Welcome to the Hamilton Lugar School’s second annual Global and Area Perspectives Symposium. This annual event features diverse regional perspectives on key global challenges.
Our 2025 theme is Languages, Cultures, and Conflict.
November 7-8, 2025
John D. Ciorciari
Dean, Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies
Friday, November 7
3:00 - 4:00 pm— Keynote Session with the Honorable Evan Ryan (Shreve Auditorium)
4:15 - 5:30 pm — Signs of Protest: Language, Symbolism, and Resistance Across Asia
5:30 - 6:30 pm — Reception (GISB Atrium)
6:30 p.m. — Concert by the Bloomington Silk Road Ensemble
Saturday, November 8
9:15 - 10:00 am — Coffee/Tea service outside Shreve Auditorium
10:00 - 11:15 am — Language, Memory, and Rhetoric: The View from Europe
11:30 am - 12:45 pm — International Relations, Language, and the Nature of Contemporary Conflict
12:45 - 2:00 pm— Lunch (GISB Atrium)
1:00 - 2:00 pm — Graduate Student Poster Session (Corridor to Shreve Auditorium)
2:00 - 3:15 pm — Threats to Indigenous Cultures in Areas of Conflict
3:15 pm — Closing Remarks
Secretary Evan Ryan is a distinguished public servant who has held senior roles in three presidential administrations. She served as White House Cabinet Secretary under President Joe Biden from 2021-2025. During the Obama administration (2013-2017), she served as Assistant Secretary of Educational and Cultural Affairs. She also held the role of Assistant for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Liaison for Vice President Biden. Earlier in her career, during the Clinton administration (1994-1997), she was Special Assistant to the First Lady’s Chief of Staff and Deputy Director of Scheduling for the First Lady.
Ryan worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign, and served as Deputy Campaign Manager for Biden’s 2008 presidential run before joining the Obama campaign. In 2020, she was a Senior Advisor to the Biden-Harris transition team.
Beyond politics, Ryan was Executive Vice-President of Axios and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She holds a B.A. in Political Science from Boston College and an M.I.P.P. from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
In this panel, we will explore how linguistic and symbolic systems have been mobilized to express dissent, galvanize communities, and challenge authority across a broad geographic expanse from the Middle East and Central Asia to East Asia. How do protesters craft symbols that resonate across cultures or assert local identity? What makes certain semiotic strategies effective or dangerous? By bringing together scholars working on different regions and media, this session sheds light on the cultural grammars of resistance and the politics of signification in times of conflict and upheaval.
This panel explores the intersections of language, memory, and political rhetoric across diverse European contexts, foregrounding how these elements are mobilized to shape identity, ideology, and collective belonging. From grassroots youth movements in Ireland to nationalist campaign speeches in Hungary, the panel examines how language and memory function not merely as tools of communication, but as potent instruments of political and cultural meaning-making.
This panel will examine intra-state conflict between sub-national groups, stressing ethnic conflicts. While the disciplines of economics, sociology, social psychology, and geography have all contributed to the study of these, linguistics has mostly not. The relevance of language and linguistically based perspectives to the study of global social conflict, especially ethnically based conflict, will be demonstrated, showcasing linguistic tools for analyzing conflicts and language policy measures for understanding the effects of linguistic discrimination.
According to UNESCO, approximately 40% of the world’s 7,000 languages are currently at risk. Attacks on Indigenous languages have been largely analyzed as part of wider forms of political and epistemic violence. This panel discusses the role of language preservation amidst armed conflict and in peace building efforts, particularly paying attention to Indigenous languages’ centrality in efforts of memory, reconciliation, and redress.
Chair, Associate Professor, Hamilton Lugar School Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures (read bio)
Associate Professor, Hamilton Lugar School Department of Central Eurasian Studies and International Studies (read bio)
Moderator
Director, East Asian Studies Center and Associate Professor, Hamilton Lugar School Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures (read bio)
Senior Fellow, Hamilton Lugar School Center for the Study of the Middle East (read bio)
Assistant Professor, Germanic Studies, Jewish Studies, Indiana University (read bio)
Visiting Fulbright Scholar, Hamilton Lugar School The Byrnes Institute (REEI) (read bio)
Leverhulme Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Liverpool (read bio)
Moderator
Research Associate Anthropology, Indiana University, Adjunct Faculty, Hamilton Lugar School The Byrnes Institute (REEI) (read bio)
Professor, English Language & Literature, University of South Carolina (read bio)
Associate Professor, English Language & Literature, University of South Carolina (read bio)
Dag Hammarskjold Professor Emeritus, Political Science, University of South Carolina (read bio)
Visiting Lecturer, African Studies Program Hamilton Lugar School, Indiana University (read bio)
Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology & Department of Central Eurasian Studies Hamilton Lugar School, Indiana University (read bio)
John D. Soper Teaching Professor, Department of Central Eurasian Studies
Director, Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region Hamilton Lugar School, Indiana University (read bio)
Moderator
Director, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies & Ostrom Workshop Commons Governance Program
Professor, Department of Geography & Department of International Studies Hamilton Lugar School, Indiana University (read bio)
Justifying Colonialism: Exploring the British Mandate System in Africa and the Codification of Western Supremacy
Zoe Catlin, International Law & Institutions, Hamilton Lugar School
Social Power of Language in Kazakhstan - Current Conditions
Jonathan Caldes, Central Eurasian Studies, Hamilton Lugar School
Analysis of Turkish /s/-initial Onset Clusters Through m-reduplication
Hale Karkoutli, Central Eurasian Studies, Hamilton Lugar School; Linguistics, College of Arts and Sciences
Social Media as a Tool for Language Maintenance in Diaspora
Sui H. Par, Amanda Bohnert, Grayson Ziegler, Dillon Smith, Em Em, Hannah Hunt, Van Nei Par, Elly Hnem, Rebecca Mawi, Ruth Nem, Claire Mang, Lily Stella, Emily Hanink, Kelly Berkson, Chin Languages Research Project, Linguistics, College of Arts and Sciences
On the Interaction of Identity Hate Classification and Data Bias
Donnie Parent, Nina Georgiades, Charvi Mishra, Khaled Mohammed, Sandra Kuebler, Computational Linguistics, College of Arts & Science
Examining the Versatility of Ukrainian Libraries in the Russia-Ukraine War
Kat Payne, Russian and Eastern European Studies, Hamilton Lugar School; Library Science, Luddy School
Acoustic Cartographies: Coke Studio Pakistan’s Imagined Geography in a Post-Partition Subcontinent
Ria Prasad, India Studies, Hamilton Lugar School
From zero to textbook: Chuvash Elementary Textbook
Aleksei Rumiantsev, Central Eurasian Studies, Hamilton Lugar School
Email Heather Duemling, Director of Events & Outreach / Special Assistant to the Dean
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