HJ 411

If I intend to discuss humanity, well, don't I just have to be human to have anything valid to say? Wrong. Everyone's experiences are colored through different lenses - lenses crafted by what they've read, by whom they've been taught, and by more foundational experiences. If one wants to speak authoritatively about any aspect of the humanities, one needs to make it very clear where she is coming from so that audiences can discern the possible limitations of any given statement.

Reality is very complex. Misleading people unintentionally because of unwarranted confidence built on soundbites and snippets of information alone causes tremendous confusion in society, especially if the speaker is a prominent figure...or just very loud. It keeps people from attaining a clear perception of reality that is based on understanding the mechanisms of how the world works. It also perpetuates an unhealthy defensive cynicism among people because they become apathetic to all that realitly involves. They are then forced to rely on dangerously simplistic logic to explain away the world in order to feel like rational beings and navigate confidently through life. So, it's a really dumb thing to do. I don't want to be responsible for adding to the needless invitations to stupidity already out there.

Moving on, it's high time I explain why I feel I have some measure of authority in speaking about the world. The statement sounds very arrogant, and that's the last thing I want to be, so I want to emphasize the "some measure" bit. I don't mean to delegitimize others' opinions who haven't pursued a similar line of interest - astrophysicists might have more insightful things to say about the topics I want to cover if somehow they've done a lot of international relations related reading on their own, have a depth of historical knowledge, etc. Or someone might just be a very perceptive person and can contribute highly developed ideas worthy of serious consideration. These people are very rare, however. In general, the people that contribute their thoughts to the internet or to their friends and relatives about the humanities are regular, everday folks without much background in what they're talking about. It's still nice to hear their opinions that can be at times insightful, but again, acknowledging lmitations is very important.

Ok...so here's a little background info: I studied international relations at Wellesley College, which is one of the strongest IR programs in the country. The college has a legacy of turning out the nation's female leaders (Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton, blah blah blah). I also minored in Middle Eastern Studies and dabbled in astronomy.

My IR/MES coursework included:

Politics
World politics, media in american democracy, ideology on film;

History
Making of the modern world, history in global perspective, Native American history, wintersession in Morocco, history of medieval north africa, iberia, and the Islamic west, the
Middle East in WWI, Revolutions in the 20th century Middle East, women in Islamic societies;

Economics
Micro/macro, international finance & macroeconomic policy;

Religon
Intro to islamic civilization, the dead sea scrolls, modern islamic legal texts in Arabic;

Languages
Fluency in French, intermediate Arabic, conversational Bengali

Independent Study
Western civilizational consciousness & implications for american foreign policy in the muslim world.

A substantial part of my IR knowledge came from interning in Washington DC at an international affairs radio program that airs on NPR, where I was a research assistant working on projects about Iranian-US relations and Turkish-US relations.

I've also studied abroad at the University of Manchester in England, 2003-2004, and travelled & visited friends through the UK (Edinburgh, Bath, Stratford-upon-Avon, London, Liverpool, Warwick), Spain (Cordoba, Malaga, Granada, Gibraltar (which is technically UK)), Morocco (Tangier, Rabat, Sale, Rissani, Casablanca...everywhere), the Middle East (Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Sea of Galilee, Dead Sea, Dubai), Bangladesh, and of course, the good ol' USofA (Washington state, atlanta, florida, up and down the east coast, Chicago).

Hmm, I might as well throw in the astronomy background for kicks:

Astronomy: stars, galaxies & cosmology w/ lab, our place in space time, and relativity & cosmology. Stargazing from Severance Green night after night.

So hopefully this listing of formative background knowledge provides a basic picture of the material that I'm useful in discussing and its limits. I should add that although I'm not pursuing a masters or doctorate in IR (I'm going to film school), my views are constantly informed by the diverse IR crowd from college (students continuing with graduate work/professions in IR related fields, professors, government employees, journalists) with whom i'm still in contact, and a steady stream of news and readings....

Great. Now that I've gotten my background out of the way, hopefully I can get to actually posting.