As the home to the area and global studies centers and thematic programs at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the Illinois Global Institute is dedicated to fostering an environment where international perspectives are integral to teaching and research.

Center for African Studies * Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies * Center for Global Studies * Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies * Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies * Center for the Study of Global Gender Equity * European Union Center * LAS Global Studies * Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies * Russian, East European, and Eurasian CenterThe Program in Arms Control and Domestic and International Security

 

CEAPS Speaker | "Self-Determination in Very Small Places" | Bradley Simpson (University of Connecticut)

Oct 5, 2026   12:00 - 1:30 pm  
404 David Kinley Hall & ZOOM
Sponsor
Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies
Speaker
Bradley Simpson
Registration
Registration
Originating Calendar
CEAPS Events Calendar

Join us for our first speaker event of the semester.

About the Talk:
The idea of self-determination is one of the most significant in modern international politics. For more than a century, diplomats, lawyers, scholars, activists, and ordinary people in every part of the globe have wrestled with its meaning and implications for decolonization, human rights, sovereignty, and international order. The First Right (Oxford UP, 2025) argues that there was no one version of self-determination, but a century-long contest between contending visions of sovereignty and rights. Brad Simpson will focus in this talk on those places that were considered too small, too backwards, or too primitive to self-determination, and their implications for contemporary global politics. 

About the Speaker:
Brad Simpson is Professor of History and Asian Studies at the University of Connecticut. He is the author of Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and US-Indonesian Relations, 1960-1968. His new book is The First Right: Self-Determination and the Transformation of International Order, 1941-2000

https://www.bradleyrsimpson.com/


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