What's in a Name?
February, the month of love. In reality, the name February is derived from the Latin ‘februum’, which means “purification”. February has gone by many names since it was added to the Roman Lunar Calendar in about 731 BC, including the Old English ‘Solmonath’, meaning mud month, and ‘Kale-monath’, meaning cabbage month. Charlemagne called February, ‘Hornung’.
Like the month of February, understanding the history of names and identity is equally important when studying international relations. As Dr. Gloria Ayee highlighted in her previous presentation as an HESIRC Harvard Professor and Fellow Speaker, specific attributes such as race and ethnic identity have historically been used to marginalize different groups of people. This impedes global development and leads to societal and international issues such as political inequality, intergroup animosity, discriminatory policies, and ethnic-based violence. As the UNDP suggests in its Human Development Report 2021-2022, overcoming minority marginalization has direct benefits for national development processes.
This February, in the spirit of love, HESIRC urges you to dive deeper into names and identity. We ask you to consider, what is the importance of name and identity in international relations?
HESIRC Upcoming Events
Harvard Extension Student International Relations Club (HESIRC) proudly presents its “Harvard Instructor Series on International Relations" discussion!
Join us online February 18, 2023, from 2:00PM - 3:00PM EST as we discuss “The Conflict in Ukraine” with Dr. George Soroka, Lecturer on Government and Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Government Department of Harvard University, from where he received his PhD (political science) in 2014. Given his academic focus, Dr. Soroka has spent quite a bit of time traveling throughout the former communist countries of Eurasia, and has lived for extended periods in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Irkutsk, Kyiv, Krakow and Warsaw.
This discussion is open to members of the public as well as all Harvard students and Harvard affiliates.
To register: https://bit.ly/HESIRC-SOROKA
We look forward to seeing you there!
HESIRC Student Highlight
Jaqueline Shelton
Jaqueline “Jax” Shelton is an ALM degree candidate and Department of Defense civilian majoring in International Relations, with a focus on social justice issues, who lives with her canine sidekick, Mo, in the Washington D.C. metro area. Professionally, she works as a Protocol, Security, and Administrative Specialist for the United States Air Force. Because her job requires interacting with foreign dignitaries, Jax is fortunate to be able to integrate key lessons she learned in her degree program into her day-to-day duties. Her overall goals in this degree program have been to become more culturally competent and to add to the Harvard community through service. Though she doesn’t have a specific class she considers to be her favorite, it was Dr. Arnold Howitt’s Crisis Management and Emergency Preparedness course that led to her exploring her thesis topic on World Central Kitchen’s role in the 2017 Hurricane Maria response. Because all her professors have left an impact on her, she has a hard time picking her favorite! But she notes that Dr. Risse, Dr. Bond, Dr. Howitt, Dr. Liazos, and Dr. Johnson-Freese are the instructors who have interacted with her the most.
As one of the co-founders of the Harvard Extension Student International Relations Club, she remarked, “Each HES IRC board has made it better and more inclusive each academic school year. What an amazing group of students to be in fellowship with, I’m so proud!”
Jax’s favorite place on earth is Thailand and she hopes to visit the Bermuda Triangle at some point in the future. When asked about this goal she said “Will I make it out alive?! Only time will tell!”
We hope you make it there, Jax! Please come back to tell us about it!
HESIRC Professor Highlight
Prof. Nick Coburn-Palo
Prof. Nick Coburn-Palo | LinkedIn
Dr. Nick Coburn-Palo serves as a full-time faculty member at Harvard University, where he is Preceptor of Public Speaking, as well as teaching a Management course on Negotiation Tactics and the year-long Capstone Seminar sequence on Policy Analysis in the Masters of Government program. Dr. Coburn-Palo maintains an on-going professional relationship with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) as well as a leading continental economic think tank, European House - Ambrosetti.
