OSU hosts an International Conference

Oregon State University hosted Pulitzer Prize winner Fredrik Logevall at the Rethinking Grand Strategy International Conference Friday.

Logevall was a keynote speaker that was a part of the Citizenship and Crisis Initiative that seeks to understand the changes of citizenship overtime and relate how crisis and citizenship come together with regard to the humanities and current world issues.

According to Christopher Nichols, an OSU professor of history and the director of the initiative, the event Friday brought 20 scholars to the conference, at which the participants presented papers that touched on themes relating to issues of foreign policy, human health and immigration.

These papers, debates and discussions will eventually lead to a book that will aim to answer how U.S. foreign policy has developed and operated in history, according to Nichols.

Nichols said the intention of the event is to further discussion and debate within the field.

“It is a project that we believe will help establish the state of the field, make a significant scholarly intervention, and promote vigorous discussion and debate,” Nichols said. “The conference, panels, and resulting book is not only likely to make significant inroads in the fields of history and political science but also in public square humanities conversations about the U.S. role in the world, and could become a key educational resource for college level classes on the topic.”

Nichols also spoke to the benefits of having event such as the Rethinking Grand Strategy Conference have on the OSU community as a whole.

“Students and people from the OSU community who attend the conference panels and discussions can learn a lot about the subjects being discussed,” Nichols said. “They also have the opportunity during breaks to interact and ask questions in a small group setting with some of the foremost historians and scholars of US history, grand strategy and related topics.”

Fredrik Logveall, a professor of international affairs at Harvard university, author and Pulitzer Prize winner, spoke at the event and addressed the idea of Grand Strategy.

Logveall spoke to the importance of discussing history and applying it to modern issues to help provide context.

“It is sometimes important to talk about these ideas in a group setting,” Lovegall said. “When you bring scholars together to read and discuss, it can sometimes be more productive than just reading in your office. It is like when you read a paper for a class to a friend to find errors or discuss meaning. It helps the author of the paper understand the limits of a paper and it is good to be critiqued. I think that is what it is about.”

Chloe Johnson, a freshman in the college of engineering and an attendee of the event saw the importance of the event coming to campus.

“I think it is important for people of all majors and disciplines to attend talks like this one,” Johnson said. “It opens your eyes to topics and ideas that you might not see in your own major classes everyday and it exposes you to intellectuals from different fields of study.”

Nichols was pleased to have an event of this magnitude come to the OSU campus.

“It is an honor and a pleasure to have Oregon State host a conference with so many world-renowned scholars,” Nichols said. “Our conference has given our visitors a sense of what a dynamic intellectual environment we have here at OSU and how superb our students, faculty, and staff are.”

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