Tag Archives: International Matters

The Challenges of International Cultural Preservation

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Rebuilding Notre Dame
Presented by Professor Elizabeth Riorden

Tuesday, June 18th, 2019
5:30 Reception/6:15 Dinner/7:00 p.m. Presentation

Schiff Conference Center
Cintas Center at Xavier University

The FPLC invites you and your guests to a stellar presentation about the preservation of global cultural treasures, using the tragic fire of Notre Dame as a focus. Professor Elizabeth Riorden will offer a compelling insider view of how to preserve the world’s great cultural treasures.

Elizabeth Riorden earned her Master of Architecture degree from Columbia in 1981. After working as an architectural designer and registered architect, she returned to an earlier career interest: archaeology. With B.A. degree from Brown in Ancient and Medieval Culture (magna cum laude 1978), Riorden had a deep interest in the built environment of past civilizations. In 1989 she participated in excavations at Troy in Northwest Turkey. Her Troy drawings and articles appear in Studia Troica. In 2002 she became a full-time academic, teaching architectural design, history and preservation at the University of Cincinnati’s School of Architecture and Interior Design.

Riorden is a Fellow of the American Academy of Rome where her Fellowship project was a study of roof interventions in sensitive archaeological sites. For decades she pursued field work at the medieval site of Psalmodi in the Rhône delta of France, bringing her students to the ruined monastic site for training in advanced architectural documentation and analysis. In 2017 at the annual meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists in Maastricht, she presented “Early Gothic in the Midi; the Benedictine Abbey of Psalmodi.” She will share how we can safeguard the world’s architectural treasures.

Event sponsored by:

Xavier University - Edward B. Brueggeman Center for Dialogue

World Affairs Council

FBI: The International Mission

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An evening with Joseph M. Deters
Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC)
Criminal Branch, Cincinnati

Thursday, February 28, 2019 – 5:30-6:15 p.m. – Reception
6:15 p.m. Dinner – 7:00-8:30 p.m. Presentation and Discussion

Schiff Conference Center
Cintas Center at Xavier University

Joseph M. Deters

Joseph M. Deters

In 2001 Special Agent Joseph Deters joined the FBI. From 2001-2008, he served in the Miami Field Office working on narcotics trafficking and as a member of the Latin American Extra-territorial Squad, focused on kidnapping, hostage taking and terrorism cases.

In 2008, he became Supervisory Special Agent to the National Gang Task Force including MS-13 and l8, at the Transnational Anti-Gang Unit in El Salvador. He was International Operations Division Legal Attaché overseeing all FBI operations in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Belize.

Additional posts include Supervisor of a Public Corruption Squad in Los Angeles and his current Cincinnati post. Before joining the FBI, Agent Deters was Assistant Professor of Spanish Language and Literature at the University of Puget Sound. His Ph.D. is from the University of Arizona.

Special Agent Deters will discuss the scope, diplomacy and relationships needed for successful FBI overseas operations through the 80 FBI field offices on foreign soil. His extensive work and experience in Latin America will offer a unique opportunity to understand the international dimension of U.S. anti-crime efforts.

Event sponsored by:

Xavier University - Edward B. Brueggeman Center for Dialogue

World Affairs Council

Iran versus Saudi Arabia

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Ancient religious divide – Modern fight for power
An evening with
Ambassador Kenton Keith

Tuesday, February 13, 2018
5:30-6:15 p.m. – Reception 6:15 p.m. Dinner
7:00-8:30 p.m. – Presentation and Discussion

Schiff Conference Center, Cintas Center at Xavier University

Today’s burgeoning proxy conflicts in the Middle East between forces loyal to Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran are rooted in irreconcilable religious differences between the two main schools of Islam. Rarely have the two powers been as close to open conflict as they are today. Iran’s regional influence is increasing as Shia allies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere appear to be gaining influence. Saudi Arabia’s succession drama is playing out in ways that few would have predicted only a couple of years ago. The Kingdom is involved in a conflict in Yemen that pits Sunni against Shia. Both Saudi Arabia and Iran are in existential conflict with ISIS, which is largely Sunni.