He earned his Masters and Doctorate in Political Science from Brown University and has studied at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. Dr. Coburn-Palo has also previously served as a Program Dean for International Security Studies at Yale University. As a consulting negotiation trainer for UNITAR, he has worked with representatives from dozens of nations, including Egypt, Nigeria, Venezuela, Malaysia, South Sudan, Nepal, and Palestine. Dr. Coburn-Palo co-designed and taught the inaugural U.N. course for incoming Security Council nations on policy statement writing, working with the delegation from South Africa. In 2012, he presented at an Ambassador level summit for the African Union in preparation for the Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development. In 2020, UNITAR retained him to create and teach an advanced course on negotiation strategy for dozens of diplomats from the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the run-up to important regional security and economic negotiations.
He has served as an on-line graduate instructor for the Open University of Catalonia (Barcelona), working to develop and teach an intensive seminar on Overcoming Negotiation Deadlocks. Dr. Coburn-Palo has served as a Lecturer in the Department of Communication Studies at San Jose State University, where he has taught courses on Persuasion, Mediation, and Global Strategic Communication. In addition, he has guest lectured at universities on four continents, including EAFIT University (Colombia), National Taiwan University (NTU), Stanford University, and the Warsaw School of Economics. Finally, Dr. Coburn-Palo has decades of teaching experience at top-tier independent schools, including Taipei American School, the Pinewood School (CA), and the College Preparatory School (CA) where he coached teams to major championships in virtually every style of competitive debate. He has also recently served as the History and Humanities Department Chair at the York School in Monterey, California, teaching courses in World History, American Government, Philosophy, and Asian Politics.
He previously served in an administrative capacity as the Assistant Dean at a large public high school (Hopkins) in the Minneapolis (MN) area.
To learn more about the works of Prof. Coburn - Palo, you can visit his website.
Coming up around the world…!
It’s February! Let’s take a global look at a few of the celebrations February offers…other than Valentine’s Day.
In the United States, February 1st kicked off Black History Month. HESIRC encourages you to attend a local Black History Month activity and to explore Harvard’s dedicated portal for Black History that provides a host of interesting educational resources. HESIRC particularly recommends Harvard Radcliffe Institute’s Black Women Oral History Project. If you are on campus this month, you can celebrate Black History by attending the Harvard Countway Library’s February 21 cinema presentation of “John Lewis: Good Trouble”. If you are near DC this month, the https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/initiatives/black-history-month-2023 has free, public educational offerings all month long.
Worldwide, February holds a smorgasbord of celebrations, starting with Carnival. Almost a week-long, Carnival is an experience that takes place in many parts extending into the latter half of the month of February.
In Brazil, the colorful Carnival is known worldwide and has earned the distinction of being “The Greatest Show on Earth” will return this year in full swing. The festival is set to take place from 17th to 25th will be held in the Marvelous City of Rio de Janeiro. The Best Street Parties are organized by street groups called ‘blocos’ where you will find a large crowd milling and dancing to the tune of samba. With all the excitement surrounding the city, the Sambadrome during Rio Carnival will play host to the biggest party on the planet!
In Italy, the Carnival of Venice is one of the unmissable festivals of the city of Venice that will take place until 21 February this year. Every year, in addition to “Frittelle” and “Chiacchere”, typical Venetian sweets, the Carnival of Venice offers a series of events, the main and most popular every year are definitely: the "Flight of the Angel" from the bell tower of San Marco", the "Venetian Festival on the water" with the parade of rowing associations, and the awarding of the Maria del Carnevale, followed by the "Svolo del Leon".
In China, February 21, 2023, also brings the Zhonghe (Blue Dragon) Festival, the first observed after the Chinese Lunar New Year and celebrates the ‘waking of the dragon’. While it is not widely observed, particularly in cities, those who do celebrate make sure their house is clean and cleanse the air by burning herbs. They eat special food made to represent the scales of the dragon and, while they abstain from washing clothes on this day, it is considered good luck to get a haircut. The purpose of this celebration is to bring good harvest by preparing the soil properly and praying for rain.
Happy February, everyone!
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