Breslauer Graduate Student Conference
The Breslauer Graduate Student Conference is designed to support graduate student research that addresses international issues related to the pursuit of solutions to real-world problems. Established in 2001 and housed within International and Area Studies, the conference focuses on an internationally relevant theme and provides a venue for graduate students to exchange ideas across disciplines. The conference is made possible by a campus donor in honor of George Breslauer, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost at UC Berkeley.
2009 Breslauer Graduate Student Conference
"The Public Interest"
Keynote Speaker: Craig Calhoun, President, Social Science Research Council
May 7 and 8, 2009
The repercussions of how the public interest is defined and which actors are able to define it have critical consequences for conceptions of social justice, government, democracy, development, citizenship and human rights. Negotiated between state, economy and society, the 2009 Breslauer Graduate Student Conference sought to map the ways in which the meanings and objectives of the public interest are constantly re-defined and re-appropriated.
Call for Papers Conference Poster Conference Program Conference Papers
2007 Breslauer Graduate Student Conference
"Rule of Experts: Development, Knowledge, and the Politics of Global Poverty"
Geballe Room, Townsend Center for the Humanities
Keynote Speaker: Timothy Mitchell, New York University, Department of Politics
April 13 and 14, 2007
Today an estimated 2.7 billion people live on less than $2 per day, yet even as the post-World War II development project is criticized from across the political divide, there is striking optimism about the potential to end global poverty. Working with new paradigms and brandishing new technologies of measurement, international, national, and subnational actors are meeting in contested sites around the world, struggling over the production of authoritative knowledge. The 2007 Breslauer Graduate Student Conference brought together graduate students from all disciplinary backgrounds whose work touches on these issues, in both the global North and South.
Conference Program
2006 Breslauer Graduate Student Conference
“Right to the City and the Politics of Space”
Geballe Room, Townsend Center for the Humanities
Keynote Speaker: Don Mitchell, Syracuse University Department of Geography
April 14 and 15, 2006
Millions of people around the world live on the streets, in substandard structures, or on plots of land under the constant threat of eviction and displacement. With the rise of neoliberal policy regimes, the struggles over urban and rural space have intensified. These old and new marginalities continue to be challenged by a host of survival strategies, negotiations that claim a right to the city, social movements, peasant uprisings, squatter mobilizations, and other forms of resistance. The 2006 Breslauer Graduate Student Conference cut across the often-divided analytical and geopolitical domains of First and Third Worlds, bringing together those working within the Global South and those working within the Euro-American context.
Conference Program Conference Papers
2005 Breslauer Graduate Student Conference
“Social and Scientific Aspects of Climate Change”
Sproul Room, International House
Keynote speaker: Dr. Stephen Schneider, Stanford University
February 25, 2005
Over the past decade global climate change has attracted a tremendous amount of scientific and policy-related international attention. Understanding the ecological and socioeconomic consequences of warming and other associated climate changes is an important step in assessing how we should address this problem both scientifically and politically. The 2005 Breslauer Graduate Student Conference provided a venue for students to interchange ideas about global climate change across disciplines, as well as broaden their knowledge of the multitude of climate change issues addressed on the UC Berkeley campus.
Conference Program Conference Papers
2004 Breslauer Graduate Student Conference
“Natural Resource Issues in Africa”
Sproul Room, International House
Keynote Speaker: Marshall Murphree, University of Zimbabwe
March 5, 2004
Many African countries have vast natural resources but nevertheless are among the poorest nations in the world. Aiming to further understand the local context for conservation and planning tools for local resource management, the 2004 Breslauer Graduate Student Conference also addressed the political economy of resource use and local responses to political and economic restructuring.
Conference Program Conference Papers