Department of Politics & International Relations Welcomes New Faculty
(August 9, 2010) -- The Hendrix Department of Politics and International Relations would like to welcome two new faculty to its ranks in the Fall Semester, and welcome the return of two other faculty for 2010-2011:
Carmen L. Hardin, who earned her B.A. at Hendrix in 1996 and her J.D. at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock in 1999, joins the Department as an Assistant Professor of Politics. In 2010-2011, She will be teaching courses in Race & Ethnicity, Criminal Law, Family Law, and Social Deviance. Hardin expects to receive her Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville) later this year.
Ambassador Alan Eastham joins the Department as a Senior Fellow in International Relations and International Programs. Eastham, who received his B.A. from Hendrix in 1973 and his J.D. from Georgetown University in 1982, has just retired as a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, where he has served since 1975. Eastham's 35 years of service included assignments in Nepal, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Kenya, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Malawi. His most recent assignment was U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville). In 2010-2011, Ambassador Eastham will teach courses in U.S. Foreign Policy, African Politics and Foreign Policy, and a topics course on South Asia. Eastham will also work closely with Dr. Peter Gess in the Hendrix Office of International Programs.
The Department also welcomes the return of Dr. Mikael Pelz and Dr. Jacques Pollini to the Department for the 2010-2011 academic year. Pelz, who holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Missouri-Columbia, will be teaching courses in American Parties and Elections, Terrorism, Public Policy, and Research Methods. Dr. Pollini, a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Environmental Politics, earned his Ph.D. from Cornell University. In 2010-2011, he will teach courses in Cultural & Political Ecology and Agriculture & Sustainability.
Indivisible Human Rights published
(August 9, 2010) -- The University of Pennsylvania Press has just published Indivisible Human Rights: A History by Dr. Daniel J. Whelan, an Assistant Professor of Politics and International Relations at Hendrix.
In Indivisible Human Rights, Whelan traces the political and historical development of the concept of indivisibility, which originated in the contentious debates surrounding the translation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into binding treaty law as two separate Covenants on Human Rights. In the 1960s and 1970s, Whelan demonstrates, postcolonial states employed a revisionist rhetoric of indivisibility to elevate economic and social rights over civil and political rights, eventually resulting in the declaration of a right to development. By the 1990s, the rhetoric of indivisibility had shifted to emphasize restoration of the fundamental unity of human rights and reaffirm the obligation of states to uphold both major human rights categories—thus opening the door to charges of violations resulting from underdevelopment and poverty.