The First Right: Self-Determination and International History
Historian Brad Simpson of the University of Connecticut discusses self-determination and what it means for sovereignty and human rights in the 21st century
An International Studies Program 50th anniversary lecture by Brad Simpson, University of Connecticut
Thursday, Oct. 4
3 pm
Neatby-Timlin Theatre, 241 Arts Building, 9 Campus Dr.
Free and open to the public
Abstract
Over the last century, self-determination has become one of the most important and contested ideas in international politics. This talk will explore what the fierce conflicts over the scope and meaning of self-determination since 1941—among decolonization movements, Indigenous peoples, and many others—reveal about how we think about sovereignty and human rights in the 21st century.
Brad Simpson is a historian at the University of Connecticut. He is the author of Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and US-Indonesian Relations, 1960-1968 (Stanford, 2008) and many essays on US foreign policy and human rights. He is currently writing a global history of the idea of self-determination since 1941.