Thursday 29th May 12-2pm, UEA Earlham Hall, Room 1.13.

Rudra Sil:  "What Comparative Area Studies Brings to the Table: Enhancing Area Studies While Leveraging Contextualized Comparison"

Rudra Sil is Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania where he is also Director of the dual-degree Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business. He received his Ph.D. from Berkeley.  His scholarly interests encompass Russian/post-communist studies, Asian studies, comparative labor politics, international development, qualitative methodology, and the philosophy of social science. Sil is currently working on a monograph titled The Fate of a Former Superpower: Russia’s Troubled Search for Relevance and Recognition in a Post-Cold War World (under advance contract, Cambridge University Press). He has previously authored, coauthored, or coedited eight books. These include two monographs – Managing ‘Modernity’: Work, Community, and Authority in Late-Industrializing Japan and Russia (2002) and Beyond Paradigms: Analytic Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics (2010), coauthored with Peter Katzenstein and honoured as a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title – and six co-edited books, including The Politics of Labor in a Global Age (2001), World Order After Leninism (2006) and, most recently, Advancing Comparative Area Studies: Analytical Heterogeneity and Organizational Challenges (in press, Oxford UP).  

Eileen Doherty-Sil: "The Promise of Comparative Area Studies for a More Grounded Global IR: The Study of Human Rights"

Dr. Eileen Doherty-Sil is a Senior Lecturer in Political Science and Faculty Director of the Core & Africa general Program at the Joseph H. Lauder Institute of Management & International Studies at U. Penn.  At the Lauder Institute, she is part of the leadership team focusing on interdisciplinary curricular development in support of the university’s joint-degree MBA-MA program in International Studies.  Prior to joining Lauder, she was the Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies in the University of Pennsylvania’s Political Science Department.   Dr. Doherty-Sil brings to Lauder over twenty years of experience in executive education with the Doctor of Business Administration program at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management, where she has taught courses in Conflict & Cooperation in the Global Arena as well as Theory & Practice of Collective Action. 

Dr. Doherty-Sil’s research focuses on international human rights law, especially the role of business & human rights in international relations. Her current book focuses on the global governance of business & human rights.  Dr. Doherty-Sil earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was an IGCC Ford Foundation Fellow in Multilateral Cooperation.