Greening the Belt and Road Initiative and China’s Export of Environmental Authoritarianism
Held on 4 November 2018 (Sponsored by the NYUAD GAI with the generous support of the Luce Foundation).
Keynote Visitor
Judith Shapiro, American University
Professor Judith Shapiro will speak about how ordinary Chinese people are responding to China’s environmental challenges as they seek to mitigate the impacts of climate change, air and water pollution, soil contamination, and unsafe food on their own health and well-being. Can environmental NGOs work effectively in an era of intensified authoritarian controls? Can China achieve “ecological civilization” without displacing its environmental harms beyond its borders? Will the Belt and Road be a mechanism for “green” development or will it exacerbate biodiversity loss, climate change, and the hyper-extraction of the planet’s limited resources? Please join a conversation about this and other implications of the stunning rise of China.
Collaboration with NYUAD History Program
Research Presentation
Elizabeth Brite, Purdue University, “The Plant-People Relationship in Ancient Central Asia”
This talk explores the recent proliferation of studies on the plant-people relationship in ancient Central Asia. Over the last 25 years, significant data sets of ancient plant remain and other dietary indicators have emerged from major and minor archaeological sites across the region.
Many of the studies that have produced these data pursue a wide-ranging picture of the transmission of domesticated plants across cultures and emphasize the role of the Silk Road in shaping food globalization in prehistory. Contrasting these are other studies that examine the local, embedded, and indigenous facets of ancient plant usage and domestication within Central Asia itself.
Discussion by Rustin Zarkar (PhD candidate, NYU MEIS) and Kiana Karimi (PhD candidate, NYU Performance Studies).
On January 16th, 1979, the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, kissed a handful of Iranian soil before boarding a plane, never to return. This moment was the culmination of a decades-long struggle against autocracy and monarchism by actors from diverse intellectual traditions. Even though supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini monopolized state power in subsequent years, the leftist and women’s struggle were significant forces in bringing about a revolutionary moment.
For the 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, this talk will explore the friction and convergence of these movements that continue to reverberate in the contemporary politics in Iran and the diaspora. Held on 17 February 2019.