Pardee Professors Speak at HTC Forum on N. Korea
Several faculty members from the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies spoke as part of a forum hosted by the Howard Thurman Center at Boston University on the current threat posed to the United States and broader international community by North Korea.
The forum, entitled “Understanding North Korea and Possibilities From Diplomacy to Nuclear War,” featured Thomas Berger, Professor of International Relations at the Pardee School, Jayita Sarkar, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Pardee School and Amb. Robert Loftis, Professor of the Practice of International Relations at the Pardee School. The forum also featured Boston University Professor of Political Science Neta Crawford and was moderated by Dr. Virginia Sapiro.
Thomas Berger joined the Department of International Relations in 2001. Previously, he taught for seven years at the Johns Hopkins Department of Political Science in Baltimore. He is the author of War, Guilt and World Politics After World War II, Cultures of Antimilitarism: National Security in Germany and Japan and is co-editor of Japan in International Politics: Beyond the Reactive State.
Jayita Sarkar, an historian by training, is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies. Her expertise is in the history of U.S. foreign policy, nuclear proliferation, the global Cold War, South Asia and Western Europe. Her research has appeared or is forthcoming in the Journal of Cold War Studies, Journal of Strategic Studies, Cold War History, International History Review, and elsewhere. Dr. Sarkar has held fellowships at MIT, Harvard, Columbia and Yale universities, and obtained a doctorate in International History from the Graduate Institute Geneva in Switzerland.
Robert G. Loftis served in the State Department and Foreign Service from 1980 to 2012, where he held a wide variety of assignments, including Acting Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (2010-2012), Special Representative for Avian and Pandemic Influenza (2009), Senior Adviser for Security Negotiations and Agreements (2004-2007), Ambassador to Lesotho (2001-2004) and Deputy Chief of Mission in Mozambique (1999-2001).