Each has oil and gas resources, but each has domestic economic and political challenges that have distanced the leadership from their populations. U.S. interests are tied to maintaining stability in the Middle East, progress toward Mideast peace between Israel and the Arab world, and unimpeded access to oil and gas. All those interests are affected by the dynamics of Saudi-Iranian competition.

Kenton KeithKenton Keith retired from government service in 1997 after four years as a naval officer and thirty-two in the U.S. Information Agency and Department of State. His final years at USIA included assignments in Brazil, Paris, and Cairo in public affairs and cultural affairs in deputy and senior positions. In Washington, he served as both Deputy Area Director and Area Director for USIA’s (NEA) North Africa, Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs. Keith led the USIA planning team for the amalgamation of foreign affairs agencies. He was confirmed as Chief of Mission Doha, Qatar in 1992. For five years he served as a team leader in the Department’s Office of the Inspector General, before being named US Ambassador to Qatar in l992 for three years.

As Ambassador to Qatar he oversaw U.S. cooperation with American private sector companies competing for a share in the rapid expansion of Qatar’s LNG development, related technologies, as well as traditional petroleum exploration and development. He participated in successful negotiations with the Qatari government on regional security cooperation including the pre-positioning of U.S. military equipment and had an active role in Qatar’s establishment of American university faculties in the country.

Post Foreign Service Keith was Senior Vice President of Meridian International Center, the largest program agency assisting the Department of State in the management of the International Visitor Leadership Program. After retirement from Meridian, Ambassador Keith returned to State for occasional stints as Team Leader for Office of Inspector General teams. He led inspections of embassies in Luxembourg, The Hague, Reykjavik, Madrid, Lisbon and Brasilia, as well as the board of the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

Keith serves on the boards of the conflict resolution organization Partners Global, the Association of Diplomatic Service and Training, the Washington Humane Society, and the anti-human trafficking organization Artworks for Freedom. He belongs to the American Academy of Diplomacy, the citizen diplomacy organization Global Ties U.S., Meridian’s Hospitality and Information Service, and DACOR, and organization for retired diplomatic and consular officers.

Ambassador Keith is a Chevalier in the French Order of Arts and Letters. He is a member of the Cosmos Club of Washington, DC.

Event sponsored by:

Xavier University - Edward B. Brueggeman Center for Dialogue

World Affairs Council

Latin America Trending towards Beijing, Washington, or its Southern Star

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Presented by Cynthia Watson, Ph.D.
Professor of Strategy at the National War College

Tuesday, December 5, 2017
5:30-6:15 p.m.- Reception 6:15 p.m. Dinner
7:00-8:30 p.m. – Presentation and Discussion

Schiff Conference Center, Cintas Center at Xavier University

According to Dr. Cynthia Watson “Latin America is much in the news because a number of leaders are under scrutiny for corruption, the Chinese are involved in a manner they have never been historically, and the United States is absorbed in issues elsewhere. The region is showing some evidence of achieving the conditions the U.S. has long hoped for – absorbing the rule of law, calling its international relationships to adhere to standards, and trying to create a genuinely Latin American path towards sustained development.”

Please join us to find out what is really going on in Latin America today.

Dr. Cynthia Watson

Dr. Cynthia Watson

Cynthia Watson grew up in Thailand and Colombia. She earned a M.A. in Economic History/Latin American Studies from the London School of Economics and a PhD in Government & International Studies from Notre Dame. She was 2011 Alumna of the Year at University of Missouri at Kansas City. Author of nine books on security issues, including Combatant Commands: Origins, Structure and Engagements (2011), Stability, Security, Reconstruction and Transition Operations (2012), and Military Education (2007), she focuses on military education as an instrument of statecraft as well as China’s modernizing and its effect on security relations, having worked on China in Latin America for the past fifteen years. Her most recent manuscript is Asia First: Reflecting or Refracting Strategy?, assessing the use of strategy to achieve the rebalance to Asia and the future of the United States around the world.

Dr. Watson joined the National War College faculty in 1992. She was Assistant Dean for Social Sciences at Loyola University of Chicago where she also taught Political Science. Dr. Watson worked for the House Subcommittee on Government Information & Individual Rights as well as the U.S. General Accounting Office. She is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Event sponsored by:

Xavier University - Edward B. Brueggeman Center for Dialogue

World Affairs Council