Wittenberg University

Wittenberg Inauguration Week Festivities Feature
International Relations Expert Rajan Menon

Rajan Menon

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — As part of the weeklong festivities leading up the inauguration of Mark H. Erickson as the university’s 13 th president on Sept. 24, Wittenberg University will welcome award-winning professor Rajan Menon, the Monroe J. Rathbone Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., and a Fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., at 4 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 22, in 105 Shouvlin Center. A faculty panel will follow Menon’s presentation, which is free and open to the public.

Menon, a leading expert in Russia, Asia and international and Eurasian security, was one of only 11 “Scholars of Vision” in 2002 in the United States to receive a prestigious one-year grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to study the political manifestations of Islam in Russia. Menon has also served as senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and as director for Eurasia Policy Studies at the Seattle-based National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR.)

One of five authors of Strategic Asia 2001: Power and Purpose, a comprehensive, independent study of Asia and its future, which was published by the NBR and released at a conference of the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Menon has also authored several other books, including Soviet Power and the Third World and a forthcoming book titled The End of Alliances,

His current work concerns American foreign policy; the international relations of Russia, Central Asia, the South Caucasus, and East Asia; the political and security dimensions of energy development in the Caspian Sea zone; globalization; and the comparative study of empires. He has also taught at Columbia University and Vanderbilt University and served as Special Assistant for Arms Control and National Security to Congressman Stephen J. Solarz (D-NY).

A regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times, Menon has also written forNewsweek, The International Herald Tribune, The Financial Times, Newsday, The Chicago Tribune and The Asahi Evening News. In addition, Menon is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a commentator for National Public Radio, CNN, MSNBC, BBC Television, BBC Radio, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and Radio Singapore International.

The Institute for the Study of World Politics, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. Institute for Peace, the National Council for Soviet and East European Research, IREX, the Institute for the Study of Peace, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation have also all awarded him prestigious fellowships and grants.

- Karen Gerboth

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