F901Z Spring 2023 Monday Morning Lecture Series

F901Z  Monday Morning Lecture Series
Mondays, 9:40—11:05, Mar. 27—May 15
No class May 1
Seven sessions
Mar. 27: Diagnosing and Dissecting Fake News in Public Health and Medicine. Peter Shin. Fake news is nothing new but its viral spread in the digital era leaves us constantly and more widely exposed. What is fake news—does it mean 100% false or 15% inaccurate? What is the purpose of fake news? Join the discussion to learn about the threats fake news can have on our health and wellbeing. The class will explore personal, practical, and policy strategies and also their challenges for minimizing its spread and impact.
Peter Shin, PhD, MPH is an associate professor of Health Policy and Management at the George Washington University. He has published over 100 briefs and teaches healthcare policy and public health leadership. He has presented at national and international conferences and has provided technical assistance to consumer, industry, and government stakeholders.
Apr. 3: The History of the Espionage Act, from World War 1 to Mar-a-Lago. Sam Lebovic. More than a century after it was enacted in 1917, the Espionage Act plays an increasingly significant role in modern American politics. Prosecutions carried out under the act, once rare, have become regular events. Some even speak of a “War on Whistleblowers” as figures like Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden face imprisonment for violating the law. And then of course came the Mar-a-Lago investigation of Donald Trump for Espionage Act violations. How did a law enacted during the Wilson administration to secure the wartime effort become the primary mechanism for protecting the country’s vast national security state in the 21st century? And what does the law's controversial history have to teach us about the role of secrecy in American democracy?
Sam Lebovic is associate professor of History at George Mason University where he also co-edits the Journal of Social History. He is the prize-winning author of Free Speech and Unfree News (Harvard, 2016), A Righteous Smokescreen (Chicago, 2022), and numerous articles and essays on media, politics, civil liberties and foreign relations. With support from an NEH Public Scholars fellowship, he is currently writing the first narrative history of the Espionage Act, which will be published by Basic Books in 2023.
Apr. 10: Is Taiwan Ready for War? Are We? Michael Hunzeker. Michael A. Hunzeker is an associate professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, the associate director of the Schar School’s Center for Security Policy Studies, and a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. His work on deterrence, military adaptation, and war termination has appeared in Security Studies, the Journal of Strategic Studies, PS: Politics and Political Science, Parameters, Defense One, Foreign Policy, War on the Rocks, and the RUSI Journal. Dr. Hunzeker recently published a book on wartime learning, Dying to Learn: Wartime Lessons from the Western Front with Cornell University Press. He has also coauthored monographs on conventional deterrence in northeastern Europe and the Taiwan Strait. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2000–2006 and holds an A.B. from the University of California, Berkeley as well as a Ph.D., M.P.A., and A.M. from Princeton University.
Apr. 17: Poland and the Russo-Ukraine War: Guided by their Better Angels. Dan Fried. Coordinator: Lisa Homel. There is a lot in Polish-Ukrainian history, some good, some bad, and intimate. The peoples know each other well and have at times worked together in common cause, e.g., to defend themselves against the Russians. At other times, they fought. But since 1991, Polish-Ukrainian relations have developed positively, as leaders in both countries came to realize that indulging in their respective nationalist narratives would benefit nobody other than their common adversaries. The Russo-Ukraine War, especially since 2022, accelerated this trend. Polish society embraced millions of Ukrainian refugees, taking them into Polish homes. Poland has championed the Ukrainian cause of independence. Poland’s president, in a speech to the Ukrainian Parliament, recognized Polish mistakes in its history toward Ukraine, an acknowledgement that Ukrainians recognized. The Polish approach to Ukraine is close to a model of how to transcend bad history; it is a sort of opposite to Hungary’s approach.
Ambassador Dan Fried had a forty-year career in the Foreign Service and served as (among others): special assistant and NSC senior director for Presidents Clinton and Bush, ambassador to Poland, and Assistant Secretary of State for Europe (2005-09). He is currently a Weiser Family Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Apr. 24: Where Did Whales Come From? Mark Uhen. Whales have fascinated humans for thousands of years and have raised many questions for scientists interested in their origins as well. They have been known to be mammals for centuries, but which terrestrial mammals they are related to has been a mystery until quite recently. The instructor will outline the origin of whales from their now known terrestrial ancestors, the artiodactyls. He will outline the data from both fossils and genes that indicate the relationships of whales to terrestrial artiodactyls. He will also show how the behavior and anatomy of these disparate mammals changed from terrestrial omnivores to fully aquatic carnivores. The instructor will also show how the modern toothed and baleen whales originated from their ancient ancestors.
Dr. Mark D. Uhen is a professor of Geology at George Mason University, and chair of the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Earth Sciences. His research focuses on the origin and evolution of cetaceans (whales and dolphins), major evolutionary transitions in general, functional morphology, use of stratigraphic data in phylogenetic analysis, and theoretical aspects of diversification. He has published many papers in scientific journals, contributed chapters to edited books, co-authored a book on the evolution of whales, and presented at numerous scientific conferences. Dr. Uhen is also a research associate at the United States National Museum of Natural History, and the chair of the Executive Committee of the Paleobiology Database. More information can be found at: http://uhenlab.weebly.com  https://www.facebook.com/uhenlab
@UhenLab on twitter
May 8: Spain’s Cultural, Political and Economic Landscape, and its Close Relations with the U.S. Ricardo Añino. Spain is a nation in the European Union with a rich historical presence in the Americas and a close relationship with the United States. Spain is a vibrant democracy, a great place to live, visit, and invest, and a close ally of the U.S. Both countries have strong trade, investment and people-to-people relations.
Ricardo Añino has been a diplomat for 20 years, having worked in Paraguay, Senegal, South Africa, Costa Rica, and Israel. He is currently at the Embassy of Spain in Washington, D.C. He has been consul, cultural attaché, political counselor, and director of a cultural center. In Madrid he worked at Casa de América, a Spanish public diplomacy institution devoted to the Americas, and at the Ministry of the Interior, where he wrote speeches on security matters. He has published three novels.
May 15: Addressing Food Security in Global Settings: A Case Study in Rural Kenya. Constance Gewa will discuss the opportunities and challenges in addressing food and nutrition security in low-income communities such as those in rural Kenya.
Dr. Constance Gewa is an associate professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies. Dr. Gewa holds a doctoral degree in Public Health, a Master’s degree in Public Health and a Master’s degree in Applied Human Nutrition. Her research focuses on nutrition and food security-related topics including analysis of dietary patterns; the role of food-based strategies in supporting health and developmental outcomes; obesity and non-communicable diseases; and food and nutrition-related behavior change. She is also the co-founder of Sustainable Agriculture Nutrition and Growth Opportunities in Kenya (SANGO-Kenya), a non-profit organization that works with small-holder women farmers in rural Kenya.