DEADLINE: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2020 AT 12:00 NOON. 

The Seminar on Global Diplomatic and Security Challenges (GDSC) is a year-long interactive seminar led by Wolfgang Danspeckgruber, Founding Director of LISD, which affords participating students the opportunity to participate in in-depth discussion on select issues critical for contemporary diplomacy and security with eminent experts and representatives in an interdisciplinary and interactive virtual venue. The GDSC will explore conceptual dimensions like perception, predictability, realpolitik, trust, leadership, strategy, sphere of influence, sovereignty and self-determination; focus on geo-strategic developments and crises in regions like the Arctic, Eurasia, the Mediterranean, the wider Middle East, the Caucasus, Central and South Asia, North East Asia; and deal specifically with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and the United Nations (UN). The seminar will analyze critical global challenges, such as the SARS2 Covid-19 Pandemic, inequality, the environmental challenges; as well as the role of media, and new technologies. 

Invited Participants: Ali Ansari, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Jose Manuel Dorao Barroso, Lawson Brigham, Thomas Christensen, Robert Finn, Joschka Fischer, Francois Heisbourg, Christopher Heusgen, Christopher Hill, Fawzia Koofi, Maria Pia Kothbauer-Liechtenstein, William Maley, Jacob Melamed, Dipali Mukhopadhyay, Rani Mullen, Fred Ngoga, Yukiko Omura, Michael Reiterer, Thomas Ries, Martin Sajdik, Markus Schiller, Hans-Dietmar Schweissgut, Hans Ulrich Seidt, Christian Strohal, Masaru Tamamoto, Eka Tkeshelashvili, Dmitri Trenin, Clarissa Ward, John Waterbury, Frank Wisner, William C. Wohlforth, and some high-level decision makers.

Participating students, the GDSC Fellows, are expected to register for the entire academic year 2020/21 and are expected to attend all sessions. Special arrangements will be made so that the Fellows will have additional time with speakers to discuss their interests in a more private forum. Fellows are required to attend all sessions, complete one brief assignment/commentary (approx. 3,000 words) at the end of the Fall Semester and compose an approx. 6,000-word final paper by end of the Spring Semester, 2021. Of those final papers, the research papers which meet the criteria of completion will be presented at an international meeting, anticipated to be held abroad in the summer of 2021.

For all inquiries about the program and to submit your application, please contact Ms. Kristen Cuzzo at [email protected]. To apply, please email Ms. Cuzzo your (a) name, (b) class year, (c) intended concentration, (d) a few lines about previous work, as it pertains to the seminar theme, (e) independent research interests, and (f) reason for wanting to participate.