David Skidmore, professor of political science, is co-author of a new textbook, International Political Economy: The Struggle for Power and Wealth in a Globalizing World. The 522-page work, published by Routledge, was co-written by Thomas D. Lairson, visiting professor of political science at Jindal Global University and emeritus professor of political science at Rollins College. Read more about David in the Drake Newsroom.

Kieran Williams, visiting professor in the Department of Political Science, recently spoke at two events in the Czech Republic in connection with the publication of his biography of the Czech writer and statesman, Václav Havel (1936-2011). On Dec. 16, Williams and Professor David Danaher (University of Wisconsin-Madison) were interviewed at the Václav Havel Library in Prague by the Library’s director, Michael Žantovský, who previously served as Havel’s press secretary and later ambassador to the United States, Israel and United Kingdom. The discussion, conducted entirely in Czech, touched on the ways in which Havel’s life and work can be framed and presented, especially for non-Czech readers. The event was livestreamed on Czech Television’s website.

While in Prague, Williams also delivered a paper in Czech to a conference held at the Czech Academy of Sciences to mark the fifth anniversary of Havel’s death. He spoke on the influence of psychologist Erich Fromm and philosopher Josef Šafařík on Havel in the 1970s, when Havel was writing some of his most famous dissident essays, such as “The Power of the Powerless”. Williams’s biography of Havel was published in London by Reaktion Books and is distributed in the United States by the University of Chicago Press.