October 3, 12:30 pm: Lecture—“Talking Past Each Other on a Global Scale”

Woodburn Hall 218

This lunchtime informal conversation will be hosted by Samuel Obeng, Director of African Studies and is open to faculty and students.  Below please find a brief description of his remarks.

Foreign publics can be irritating when it comes to American foreign policy.  We are often surprised that they don’t understand our policies, even when those policies seem clear and obvious.  Moreover, their rejection of our actions and policies can seem downright personal:  “Why don’t they like us?” and “Why don’t they get it?” are questions that Americans ask themselves.  Some argue that such attitudes are the normal result of cross-cultural misunderstanding.  Yet, frequently it is our closest cultural cousins in Europe who are the most vociferously anti-American in their criticism.

So what is the problem?  Is the US government’s public diplomacy (the term given to outreach to foreign audiences) simply too weak, too slow or too meager?  Does it matter anyway -- who cares if foreign audiences don’t understand and agree with us?   And isn’t public diplomacy really just propaganda -- something that a leading democracy shouldn’t even in engage in? 

In this program, Ambassador Wohlers will speak about his “lessons learned”, drawing upon actual experiences from his 30 years of experience as a public diplomacy professional in the State Department, followed by an informal give and take.