Laura Stone '90 is Deputy Assistant Secretary for South Asia, overseeing U.S. policy towards and relations with India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, and Bhutan. She will discuss her wide-ranging career in the U.S. Foreign Service, as well as her perspective on diplomatic statecraft in the 21st century.

Previously, Ms. Stone served as Director of the India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, and Bhutan Affairs Office, Special Advisor to the Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth, and was Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for China and Mongolia from 2017 to 2019. She has worked as the Director of the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs; Director of the Economic Policy Office in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs; and Economic Counselor in Hanoi, Vietnam. She served three tours in Beijing as well as tours in Bangkok, Tokyo, the Public Affairs Bureau, the Pentagon Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Ms. Stone joined the Department of State in 1991 and is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister Counselor.

Ms. Stone has an M.Phil. in International Relations from Oxford University, and a B.A. from Cornell University.

This event is co-sponsored by the South Asia Center at Syracuse University.

Odysseys: Ithaca Writers on Exile, Wandering, and Searching for Home is a reading series presented by Ithaca City of Asylum and co-sponsored by Global Cornell and Cornell's Migrations initiative.

Homer’s Odyssey recounts the adventures of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, as he seeks to return home after the Trojan War. In four monthly readings, pairs of Ithaca-based writers provide their takes on the theme of odysseys, from the physical to the intellectual to the emotional.

Authors:

Sorayya Khan (author of the novels Noor, Five Queen's Road, and City of Spies)

Raza Ahmad Rumi (director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, visiting faculty at the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs)

Moderator:

Barbara Adams (associate professor of writing at Ithaca College, Ithaca City of Asylum board member)

The Language Resource Center offers grants for effective and innovative projects that enhance language instruction at Cornell. We welcome proposals from all languages and all levels of instruction. Lecturers, senior lecturers, and professors who are involved with language teaching and do not have visiting status are eligible to apply. Graduate students are also eligible to apply, working under the supervision of a faculty member.

Details at https://lrc.cornell.edu/funding-research

The Latin American Studies Program (LASP) invites Cornell Faculty, Staff, Graduate and Undergraduate Students, to attend in its Annual Research Symposium on February 20, 2021. The event is a great opportunity to hear about research related to Latin America in a number of varied disciplines and in different stages of development. We also will have one panel of Undergraduates who did Digital Internships with Brazil and Ecuador, come hear and apply yourself to do a digital internship this Summer’21 (rising sophomores, juniors and seniors). All members of the greater Latin American and Caribbean community at Cornell are encouraged to attend, including undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty. Register here. Click here for Full Symposium Program

Hosted by Cornell’s Emerging Markets Institute, the Emerging Markets Webinar Series is a monthly initiative that highlights key concepts and ideas occurring in emerging markets. The theme for 2021 is “Building Bridges and Encouraging Dialogue,” with online sessions profiling four emerging markets: Africa, Latin America, India, and China. The goal of the webinar series is to engage and educate the community about emerging trends worldwide, aided by a panel of economic development experts on each region.

The first session in the series showcases Africa, as four panelists discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by this exciting emerging market.

Odysseys: Ithaca Writers on Exile, Wandering, and Searching for Home is a reading series presented by Ithaca City of Asylum and co-sponsored by Global Cornell and Cornell's Migrations initiative.

Homer’s Odyssey recounts the adventures of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, as he seeks to return home after the Trojan War. In four monthly readings, pairs of Ithaca-based writers provide their takes on the theme of odysseys, from the physical to the intellectual to the emotional.

Authors:

Gail Holst-Warhaft (poet, translator, journalist, academic, and musician)

Aoise Stratford (dramaturg, writer, and lecturer at Cornell)

Moderator:

David Guaspari (playwright and Ithaca City of Asylum board member)

Sarayaku’s Kichwa communities were central to Ecuador’s first National Indigenous Uprising in 1990 and are at the forefront of indigenous rights mobilization. Come listen to four leaders from Sarayaku's indigenous communities and learn more about indigenous cosmologies & human rights frameworks. Come listen to four leaders from Sarayaku's indigenous communities (Abigail Gualinga, Mario Santi, Yaku Viteri, and Fausto Santi) and learn more about indigenous cosmologies & human rights frameworks.

Registration required: https://bit.ly/3anacht

Co-Sponsors: American Indian and Indigenous Studies (AIIS), Latin American Studies Program, funded in part by its UISFL grant funding from the U.S. Department of Education, CUSLAR (Committee on U.S. Latin American Relations), and the Cornell Law School

For more informaton and a beautiful film check this out: https://amazonwatch.org/work/sarayaku

"Food, Plants, and Transoceanic Trade: The Making of the Filipino Identity"

Using the quintessential Philippine garden described in the folk song, "Bahay Kubo," this presentation emphasizes how Filipinos’ ideas of food is based on an active regional interaction and a regional maritime trade that spans at least 1,000 years. “Bahay Kubo” is first learned in pre-school. It is supposed to broaden children’s knowledge of the culture of local foodways, although its Tagalog-centric focus tend to leave out local and indigenous histories. I use food and plants as backdrop to a discussion on Philippine links with the broader Asian Region and the global maritime trade in the Early Modern Period (1400-1820 CE). I also examine human-environmental interaction through a historical-ecological approach to argue that changes observed in the Philippines were part of a more extensive regional process that connected the islands to other parts of the world.

Stephen Acabado is associate professor of anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His archaeological investigations in Ifugao, northern Philippines, have established the recent origins of the Cordillera Rice Terraces, which were once known to be at least 2,000 years old. Dr. Acabado directs the Bicol and Ifugao Archaeological Projects and co-directs the Taiwan Indigenous Landscape and History Project. He is a strong advocate of an engaged archaeology where descendant communities are involved in the research process.

Take an auditory journey through tropical oceans and islands with the Cornell Lab’s Center for Conservation Bioacoustics as we combine science and music for an hour of entertainment, information, and audience Q&A. Our researchers show you how they study the magnificent animals of the area by capturing their wild sounds, and DJ Ecotone (Ph.D. student Ben Mirin) transforms these sounds into live music during the session. The webinar is free.

Images, clockwise from upper-left: Ben Mirin recording © Derek Rowe, Magnificent Bird-of-Paradise © Nigel Voaden/Macaulay Library, Humpback Whales © Michelle Fournet, Orangutan © Wendy Erb.