Sara Silverstein

Fellow’s Talk: Sara Silverstein on the Contest to Define World Health

2020-2021 Fellow's Talk. For Your Health and Ours: The History of the United Nations Public Health and Social Medicine Service and the Contest to Define World Health. Assistant Professor, History, UConn, Sara Silverstein, with a response by Shaine Scarminach. Live. Online. Registration required. March 31, 2021, 4:00pm. UConn humanities institute.

For Your Health and Ours: The History of the United Nations Public Health and Social Medicine Service and the Contest to Define World Health

Sara Silverstein (Assistant Professor of History and Human Rights, UConn)

with a response by Shaine Scarminach

Wednesday, March 31, 2021, 4:00pm (Online—Register here)

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated that “we are only as strong as the weakest health system in our interconnected world.” The pandemic demands that we rethink international health, as well as our own national health system. This talk will explore the competing understandings of global responsibility for health in the mid-twentieth century, when the World Health Organization originated. During the Second World War, the former director of the League of Nations Health Organization circulated plans for a “United Nations Public Health and Social Medicine Service.” Ludwik Rajchman’s proposal combined the institution he had led during the interwar years with the international measures that he was convinced would be necessary to care for refugees after the war ended. It would be possible, he argued, to guarantee healthcare for everyone in the world. He was not a fringe radical at the time, but the World Health Organization’s planning committee did not consider his proposal. Rajchman instead established a competing program within UNICEF and, briefly, two distinct futures for international health existed simultaneously. Their competition illuminates the history of international collaboration in advancing public health and public responsibility for healthcare caught between imperial interests and the Cold War.

Sara Silverstein is a jointly appointed Assistant Professor of History and Human Rights. Her work focuses on the history of internationalism, modern Europe, social rights, global health, development, refugees and migrants, and statelessness. She received her Ph.D. in History from Yale University in 2016, her M.Phil. in Modern European History from the University of Oxford in 2009, and her A.B. in Literature from Dartmouth College in 2007. Before coming to UConn, she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and has been a Fox Fellow at Sciences Po, Paris, a junior visiting fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, and a Franke Fellow at Yale. She is the 2017 winner of the World History Association Dissertation Prize. She convenes the History of Human Rights and Humanitarianism Colloquium at the UConn Human Rights Institute.

Shaine Scarminach is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Connecticut. He studies the history of the United States in the world, with an emphasis on U.S. empire, world capitalism, and the global environment. His dissertation, “Lost at Sea: The United States and the Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans,” explores the U.S. role in developing the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. His research has been supported by the Tinker Foundation, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, and the Rockefeller Archive Center.

Registration is required for the event.

If you require accommodation to attend this event, please contact us at uchi@uconn.edu or by phone (860) 486-9057.

Fellow’s Talk: Shaine Scarminach on the Law of the Sea Convention

Post for Shaine Scarminach's talk. Refusal and Resignation: The Reagan Administration and the Law of the Sea Convention. Dissertation Research Scholar Shaine Scarminach with a response by Sara Silverstein. Live Online Registration Required. December 2, 2020, 4:00pm

Refusal and Resignation: The Reagan Administration and the Law of the Sea Convention

Shaine Scarminach (Ph.D. Candidate, History)

with a response by Sara Silverstein (Assistant Professor of History and Human Rights, UConn)

Wednesday, December 2, 2020, 4:00pm (Online—Register here)

 

“Refusal and Resignation: The Reagan Administration and the Law of the Sea Convention” explores President Ronald Reagan’s decision not to sign the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Despite nine years of painstaking negotiations, the Reagan administration rejected the final agreement on the grounds that it ran counter to U.S. interests. I argue that this abrupt shift resulted less from disagreements over specific provisions and more from the principles behind the treaty. In rejecting an agreement that championed multilateral negotiations, supranational institutions, and economic redistribution, the Reagan administration emphasized the need for national sovereignty, the free market, and bilateral relations to govern the world’s oceans. The talk will discuss the Reagan administration’s failed attempt to negotiate last minute changes to the treaty, and the policy decisions that led the United States to remain outside of an agreement that governs more than two-thirds of the Earth’s surface.

Shaine Scarminach is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Connecticut. He studies the history of the United States in the world, with an emphasis on U.S. empire, world capitalism, and the global environment. His dissertation, “Lost at Sea: The United States and the Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans,” explores the U.S. role in developing the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. His research has been supported by the Tinker Foundation, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, and the Rockefeller Archive Center.

Sara Silverstein is a jointly appointed Assistant Professor of History and Human Rights. Her work focuses on the history of internationalism, modern Europe, social rights, global health, development, refugees and migrants, and statelessness. She received her Ph.D. in History from Yale University in 2016, her M.Phil. in Modern European History from the University of Oxford in 2009, and her A.B. in Literature from Dartmouth College in 2007. Before coming to UConn, she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and has been a Fox Fellow at Sciences Po, Paris, a junior visiting fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, and a Franke Fellow at Yale. She is the 2017 winner of the World History Association Dissertation Prize.

Registration is required for the event.

If you require accommodation to attend this event, please contact us at uchi@uconn.edu or by phone (860) 486-9057.

Announcing the 2020–21 UConn Faculty Fellows

The University of Connecticut Humanities Institute (UCHI) is proud to announce its incoming class of UConn faculty fellows. The Class of 2020–21 will consist of seven faculty who embody the creative drive and energy of the arts and humanities scholarship at the University of Connecticut. More information about each fellow, including their biographical information, will be provided at a later date:

 

 

Elizabeth Athens sitting against a background of flowers

Elizabeth Athens

 

Department of Art & Art History

Project Title: Figuring a World: William Bartram’s Natural History

Amanda Crawford headshot

Amanda Crawford

 

Department of Journalism

Project Title: The Sky is Crying: the Sandy Hook Shooting and the Battle for Truth

Melanie Newport headshot

Melanie Newport

 

Department of History

Project Title: This is My Jail:  Reform and Mass Incarceration in Chicago and Cook County

Helen Rozwadowski headshot

Helen Rozwadowski

 

Department of History - Avery Point

Project Title: Science as Frontier: History Hidden in Plain Sight

Sara Silverstein headshot

Sara Silverstein

 

Department of History & Human Rights Institute

Project Title: Toward Global Health: A History of International Collaboration

Scott Wallace headshot

Scott Wallace

 

Department of Journalism

Project Title: The Bleeding Frontier: Indigenous Warriors in the Battle for the Amazon and Planet Earth

Sarah Winter headshot

Sarah Winter

 

Department of English

Project Title: The Right to a Remedy: Habeas Corpus, Empire, and Human Rights Narratives