"Collaborative Curriculum Design in LCTLs: Student-Centered Multimodal Approaches Using Authentic Media"
Oya Topçuoğlu Judd
Associate Professor of Instruction in Turkish, Northwestern University

As LCTL instructors, we frequently face the challenge of sourcing high-quality, engaging teaching materials that transcend the limitations of traditional textbooks and rely on technology-mediated, multimodal language learning practices and methodology. This is one aspect of language instruction in LCTLs, and especially in single-instructor LCTL programs, where collaboration can be vital. Working together with colleagues, leveraging shared resources, and pooling expertise can significantly enhance the quality and impact of language instruction, both for students and instructors.

At Northwestern University’s Turkish Language Program, we have addressed this issue by collaborating across languages and institutions to develop innovative courses that integrate authentic media and cultural content to enhance language learning and cultural competence in our students. In this talk, I will discuss these collaborative efforts and present two courses that resulted from these collaborations: our first-year course Elementary Turkish through TV Shows and Istanbul: Gateway Between the East and the West, the capstone course of our two-year program.

Our elementary-level course utilizes Turkish TV shows as a core component of the curriculum to promote active engagement and cultural competence. Turkish TV shows, which reach 750 million people across 152 countries, offer enormous potential as authentic teaching materials, providing real-world language exposure and connecting students with engaging, culturally relevant content. In this talk, I will discuss the process of selecting and incorporating TV shows into our existing curriculum, the technological challenges we faced, and share examples of our teaching materials. My goal is to provide concrete tools and strategies for collaborative curriculum design within and across languages, and share materials that can be easily adapted to different skill levels and contexts.

Our capstone course, Istanbul: Gateway Between the East and West, is designed as a content-based, proficiency-oriented course aimed at Intermediate Mid-level learners. This thematic course offers a deep, multifaceted exploration of Istanbul, covering a wide array of topics, from the history and monuments of the city to its representation in modern literature and the challenges of everyday life. By focusing on these diverse subjects, the course encourages students to engage with broader cultural, political, and social issues within the context of the city. I will outline our efforts to create this innovative course content through reverse design, source authentic materials, design proficiency-oriented tasks, and adopt online and interactive tools to enhance student participation and learning.

Bio: Oya Topçuoğlu Judd is an Associate Professor of Instruction in the Middle East and North African Languages Program at Northwestern University. Dr. Topçuoğlu Judd teaches on a range of subjects, including modern Turkish language and culture, and the history and archaeology of the Middle East. She holds a Ph.D. in the Art and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, and a B.A. in Ottoman History from Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. Dr. Topçuoğlu Judd is an archaeologist by training, who specializes in the art, archaeology, and history of ancient Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. Her research addresses issues of social identity and cultural exchange, and the effects of political change and ideology on the material record of the ancient Middle East. In addition to her work on iconography and symbolism, Dr. Topçuoğlu Judd studies the looting and illegal trafficking of antiquities from Iraq and Syria, the political uses of the ancient past, and its role in the formation of national identities in the modern Middle East. She is particularly interested in the history of archaeology and museums, and cultural heritage preservation in her native Turkey.

This event will be held in person in the Kaufmann Auditorium (G64 Goldwin Smith) and will also be streamed live over Zoom (registration required).

Co-sponsored by the Southeast Asia Program and the Southeast Asian Language Council (SEALC) conference.

The event is free and open to the public.

International Law, Norms, and the Decline in Interstate War

This event focuses on a discussion paper, “International Law, Norms, and the Decline in Interstate War,” by Kathryn Sikkink and Averell Schmidt. The authors will not present the paper formally, and participants are expected to read the paper in advance. Please e-mail pacs@cornell.edu for the paper.

The authors argue that international laws governing the initiation of war – jus ad bellum – reduce the likelihood of interstate war under two conditions: when treaties are interpreted as prohibiting interstate war and when the application of treaties is not counteracted by other international norms. The development of international law in the interwar period shows that the letter of treaties is not always closely related to states’ interpretation of their normative commitments. This disjuncture is key to understanding the impact of international law on interstate war initiation.

Sikkink and Schmidt demonstrate statistically that ratification of treaties understood to reflect the norm prohibiting interstate war is associated with a decrease in states’ propensity to initiate wars deemed unlawful by treaties and illegitimate by international norms. Indeed, only three of the 64 illegal and illegitimate wars occurring between 1929 and 2010 were initiated by belligerents that had each ratified more than one anti-war treaty. They couple this statistical analysis with case studies from Latin America, demonstrating the role of laws and norms in shaping the decision to go to war.

About the Authors
Kathryn Sikkink is the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. She works on international norms and institutions, transnational advocacy networks, the impact of human rights law and policies, transitional justice, and the laws of war.

