TALK | Humanitarian Advocacy and Climate Reparations by Jana Foxe of UW (Seattle)
About the Talk
In this practice job talk, Jana Foxe provides an overview of their research agenda through one dissertation chapter, Humanitarian INGO Advocacy and Public Support for Climate Reparations. The study asks whether humanitarian organizations can advocate for politically contentious policies without sacrificing public support. As humanitarian INGOs increasingly engage in advocacy alongside aid provision, traditional understandings of neutrality and impartiality face new challenges. Focusing on climate reparations and climate-displacement policies, Foxe uses a pre-registered survey experiment to examine how the public responds when humanitarian organizations endorse these measures. The findings identify the conditions under which advocacy affects willingness to donate, offering new insights into the political possibilities and limits of contemporary humanitarian action.
About the Speaker, Jana Foxe.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Gowen Hall (GWN). Campus room: Olson 1A in the basement of GWN. Accessibility Contact: polisci@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Friday, November 6, 2026, 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM.
TALK | A Lover's War: James Baldwin's Artist and their Creative Process by Dr. Sean Kim Butorac, Fairfield University
About the Talk
In describing the creative process, James Baldwin characterizes the artist as akin to a lover who holds up a mirror that reveals who we are and who we—and by the extension the world—must become. While extant scholarship has focused on the emancipatory dimensions of the creative process, few have grappled with the wider field of relationships that artists like Baldwin cultivate. This paper offers a thicker account of the creative process by analyzing a trove of fan letters that were written to Baldwin to illuminate the transformative, liberatory, parasocial, and self-deluding bonds that attend the creative process.
About the Speaker
Dr. Sean Kim Butorac ‘20 is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Fairfield University where he teaches critical theories of race, class, gender, and sexuality. His research takes a historical-theoretical approach to Black politics and Black political thought from the sixteenth century to today. Dr. Butorac is the author of Slave Rebellions and the Making of…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Gowen Hall (GWN). Campus room: Olson 1A in the basement of GWN. Accessibility Contact: polisci@uw.edu. Event Types: Workshops. Special Events. Information Sessions. Lectures/Seminars. Meetings.
Thursday, November 19, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM.
TALK | Vertical Moral Integration: Knowledge Investment and Political Control in Imperial China by Zhaomin Li, UW (Seattle)
About the Speaker, Zhaomin Li
University of Washington
Political Science Ph.D. Candidate.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Gowen Hall (GWN). Campus room: Olson 1A in the basement of GWN. Accessibility Contact: polisci@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Information Sessions. Meetings. Special Events. Workshops.
Friday, November 20, 2026, 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM.
TALK | Ramses Llobet of UW (Seattle)
About the Speaker, Ramses Llobet
University of Washington
Political Science Ph.D. Candidate.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Gowen Hall (GWN). Campus room: Olson 1A in the basement of GWN. Accessibility Contact: polisci@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Friday, December 4, 2026, 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM.
TALK | Patron-Client Conflict in World Politics by Paul Staniland, University of Chicago
About the Talk
Powerful states often provide military, economic, and political support to smaller clients. In some cases, these relationships became strained over either specific policy disputes or broader political questions that generate conflict. We have seen dramatic recent examples of these dynamics in US-Ukraine and US-Israel disagreements over regional security policies. This paper explores how patron-client conflicts play out by studying fine-grained historical comparisons of US disagreements over regional security with Pakistan, Thailand, South Vietnam, and Taiwan between 1950 and 1970. We theorize variation in the outcomes of patron-client conflicts and assess these arguments with detailed primary sources and specialist historiography. We then more briefly explore applications to other cases.
About the Speaker, Paul Staniland is Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He is also a nonresident scholar in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Gowen Hall (GWN). Campus room: Olson 1A in the basement of GWN. Accessibility Contact: polisci@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Conferences. Information Sessions. Meetings. Special Events.
Friday, January 15, 2027, 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM.