The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, in partnership with its Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) Working Group, as part of the Keough School of Global Affairs, proudly offer a four-part lecture series over the 2024-25 academic year. The series focuses on U.S. imperialism and U.S. military and humanitarian involvement in the Middle East, and in particular Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. Graduate students serve as discussants after each lecture, prior to Q&A with the audience. The series conducts a critical evaluation of U.S. policy in the Middle East and calls for a reassessment of the nature and function of a U.S. presence, and the implications posed for peacebuilding practitioners and contemporary global affairs scholarship. Though the US-led “war on terror” has been ongoing for over two decades, it is a war that has been waged largely in the shadows—in the concealed spaces of black sites, extraordinary renditions, covert drone programs, secret global surveillance, and through expanding terrorism laws and security databases. This talk tracks a little-known but ever-expanding dimension of US counterterrorism warfare, one that travels in and through a growing body of US counterterrorism law and sanctions regimes that tether to foreign aid flows and monetary transactions around the world. Drawing on over a decade of ethnographic fieldwork in Palestine, this talk traces how US counterterrorism law bundles and embeds in humanitarian and development aid flows inbound to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, transporting, in turn, Washington’s counterterrorism regime into the intimate spaces and interstices of Palestinian everyday life—in a greenhouse in Gaza, in a library in Bethlehem, in the collection of personal information and mapping of land plots, in the halls of municipal councils, and in local elections. Tracing the transnational operation of US law, this talk demonstrates how US empire operates as a topological formation that projects security and war power through opaque arrangements and blended genres of rule—in this case contracted relationships of aid—that render Washington’s counterterrorism regime intimately embedded in the lifeworlds of those afar. More broadly, it suggests that a close analysis of the topological workings of the US security state in Palestine tells us something significant about the shape-shifting nature of imperial formations, their realignments and reformulations, their haunted sites, and their obscured but intimate forms. Speakers:Lisa Bhungalia is a political geographer researching late-modern war, law, empire, and transnational linkages between the US and Southwest Asian and North African region and an Assistant Professor of Geography and International Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her first book, Elastic Empire: Refashioning War through Aid in Palestine, published by Stanford University Press in December 2023, examines the entanglements of aid, law, and war in Palestine with attention to policing and surveillance regimes produced through the embedding of counterterrorism laws and infrastructures into civilian aid flows. She is also developing new research on the social lives of terrorism databases. Her research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, National Science Foundation, and Palestinian American Research Center, among other bodies, and her published work has appeared in Politics and Space, Political Geography, Geopolitics, Small Wars & Insurgencies, Society and Space, Environment and Planning A, Middle East Report, and Jadaliyya, among other venues.Student respondent: Francesca Freeman, Peace Studies and HistoryFaculty respondent: Perin Gürel, Associate Professor American StudiesOriginally published at kroc.nd.edu.

Kellogg Work-in-Progress seminars are designed to generate in-depth discussion of new scholarly work. For the pre-circulated paper and to attend, register here.  Kelly McMannKellogg Institute Visiting FellowLucy Adams Leffingwell Professor, Case Western Reserve University When are democracies, or other regime types, more successful at mitigating problems? Examining numerous economic, environmental, health, and security problems and guided by an initial theoretical framework, this project will provide an answer to the question. For mor information, click here. 

Get ready for a micro-festival full of free concerts, dancing, free food trucks and giveaways, and special celebratory moments. Featuring performances by Jerry O'Fonics, DJ Chuck Fry, and Brollision, this night commemorates you in thanks for all the support South Bend has shown DPAC since the center opened in 2004. It's our 20th birthday party, but you're the special guests! Bring your boogie shoes and enjoy fun activities until twilight on DPAC's Terrace and walkways at this all-ages event. RSVP  

Alexandra Razskazoff, the 2022 Met Opera Laffont Competition Grand Finals winner, and Dror Baitel, Notre Dame Opera music director, join forces in a vibrant program spanning Baroque to the 20th century, including works by Handel, Strauss, and Britten. This concert is free and open to the public.  To watch a livestream. Originally published at music.nd.edu.

NDIGI is delighted to welcome Vinayak Nikam, director and biotech investor at Paradigm BioCapital Advisors, and Colleen Nikam '08, investment advisor at Goldman Sachs, to Notre Dame! Colleen and Vinayak will engage in a fireside chat to teach us about the current landscape of biotech investing, the investment advisory business, and the many paths you can take to find a fulfilling career in financial services. Food from Einstein's Bagel Co. will be provided! Please let us know if you’ll be attending by filling out this short Google Form.   Originally published at ndigi.nd.edu.

Join Mondoza College of Business Dean Martijn Cremers for a fireside chat with Byron Spruell, president, league operations at the NBA, and who serves on the University’s Board of Trustees, as they discuss challenges and rewards of an executive leader and how the NBA embodies the ideas of "Growing the Good in Business."  As president, league operations at the National Basketball Association, Byron Spruell oversees critical league operations, including domestic and international basketball operations, referee operations, and basketball strategy & analytics. With effective integration of these departments, he is principally responsible for the processes regarding the management of rule changes, the development, evaluation, and training of game officials, the enforcement of conduct standards and discipline, and the application of analytics, innovation and strategy on the future evolution of the game. Spruell also collaborates with USA Basketball and the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) to promote the global growth of the game and development of players worldwide. Prior to joining the NBA in August 2016, Spruell spent 20 years at Deloitte LLP, most recently as its vice chairman, central region market leader. The Dean’s Speaker Series is a leadership-focused series featuring respected senior executives from top global companies across diverse industries. Through engaging discussions, the leaders share their unique insights on careers, global trends, effective leadership and emerging issues affecting business and society. The series is sponsored by the Burns Family endowment. Open to all students and the Notre Dame community. No registration required.