Her publications
International, Norms, Moral Psychology, and Neuroscience (with Richard Price); The Hidden Face of Rights: Toward a Politics of Responsibilies; Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century; The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions are Changing World Politics (awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Center Book Award and the WOLA/Duke University Award); Mixed Signals: U.S. Human Rights Policy and Latin America; Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (co-authored with Margaret Keck and awarded the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas for Improving World Order and the ISA Chadwick Alger Award for Best Book in the area of International Organizations); and The Persistent Power of Human Rights: From Commitment to Compliance (co-edited with Thomas Risse and Stephen Ropp).

Averell Schmidt is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in International and Public Affairs at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. He received his Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University in May 2024. He was previously a Transitional Justice Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, a Research Fellow in the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and a Hans J. Morgenthau Fellow at the Notre Dame International Security Center.

Host
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

POSSIBLE LANDSCAPES

Directed by Kannan Arunasalam

Produced and conceptualized by Tao DuFour and Natalie Melas

"For no one had yet written of this landscape

that it was possible.”

Derek Walcott

A collaboration between a documentary filmmaker, Kanan Arunasalam and two professors, Tao DuFour (Architecture) a spatial theorist and Natalie Melas (Comparative Literature) a postcolonial comparatist and scholar of Caribbean thought, Possible Landscapes is the outcome of the team research project, “Possible Landscapes: Documenting Environmental Experience in Trinidad and Tobago,” funded through the Cornell Migrations Initiative team research grant for the Mellon Just Futures Initiative. The aim was to develop methods of field research and representation in documentary film that foreground intergenerational lived experience of landscapes and environments in the Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago, and to query the formation of environmental and climate imaginaries, with a view to getting at larger historical questions—of migration, plantation societies, extractivism, race, and the legacies of colonialism—that inform everyday practices in ways that are difficult to identify and to articulate, because they are concretely lived.

Possible Landscapes joins seven people in seven different regions of the islands in the course of their daily lives: Kevin, a fisherman on the east coast suffering the recent loss of one of his crew members at sea; four generations of the Josephs family in the steep hillsides of the northern range; Captain ‘Spaceman’ Philips and his glass-bottomed boat in Tobago from which he has witnessed the decline of the coral reefs; Crystal, a trade unionist active in supporting workers who lost their jobs when a major oil refinery was closed; Romulas, known as the “last sugar cane farmer” in the central plains and his Venezuelan workers; Stephanie a nurse who worked in the oil fields in the south starting just after World War II; Tony, originally from Jamaica, a climate change analyst, agriculturalist and rabbit farmer in St Joseph.

Co-sponsored with The College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Office, The Society for the Humanities, Africana Studies and Research Center, Department of Architecture, Department of Comparative Literature, Department of Literatures in English, Environment and Sustainability, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and Department of Romance Studies

Possible Landscapes is supported by a grant from Cornell University’s Migrations: A Global Grand Challenge and the Mellon Foundation’s Just Futures Initiative.

All events are free and open to the public.

If you need accommodations to participate, please contact icm@cornell.edu as soon as possible.

In a post-January 6th US, a reasonable concern of fascism is manifesting in one particular way: silencing dissent and pluralism. This talk is about identifying the ways that silencing contentious politics benefits far right extremism and harms far left pro-democratic work in this complex political environment.

Dr. Marcus Board argues that we must protect grassroots communities and advance the interests of democracy - even when they appear contradictory to the interests of the country. Using various data sources, including original surveys, in-depth interviews, and case studies, he makes the case for resistance politics as a pro-democratic staple and distinct from fascist violence.

About the Speaker
Dr. Marcus Board is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Howard University. He is the author of Invisible Weapons: Infiltrating Resistance and Defeating Movements (Oxford 2022), winner of the W.E.B. DuBois Best Book Award (NCOBPS), Best Book on Race, Ethnicity and Justice (APSA), and the Most Outstanding Book Award (Association for Ethnic Studies). Dr. Board is the Black Politics Committee Chair, Faculty Advisor for the Political Science Society, and a Scholar Coach with the Faculty Summer Academy Program - all at Howard University.

Host
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

Prospects for European Security after the War

Whatever the outcome of the Russian war against Ukraine, in its wake Ukraine will need to choose a security policy to defend its sovereignty from future threats. Its choice holds implications for broader European security. Some observers advocate Ukraine becoming a member in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), thereby gaining protection from the U.S. “nuclear umbrella.” Others doubt the effectiveness of “extended nuclear deterrence”—the threat of U.S. nuclear retaliation for attacks, including those carried out with conventional armed forces, on an ally's territory. But nuclear deterrence was never put to the test in Cold War Europe, and today extended nuclear deterrence is an unreliable and risky approach to Russian aggression.

An examination of the role of nuclear deterrence during the 1961 Berlin Crisis demonstrates that Soviet military strategy against U.S. nuclear weapons posed the risk of escalation. In vulnerable NATO territories, such as the Estonian city of Narva, such a risk still exists. A Cold War–era alternative to nuclear deterrence offers the possibility of a non-nuclear defense for Ukraine. Proposals such as the “spider in the web” strategy draw on concepts of the security dilemma and non-offensive, confidence-building defense to provide for Ukrainian security in a Europe threatened by Russian expansion, without relying on the threat of nuclear war.

