April 13, 2005

Spring Morton-Kenney Lecture set Mearsheimer will talk April 18 about Iraq war

by Paula Davenport

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- A respected expert on international politics and national security will talk about the war in Iraq at this spring’s Morton-Kenney Endowed Political Science Lecture at

Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Political scientist and author John M. Mearsheimer will talk about “The Bush Doctrine and the War in Iraq” at 8 p.m., Monday, April 18, in the Student Center Auditorium. Admission is free. A public reception will immediately follow.

Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and is co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago.

He’s held teaching posts at several distinguished America universities.

The author of three books on security issues and international politics, he’s also penned numerous opinion pieces for The New York Times on the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the failure of Arab-Israeli peace efforts, nuclear proliferation and U.S. policy towards India.

A former U.S. Air Force officer and graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he went on to earn a doctorate in political science at Cornell University.

SIUC alumnus Jerome M. Mileur established the lecture series in 1995 to honor a pair of his college professors, Ward Morton and David Kenney, both political scientists.

The University’s political science department, in the College of Liberal Arts, and the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, oversee the series and its activities.

The lecture series exemplifies SIUC's aspiration of reaching out to others through coordinating cultural outreach programs as outlined in Southern at 150: Building Excellence Through Commitment, a long-range plan the University is following as it moves toward its 150th birthday in 2019.