Imperial Oil

Professor Michael J. Watts, faculty member of the Geography Department and Outgoing Director of the Institute of International Studies at UC-Berkeley, will be visiting UCSC on May 20 and 21 as a Distinguished Fellow in Global Studies of the Center for Global, International and Regional Studies. Watts, the recipient of a Guggenheim Award in 2003, will be speaking on "Imperial Oil" in the UCSC Media Arts Theater, from 7-9 PM on Thursday, May 20, 2004. He will also be giving a lunchtime colloquium at College 9/10 on Friday, May 21, and will be available to speak to selected classes and have consultation hours with interested faculty and students. Watts's Guggenheim award supports research on petroleum and economies of violence in Nigeria, where he has been conducting research for more than two decades. This project is part of a larger examination of conflicts engendered by the exploitation of strategic resources such as petroleum. As he has observed, "At this moment in history, in which oil and war appear daily on the front pages of every newspaper around the world, it is critically important to fully understand the long and bloody history of oil and its fundamental relation to imperialism and the making of the modern world." At UC-Berkeley, Watts is Class of 1963 Professor of Geography and founder of the Berkeley Working group on Environmental Politics. He has received prestigious teaching awards from UC Berkeley and received fellowships and grants from the MacArthur Foundation, the Social Science Research Council and the Ford Foundation. Watts received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1979.

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Google Video | May 20, 2004

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