To members and friends of the Providence Committee on Foreign Relations,
The PCFR returns for the 2018-2019 season, and we are excited to share our lineup of notable, expert presenters with you.
Thank you in particular to all members who shared feedback and speaker suggestions. Your input is valued as we aim to provide events that are edifying to our members.
We invite you to attend all these events, and encourage members to bring guests, especially as prospective new members.
Just a reminder, we are collecting 2018/19 member dues. Thank you to those who have already sent them in.
We have four membership categories:
Sustaining: Annual dues are $120. We much encourage your becoming a sustainingmember for the additional resources that it gives us to bring in good speakers and boost our related services.
Regular: Annual dues are $90.
Associate: For spouses of regular or sustaining members annual dues are $50. Thus, for example, the total dues for a sustaining member and his or her spouse would be $170. For a regular member and spouse, $140.
Student: Current full-time students may join for $50.
To pay your dues and dinner charges via credit card, please visit our website at thepcfr.org. Otherwise, please mail your checks, made out to “PCFR,’’ for dues to:
Hannah Hazelton
PO Box 146
Fiskeville, RI 02823
Dinners and dues can also be paid for at the welcome table on the night of a dinner by check, credit card or cash.
The cost of dues and dinners may be deductible for business reasons in some cases. Consult your tax adviser.
Please get your dues in for the 2018-19 season. The earlier we get them, the easier it is to plan for the new season. Thanks to everyone who has already sent them in.
Regards,
Hannah Hazelton
Chairperson
Providence Committee on Foreign Relations
pcfremail@gmail.com
Thursday, September 13
Paulo Sotero, Director, Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute
6:00, The Hope Club, 6 Benevolent Street, Providence
Paulo Sotero, the Director of the Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute, has covered the evolution of his native Brazil and U.S.-Brazilian relations for nearly forty years as a journalist and analyst. An award-winning reporter, he worked for publications across his country before serving as the longtime Washington correspondent for O Estado de S. Paulo, one of Brazil’s top dailies. A frequent guest commentator for the BBC, CNN, NPR and major newspapers in Latin America and beyond, Sotero has taught at Georgetown University and The George Washington University.
If you're paying at the door, please RSVP by replying to this email.
Wednesday, September 26
The Good Citizen and American Civilization
Fred Zilian
6:00, The Hope Club, 6 Benevolent Street, Providence
American Civilization is under stress and therefore also its exceptional leadership of the free world. Since the divisive 1960s, its basic building block—the good citizen—has been buffeted by at least seven factors: the legacy of the Sixties, the breakdown of the family and community, changes in our public education system, the rise of the Wild-West digital world, the degradation of cultural ethical standards, under-regulated capitalism, and a decline in leaders of character. This talk will explore the roles and responsibilities of the good citizen in historical perspective, those of the good citizen today, and the seven stresses on the good citizen today. It will then propose a partial solution: a universal national service program. Finally it will relate these challenges to the “Real Thucydides Trap,”—an alternate to Graham Allison’s—which threatens America’s leadership of the free world.
After graduating West Point in 1970, Fred Zilian completed a 21-year career as an infantry officer in the Army, a career that included four years teaching international relations at the U.S. Military Academy and four years teaching “Strategy & Policy” at the Naval War College. His second career was as an educator at Portsmouth Abbey School, 1992-2015, where he taught history, ethics, and German. Currently he is an adjunct professor at Salve Regina University, Newport, RI, where he teaches history and politics, and also a monthly columnist for the Newport Daily News.
Zilian holds a Ph.D. in international relations/strategic studies from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.
Wednesday, October 3
Social Entrepreneurship with Dr. Teresa Chahine, Harvard
6:00, The Hope Club, 6 Benevolent Street, Providence
Dr. Teresa Chahine is the author of “Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship,” based on her course at Harvard. She is the Innovation Advisor at Alfanar Venture Philanthropy, which she helped launch in her home country of Lebanon. Alfanar provides tailored financing and technical support to social enterprises serving marginalized populations in the Arab world.
Dr. Chahine divides her time between Beirut and Boston, where she leads the social entrepreneurship program at the Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Wednesday, October 17
Two Paths to Brexit: Michael Goldfarb
6:00, The Hope Club, 6 Benevolent Street, Providence
On the eve of an EU summit where the bloc's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, hopes to present a draft treaty for Britain's withdrawal from the EU former NPR correspondent, Michael Goldfarb, who covered the creation of the euro and the border free Europe, looks at the details of the deal: the rights of millions of British and European citizens now living in what have become "foreign" countries, how to keep the Irish border fully open, maintaining supply chains, and the time frame for transition.
It is also possible talks will have collapsed. In that case, Goldfarb will explain the likely impact on UK, Europe and global economy of a no-deal Brexit.
Michael Goldfarb is an author, journalist and broadcaster. He has written for The Guardian, The New York Times and The Washington Post but is best known for his work in public radio. Throughout the 1990’s, as NPR’s London Correspondent and then Bureau Chief, he covered conflicts and conflict resolution from Northern Ireland to Bosnia to Iraq for NPR.
Thursday, November 8
Geopolitics Underlying US Foreign Policy
Sarah C. M. Paine
6:00, The Hope Club, 6 Benevolent Street, Providence
Sarah C. Paine is a professor of strategy and policy at the U.S. Naval War College located in Newport, Rhode Island. She has written or co-edited several books on naval policy and related affairs, and subjects of particular interest to the United States Navy or Defense. Other works she has authored concern the political and military history of East Asia, particularly China, during the modern era. She is the author of the 2012 award-winning book, Wars for Asia 1911–1949.
Suggestions for speakers and topics are always much appreciated.
We’re all in this together.
We want your feedback.
Do you have ideas for PCFR? Thoughts? Opinions? Please share your feedback with us by sending an email to pcfremail@gmail.com
Hannah Hazelton
Chairman
Providence Committee on Foreign Relations
