Thank you for your continuing support in 2022!

The Tennessee World Affairs Council

This special event is free but please consider becoming a member or making a donation when you register. Thank you.

Parking: The Janet Ayers Academic Center is located at the corner of Wedgewood and 15th avenues on the northern front of Belmont University’s campus. There is free, lighted, parking in the garage located underneath the building, with elevator access to all floors. Entrances are located off of Wedgewood Avenue via the alley entrance and 15th Avenue, through both roundabouts.

The Ayres Conference Room is on the 4th floor of the Academic Center.

CAMPUS MAP http://www.belmont.edu/campus-map/files/campusmap.pdf

Dr. Roger Kangas

“I come at [issues] more from a policy side. I do like to see myself as an academic but my day to day world takes me into the practical world. So you may hear me use the term prac-ademia.”

Dr. Roger Kangas – Academic Dean and a Professor of Central Asian Studies at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies. Previously Dr. Kangas served as a Professor of Central Asian Studies at the George C. Marshall Center for European Security in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany; Deputy Director of the Central Asian Institute at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, DC; Central Asian Course Coordinator at the Foreign Service Institute for the U.S. Department of State; Research Analyst on Central Asian Affairs for the Open Media Research Institute (OMRI) in Prague, Czech Republic; and as an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Mississippi.

Dr. Kangas has been an advisor to the Combatant Commands, NATO/ISAF, the US Air Force Special Operations School, National Democratic Institute, International Research and Exchanges Board, American Councils, Academy for Educational Development, USIA, USAID, and other US government agencies on issues relating to Central and South Asia, Russia, and the South Caucasus. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University. Dr. Kangas holds a B.S.F.S. in Comparative Politics from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Indiana University.

Dr. Thomas A. Schwartz

Thomas Alan Schwartz is a historian of the foreign relations of the United States, with related interests in American politics, the history of international relations, Modern European history, and biography. His most recent book is Henry Kissinger and American Power: A Political Biography (Hill and Wang, 2020). The book has received considerable notice and acclaim. Harvard’s University’s Charles Maier has written: “Thomas Schwartz’s superbly researched political biography reveals the brilliance, self-serving ego, and vulnerability of America’s most remarkable diplomat in the twentieth century, even as it provides a history of U.S. engagement in global politics as it moved beyond bipolarity.” Earlier in his career, Schwartz was the author of America’s Germany: John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany (Harvard, 1991), which was translated into German, Die Atlantik Brücke (Ullstein, 1992). This book received the Stuart Bernath Book Prize of the Society of American Foreign Relations, and the Harry S. Truman Book Award, given by the Truman Presidential Library. He is also the author of Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam (Harvard, 2003), which examined the Johnson Administration’s policy toward Europe and assessed the impact of the war in Vietnam on its other foreign policy objectives. He is the co-editor with Matthias Schulz of The Strained Alliance: U.S.-European Relations from Nixon to Carter, (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

Professor Schwartz has held fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the German Historical Society, the Norwegian Nobel Institute, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Center for the Study of European Integration. He has served as President of the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations. He served on the United States Department of State’s Historical Advisory Committee as the representative of the Organization of American Historians from 2005-2008. Professor Schwartz received The Madison Sarratt Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching on April 3, 2013 at the Spring Faculty Assembly, Vanderbilt University. In 2008 Professor Schwartz received the Annual Alumni Education Award from the Vanderbilt Alumni Association. Schwartz is the recipient of the 2008 Book Award by Chi Chapter of the Kappa Alpha Order. This award is given to a faculty member who has been particularly influential in the lives and education of members of KAO. Professor Schwartz presented, “The Arab Spring: Revolution in the Middle East,” on April 19, 2011, as part of the Samuel L. Shannon Distinguished Lecture Series at Tennessee State University. Professor Schwartz has also presented lectures for the OAH Distinguished Lecturers Program.

TNWAC needs your support now more than ever. With a suggested donation of $100, you can help the Council continue to offer free, public programming to discuss global issues of critical importance to Americans’ security and prosperity.

Thank you for your continuing support in 2022!