages (Akan, Dagaare). He has recently undertaken research on the African diaspora in Asia, as well as conducted fieldwork on Zhuang, a minority language in China. He was nominated by the Department of Linguistics.

• Mario Carretero (January 2012) is a Professor of Psychology at Autonoma University of Madrid, and one of the most prominent leaders studying how young people develop historical consciousness and how they understand history. His work has been at the forefront of the “history wars” since the 1990s over what and who should determine the curriculum on the Spanish-speaking world. Carretero’s research, unlike scholars who explore such issues by dissecting textbooks, is unique in its commitment to fieldwork - conducting interviews with adolescents and observing them in real life situations to understand the dynamics of cultural transmission and resistance. He was nominated by the School of Education.

• Catherine Gousseff (February 2012) is a world-renowned leading figure in East-Central European history, politics and society of the twentieth Century, as well as of the former Soviet Union. A researcher at the French CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) she is currently affiliated with the Marc Bloch Center in Berlin. While at Stanford, she will share insights into her new research project on collective memories of displacements, diaspora politics in wartime and post-war eras, notably the Polish-Ukrainian population exchange (1944-1950). She was nominated by the Europe Center.

• James Laidlaw (April 2012) is an anthropologist at Cambridge University. Professor Laidlaw is deeply engaged in fieldwork in Asia, researching the Buddhist ethics of self-cultivation, looking at how the traditional means by which Buddhists practice self-cultivation –asceticism, meditation- are undergoing a massive restructuring. Practices once reserved for male monks are now being adopted by women and laity. James Laidlaw has edited seven books, the two latest ones on the cognitive approaches to religion, exploring them from an ethnographic perspective. He is also an expert on Jainism, a tradition of monastic renunciation like Buddhism that is also the religion of choice of a larger lay population. He was nominated by the Department of Anthropology.

•    Monica Quijada (October-November 2011) is a public intellectual and historian of Spain and Latin America at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC) in Madrid. Her engagement with the UN in Argentina (working with refugees) and her directorship of the investigation carried out in the late 1990s regarding Nazi activities during the Second World War and in post-war Argentina shows her commitment to the public space. She has written extensively on dictatorship, populism, and war and their effect on the public sphere in Argentina and Spain as well as on the relationship between nineteenth-century Latin American states and their indigenous populations. She was nominated by the History Department and the Center for Latin American Studies.

•    Patrick Wolfe (May-June 2012) is a historian at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. He is a premier historian of settler colonialism, currently working on a comparative transnational history of settler-colonial discourses of race in Australia, Brazil, the United States, and Israel/Palestine. While at Stanford, he will give lectures based on his core work on Australia and also on his forthcoming book Settler Colonialism and the American West, 1865-1904 (Princeton University Press). He was nominated by the Bill Lane Center for the American West.

While at Stanford, the scholars will offer informal seminars and public lectures and will also be available for consultations with interested faculty and students. For additional information, please contact Marie-Pierre Ulloa, mpulloa@stanford.edu.

Relevant URLs:

Stanford Humanities Center

http://shc.stanford.edu/

Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

http://fsi.stanford.edu/