Okay, I know that I still have to write about my trip to Tallinn and Estonia, and I apologize for not having gotten it all down already (I have “finals”... [what?]), but I went to a lecture by Mark Danner last night, who, for some unknown reason, just happens to be in Petersburg for the week visiting Smolny, and I desperately need to share how AMAZING it was.
Who is Mark Danner you ask? Mark Danner is a rather famous journalist, reporter and expert on foreign and domestic policy. He has written for the New Yorker, reported from Iraq, and he’s published several books. He is a professor at Bard and at UC Berkeley, and he ended up talking to the Smolny community (mostly Americans) for two hours last night about the War on Terror, among many other things. Mark Danner is also an expert on torture, and we discussed one of his pieces on torture extensively in my human rights government class last spring; hence, why I practically fell out of my chair when Mike emailed us about his lecture.
I know it’s not really a big deal, but I am still so energized about the talk. Above all though, I was incredibly starstruck. Although I find myself slowly but surely challenging the opinions of my professors and other authority figures (I have a problem with believing authority without question), I am still very much smitten with anyone who knows a whole lot about topics I’m interesting in, or that which I wish I knew more about.
In addition to his thoughts on the War on Terror, Mark Danner touched on the Light Footprint foreign policy idea, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, DRONES, and, to my joy, torture under the Bush administration. I frantically reread through the paper I wrote on torture last year right before his lecture to refresh my memory, and at the end of his lecture when the question period opened, I mustered up the courage to ask him (without stuttering!) what his thoughts were on a truth commission and of the outlook for any transitional justice for the torture committed under Bush. In sum, he said that a truth commission would be a welcomed, but that it doesn't seem so likely at the moment considering the initiation would have to come from the government itself (among other things). He answered other questions regarding the morality of drones, counter insurgencies, Edward Snowden, and how, if possible, he saw the War on Terror coming to an end. I thought that Mark Danner is obviously highly intelligent, down to earth, and overall just a wicked cool guy, to put it lightly.
I waited to shake his hand and thank him again in person after the lecture ended. He remembered my name from earlier (he asked me my name after I asked him the question- *swoon*), and asked me about how I liked my time abroad. He said that he was happy to meet me. It’s a really good thing that Mark Danner is bald and overweight, because I probably would have proposed to him at the end of it all, haha. I hope I end up with someone whose combined intelligence and humility are on par with all the numerous professors and people like Mark Danner (ANYONE from my summer at UC Berkeley, for one) I’ve met over the years...
I think I underestimated how much I missed a good thought-provoking lecture (in English). Of course, I’m challenged every day in a very academic way because I struggle to communicate in a different language, but I guess I’ve been craving such a debate by someone who isn’t one of my peers for a long time. It inspired me to read more of Mark Danner’s books, and by the time the discussion ended last night, I found that I had made a mental list of all these political topics I feel I need to read about. AHHH, how REFRESHING!
On another note, I'll try to finish my Cold War final soon and write about my trip to Estonia and Finland.
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