International Studies

I am back from the Notre Dame peace conference, reflecting on what I learned in the spare moments I have while catching up with my “real life.” Of course I learned a TON and came back with notes, handouts, downloads, and a mental reading list  of a dozen books for starters . . . but as so often, sometimes the most important things that happen at human gatherings aren’t the Planned Agenda Items, but the things that Just Happen. There is no substitute for human and social interaction; or maybe I’m just a social learner.

On the very first day of the conference, I noticed several men in the audience (yes, they were all men) had very tiny, unobtrusive computers on their laps. And just like my students who LOOK extra-serious when they bring laptops to the classroom, most of them were NOT doing work; they were checking their e-mail during the presentations. (This is why I’m considering a new classroom policy: “Sure, you can use your laptop in my classroom . . . if you sit up front with your back to me so I can see your screen at all times!”)

Still, when I’m on the other, listening, side, I would LOVE to be able to check my e-mail during all kinds of meetings, whether academic or administrative; and of course do relevant things like take notes or fact check (which, to be fair, students in my classes have also done). So once I knew peoples’ names, I asked about the tiny laptops and learned about the Netbook! What a GREAT invention! It’s about half the size of a laptop; does just about everything a laptop can do, though maybe not as quickly or all at once; and costs around $300.

I now have one, of course, thanks to the magic of Amazon Prime (this is NOT an endorsement). I got the Acer AspireOne, based both on reviews and on the price; I paid $329 after taxes. I wouldn’t want to work on it ALL the time; the keyboard IS smaller (though this model has one of the larger ones), and the small screen compresses websites in an annoying way. BUT: I toted it to GFT (local coffeehouse) in my purse! It won’t take up half the space in my carry-on when I travel! Small is beautiful! And for cash-strapped students, what a brilliant way to get everything you REALLY need without dipping into the student loans! You have to replace these things every 3-5 years anyway; why spend a fortune on them? (Have we entered the age of the disposable computer?)

And THAT’s the first concrete outcome of my time at Notre Dame! Learning is a strange and mysterious process . . .

Today at a session on the relationship between International Studies and Peace Studies, George Lopez made the statement, “Peace Studies is like the tortoise, coming from behind slow and steady; International Studies is more like the hare that’s just been dropped out of a helicopter.” His point was that the “heyday” of IS is past; the funding was strong in the 80s but has dropped off, and Peace Studies is the movement of the future.

Now George Lopez is a very cool guy and intense scholar, and he has been in academia longer than I have; check him out at http://kroc.nd.edu/people/directory/faculty/george-lopez        And I know that part of his purpose in making that statement was to encourage Peace Studies, not discourage International Studies. But still, I am not sure I agree. I have no doubt that Peace Studies is important, relevant, and poised for growth, but it seems to me that issues of sustainability are more at the forefront of donors’ and foundations’ minds. The two are related, of course; but if there’s anything to the notion that “resource wars” will fuel many conflicts in this century, then it makes more sense to devote funding / attention to solving those underlying problems than to resolving the conflicts that will arise if we don’t address the environment.

But this is not an entry about academic turf wars; may we all live long and prosper! Rather, whether I or anyone else agrees with the view that IS is passe depends very much on how one defines, and redefines, International Studies. Our “parent” field, International Relations, may offer an incomplete and discipline-bound view of the world, but it’s certainly not obsolete–not when our president is travelling to Cairo to lecture the Egyptians on why Israel has a right to exist. “Area Studies” gets short shrift these days; but when I look at what is going on in Central Asia (Pakistan/Afghanistan), having people with a solid understanding of particular regions seems more urgent than ever. (Most multinationals are still organized by world region; despite the internet, we remain still physically and culturally captive to geography.)

The big difference between International Studies and Peace Studies, it seems to me, is that IS is a “catch-all,” an over-arching endeavor that risks becoming too diffuse if it tries to be all things to all people. At the undergraduate level, though, it provides a flexible framework for students to discover “what in the world” they want to learn, do, and be. Peace Studies is a much more closely defined field; and since our notions of what “disciplines” are keep changing, I wouldn’t be surprised if an area like “conflict resolution” is considered a discipline in the future. It has some clear foundational insights, methods and methodologies that are very coherent. Hal Culbertson today kept referring to conflict resolution as a “skill”–which it is, in the real world; but as a subject of academic study, I think it’s more than that. (Kroc has an assistant professor of conflict resolution, Larissa Fast, so perhaps they’ve dubbed it a discipline already!)

These are “academic” questions about how we organize knowledge and teaching, and I’m sure the university of the mid-21st century will contain a number of fields we haven’t even imagined yet. But the question for students right now is, “what do YOU want International Studies to be?” What knowledge and skills should this field of study give you; what areas of eneavor (aka jobs) should it prepare you for? Drop me a line and let me know!