Faculty experts from Emmanuel College will share their knowledge of the history of the Middle East, the current war between Israel and Hamas, and help provide context for how we here in the United States understand this conflict.
Moderated by Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis, Warburg Chair in International Relations at Simmons University.
The goal of the program is to foster opportunities for learning and understanding. There will be time for questions. Please register to receive the zoom link.
WEBINAR REGISTRATION
Moderator & Panelist Bios
Ambassador (ret.) Jeffrey DeLaurentis is the Joan M. Warburg Professor of International Relations, Simmons University, Associate, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University
During his 28-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service, Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis worked almost exclusively on Western Hemisphere issues and as a multilateral diplomat at the United Nations. He served as the first Charge d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Havana following the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba. Prior to taking up his Cuba post in August 2014, he was the Ambassador for Special Political Affairs at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. Previously, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, and as Minister Counselor for Political Affairs and Security Council Coordinator at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.
Ambassador DeLaurentis began his State Department career in 1991 as a consular officer in Havana and returned to Cuba as Political-Economic Section Chief in 1999-2002. In Washington, he served as the Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, and Director of Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council. His last assignment in the Foreign Service was at the Harvard Kennedy School as a Senior Diplomatic Fellow with the Belfer Center Future of Diplomacy Project. Subsequently, Ambassador DeLaurentis was appointed Distinguished Resident Fellow in Latin American and Multilateral Diplomacy Studies at the Georgetown University Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, the George S. McGovern Visiting Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, Resident Fellow at the Harvard University David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies’ Cuba Studies Program, and a Senior Advisor with the Albright Stonebridge Group. He was also a member of the Biden-Harris Presidential Transition Team and called back to government service in January 2021 as the Senior Advisor for Security Council Affairs at the U.S. Mission to the UN, a position he held until October 2023.
DeLaurentis is a graduate of the Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service and Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. A recipient of multiple State Department awards, he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Diplomacy. He recently joined the Latin America Program Advisory Board of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Stimson Center as a Distinguished Fellow.
Lenore G. Martin is Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Studies, at Emmanuel College in Boston, and an Associate of both the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. She co-chairs the Middle East Seminar, at Harvard. She has received three Fulbright awards, the last one in 2010 as a Senior Fulbright Researcher at Middle East Technical University, working on Turkey and the Middle East. She has written books and numerous articles analyzing national security in the Gulf, the larger Middle East and Turkey, including: The Unstable Gulf: Threats from Within, Lexington Books 1984, New Frontiers in Middle East Security, edited, St. Martin’s/Palgrave 1999 and 2001, and The Future of Turkish Foreign Policy, co-edited with Dimitris Keridis, MIT 2004. In 2010, as a member of the Boston Study Group on Middle East Peace she co-authored, Israel and Palestine-Two States for Two Peoples: If Not Now, When? an on-line book with the Foreign Policy Association. From 1999-2017 she co-chaired the Seminar on Turkey in the Modern World at Harvard University. In 2012 and 2016 she spent the Trinity Term at St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford as a Senior Associate Member and Visiting Academic respectively. Dr. Martin has been on the editorial board of Turkish Studies since its inception in the spring of 2000 and was named to the editorial board of the Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies in 2017.
At Emmanuel she teaches:
- Introduction to International Relations
- The Contemporary Middle East: The Challenges and the Promise
- People and Politics in the Middle East
- Human Issues in International Relations
- Negotiating Peace
- The Politics of Global and Public Health (new course)
Melanie Murphy is Associate Professor of History at Emmanuel College; her work focuses on the relationships between culture and politics. What has art said to authority in the context of fascism, communism, imperialism? Can culture save? She has also done specialized work in European racism. Melanie received her BA from Simmons, her Masters from Boston College and her PhD from Brandeis University.
At Emmanuel she teaches:
- World History to 1500
- Modern World History
- Nineteenth-Century Europe
- Europe in the Era of World War
- History through Fiction: Event and Imagination
- Religion, Society and Europe
- History of the Modern Middle East
- Individual and Society in European History
- From Lenin to Putin: A History of the Soviet Union and its Collapse
Adam Silver is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies and Chair of the Political Science and International Studies Department at Emmanuel College. He specializes in American political institutions, political parties and organizations, campaign strategies, and electoral politics, social movements, and state and local politics. He has served as a policy analyst and legislative director in the New York State Senate. He received his M.A. in History from SUNY Albany and Ph.D. in Political Science from Boston University. He is the current faculty director of the COF Center for Sustainability and the Environment.
At Emmanuel he teaches:
- Introduction to American Government and Politics
- American Political Thought
- Campaigns and Elections
- Campaign Strategies and Electoral Politics
- Congress, Representation, and the Legislative Process
- Constitutional Law
- Federalism through State and Local Government
- Food Policy and Social Justice
Petros Vamvakas is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Emmanuel College. He teaches courses in Comparative Politics, International Relations and Political Theory and is the faculty advisor to the Emmanuel College Model United Nations Club. He is the director of the Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Emmanuel. Petros has a M.A., Northeastern University; and a Ph.D. from Boston University.
At Emmanuel he teaches:
- Introduction to International Relations
- Political Theory and Analysis
- Latin American Politics
- Politics of International Economic Relations
- International Law and Organizations
- In the Steps of Thucydides
- Revolution and Nationalism
- Comparative Politics of Developing Countries
- Street Democracy
- Clash of Civilizations
- 1968 From the Barricades to the Ballot Box