Pictured below are (upper-right) Bonnie Robb, Associate Professor of French; (middle-left)Edgard Sankara, Assistant Professor of French; (middle-right) Matthew Weinert, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations; and (lower-left) Laurence Seidman, Chaplin Tyler Professor of Economics.
The Nobel laureates in literature, peace and economics for 2008 were the focus of a symposium presented by the University of Delaware's College of Arts and Sciences Friday afternoon, Oct. 24, in the Trabant University Center Theatre.
Faculty members from the Department of Languages and Literatures, the Department of Political Science and International Relations and the Department of Economics, the latter in UD's Lerner College of Business and Economics, offered their views on the Nobel laureates.
The program included welcoming remarks from Tom Apple, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and introductions and questions from moderator Douglas Doren, Associate Dean for research in the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
“The Nobel Prizes are a celebration of intellectual achievements, and we don't do enough to celebrate these individual thinkers who transform our society,” Apple said. “We should always remember that intellectual achievement is a collective work, so let's celebrate the research and scholarship efforts of our faculty here at UD.”
Faculty members included Bonnie Robb, Associate Professor of French, and Edgard Sankara, Assistant Professor of French, who addressed the work of Jean-Marie Le Clézio, cross-cultural citizen and writer and recipient of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature.
Matthew Weinert, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations discussed the contributions of Marti Ahtisaari, winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace, while Laurence Seidman, Chaplin Tyler Professor of Economics, spoke of the work of Paul Krugman, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics for his analyses of international trade and economic geography.
Nobel Prize for Literature
Robb, who teaches French literature of the 18th century, introduced a 20-minute film showing Le Clézio's world, from his early childhood to his early literary success and his subsequent work and travels.
“Many places and cultures are reflected in LeClézio's work. Indeed, Horace Engdahl, secretary of the Swedish Academy, in announcing the prize, described Le Clézio as 'a traveler, a citizen of the world, a nomad,'” Robb said. “Engdahl even went so far to say that Le Clézio is 'not a particularly French writer if you look at him from a strictly cultural point of view.'”
Le Clézio achieved literary celebrity at age 23, Robb noted, with the publication of his first novel, Le process-verbal, translated as The Interrogation, which won the Priz Théophraste Renaudot. His definitive breakthrough as a novelist came in 1980, with Désert (The Desert), which won the French Academy's Grand Prix Paul Morand.
“He has won at least one major literary award in every decade of his career,” Robb said. “Many of his works have also been bestsellers in France, despite his uncompromising literary integrity.”
Robb, a member of the UD faculty since 1976, and a recipient of the Foreign Language Teacher of the Year by the Delaware Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, received her doctorate from Bryn Mawr College.
Sankara noted that Le Clézio is a man of international stature who has not only redefined French literature, but also has become a citizen of the world by using his life and literature to establish a cultural dialogue with other civilizations.
“He has also helped in rewriting colonial literature and history by validating and incorporating into his works the various perspectives and forms of literature both oral and written from Africa, Asia, the Indian Ocean, America and Europe,” Sankara said. “He has created a world where civilizations communicate, rather than fight one another, and has given to the rest of the world a model of creative fiction infused from various genres.”
Research areas for Sankara, who received his doctorate from the University of Texas, include Francophone literatures, autobiography and postcolonial and reception studies.
Nobel Prize for Peace
Weinert said that Ahtisaari credits his experiences as a child whose family was forced to leave Finland when Stalin's army invaded that country in 1939, with engendering his desire to help others who find themselves in similar situations.
Ahtisarri joins an impressive list of agencies and individuals within the United Nations who have received the Nobel Prize since the organization officially came into existence on Oct. 24, 1945, Weinert said.
“The U.N.'s most fundamental resource is those under its employ, those women and men who work tirelessly with perseverance and determination, with wit and innovation, to furthering international peace and security and all that that entails,” Weinert said. “Marti Ahtisarri came to the U.N. by way of development work in Pakistan, and soon thereafter by diplomatic appointments, including an ambassadorship to Tanzania.”
While there is no uniform way in which Ahtisaari approaches negotiations and the settlements of disputes, Weiner said that the U.N. negotiations expert might be said to have developed seven rules for negotiating, which include:
Weinert received his doctorate in international relations from the University of Denver in 2002, and joined the University of Delaware faculty in 2006. His research interests include exploring the normative (moral and legal) dimensions of global political change. He is currently working on issues involving sovereignty and justice.
“Krugman goes back to Adam Smith 1776, with economies of scale, division of labor and the size of the market. Smith began his book with the example of the pin factory, but there must be a large market to take full advantage of economies of scale, so each country should make goods on a large scale and at a very low cost per unit, and sell it to its own consumers and consumers in other countries, or on a large scale,” Seidman said. “Krugman sets out the math to show how this would work and how both countries might benefit from specializing, large-scale production and trading.”
While noting that Krugman believes in selective government intervention and that subsidizing and protecting an industry may work on occasion, Seidman said the Nobel Prize recipient generally supports free trade on practical grounds.
“Although in theory one country may be better off if its government intervenes correctly, and the other country's government doesn't, in practice, politics and lobbying will lead to incorrect government interventions [in] the wrong industries,” Seidman said. “This may provoke interventions by the governments of other countries so that in the end, both countries will be worse off than if there had been free trade and no government intervention.”
Seidman, who received his doctorate in economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1974, was the recipient of the 2008 Lerner College of Business and Economics Outstanding Scholar Award. Books by Seidman include Economic Parables and Policies: An Introduction to Economics; Automatic Fiscal Policies to Combat Recessions; Funding Social Security: A Strategic Alternative; The USA Tax: A Progressive Consumption Tax; and Saving for America's Economic Future.
A reception for speakers and guests followed in the theatre lobby.