The lineup of guest lecturers for “Gateway to Global Affairs,” a survey lecture course open to all students, will feature military leaders from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and an expert on the HIV/AIDS crisis worldwide.
The course, now in its second year of being offered, will again be taught in separate modules led by the guest lecturers, Jackson Institute Director Jim Levinsohn told the News earlier this week. But with three of the four lecturers new to the course this year, Levinsohn added that the course’s content will be “totally different.”
The course will begin with a six-week module on the Middle East and Iraq, co-taught by ret. General Stanley McChrystal and Graeme Lamb, the retired British Army lieutenant-general who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“[Lamb] and McChrystal are going to do six weeks on essentially what a Yale College undergrad should know about the Middle East or Iraq,” Levinsohn said. “I think this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for our students to hear about Iraq and Afghanistan from the guys that ran the war.”
In the second, three-week module, journalist and business executive Sheryl WuDunn will discuss “Soft Power Diplomacy” by primarily focusing on the relationship between the United States and China. Some of her readings are based on the book on the global oppression of women that she co-wrote with husband, journalist Nicholas Kristof, Levinsohn said.
The final module will feature the only returning lecturer from last year, Nicoli Nattrass, who will deliver three weeks of lectures on responses to the AIDS epidemic. The decision to bring Nattrass back for the course was based on positive evaluations and interviews with students, Levinsohn said.
“It ought to be pretty amazing,” Levinsohn said of the course.