About the Speaker
Matthew Evangelista is President White Professor of History and Political Science Emeritus in Cornell’s Department of Government. His most recent book, recently published in paperback and available to download for free through Open Access, is Allied Air Attacks and Civilian Harm in Italy, 1940-1945: Bombing among Friends (Routledge, 2023).

Host:
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

Co-sponsor:
Institute for European Studies

The Global Blackness initiative aims to chart a possible future for a network of students, faculty, and staff that relationally engage the topic of Global Blackness.

Building on the momentum of Cornell’s 2023 Global Blackness Town Hall, this year, the Global Blackness initiative is organizing events guided by the question of how we create a community that embraces contradictions as well as solidarity to meet the initial interests and some of the demands that sprang from that town hall meeting.

Film Screening
10:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.; Tuesday, September 17; Africana Studies & Research Center, Room 120
Two short films will be screened. Each short will be followed by a discussion.

Attend a screening of award-winning actor Sheldon Shepherd's most celebrated cinematic work.

Sheldon Shepherd is best known for his role in Storm Saulter's Better Mus' Come, for which he won Best Actor at the American Black Film Festival in 2012. More recently, he also starred in Idris Elba's directorial debut, Yardie, and the 2024 Bob Marley biopic Bob Marley: One Love directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green. With upwards of 20 years of experience in the creative and cultural arts field, he has been a celebrated performer from a young age.

Invocation and Dramatic Performance
10:30 a.m.-11:30 a.m.; Wednesday, September 18; Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, Black Box Theatre

Chief Gaama Gloria, "MaMa G", will lead the Cornell community in an invocation for the Global Blackness initiative followed by a dramatic performance with Sheldon Shephard. MaMa G holds a preeminent role as an African diaspora spiritual worker, community builder, and advocate for restoration of family and establishment of indigenous ways of learning in higher education.

Gathering: Global Blackness at Cornell: Main Event with Chief Gaama Gloria and Mr. Sheldon Shepherd
5:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m.; Wednesday, September 18; Africana Studies and Research Center, Room 120
followed by After Party! And Dinner Reception

Hosted by the Einaudi Center; music by DJ Ishion Hutchison

About the Speakers

Sheldon R. Shepherd, is an award-winning actor, author, and artiste, with upwards of 20 years of experience in the cultural arts field. He is a founding member of The No-Maddz, a Jamaican art collective and roots reggae dub poetry band. In 2005, he became Jamaica's Ambassador to China and in 2006 won the coveted Prime Minister Youth Award for Excellence in Arts and Culture. In 2012, Shepherd won the Best Actor Award at the American Black Film Festival for his role in "Better Mus' Come" directed by Storm Saulter. Sheldon also starred in Nabil Elderkin’s short film "Capture Land," which was part of The Power of the Word Series in collaboration with Montblanc, the Tribeca Film Institute, and the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

Gaama Gloria Simms /Tekina Nuna is an African diaspora spiritual worker and community builder rooted firmly in Maroon and Rastafari traditions. Gloria is working toward the establishment of a Women’s Museum as well as a Traditional University that aligns with indigenous ways of learning via the ethos, “What life experience has taught onto me, I will teach those who want to learn.”

She received the title of Gaama (Paramount Queen) from the Okanisi Maroons of Suriname, the title of Tekina (teacher) and Council member of Yukayeke Yamaye Guani (Jamaican Hummingbird Taino People) and is the founder of the Maroon Indigenous Womens Circle. As Gaama, Gloria continues to pursue her ultimate vision. She sees the restoration of the family as a must.

From the beginning of the student-led quota reform movement on June 6th across the creation of an interim government upon the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on August 5th, a lot has been happening in Bangladesh recently. This virtual panel brings together scholars in New York and activists in Bangladesh to help add personal texture and academic analysis to the headlines and provide an opportunity for questions and discussion. What has happened? What does this mean for Bangladesh and the region? What might come next?

Participants in this virtual roundtable organized by the Cornell-Syracuse South Asia Consortium include:

Farhana Sultana, Professor of Geography, Syracuse UniversityDina M. Siddiqi, Clinical Professor, Global Liberal Studies, New York UniversityMuhib Rahman, Postdoctoral Associate in Government, Cornell UniversityKazi Farzana Shoily, PhD Candidate in History, Syracuse UniversityTasnuva Helal Bidita, Student and Human Rights & Climate Activist, BangladeshAmmar Bin Asad, Student, Photographer, and Activist, Jagannath University, BangladeshModerated by Mona Bhan, Ford-Maxwell Professor of South Asian Studies & Director, South Asia Center, Syracuse University

Photo by Rayhan Ahmed