Every program and department at IU is governed by its faculty. The director and staff simply administer programs at the behest of the program faculty. Because International Studies is an interdisciplinary major with no faculty, our program is governed by our Internal Advisory Board. The members of the 2010-2011 Board are:

Michael Alexeev is Professor of Economics and received his Ph.D. from Duke University in 1984.  Dr. Alexeev’s research and teaching interests lie mostly in the fields of comparative economics and economics of transition from a Soviet-type economy to a market economy. Recently, his interests have expanded to comparative analysis of institutions in law and economics. In studying the economics of transition, Dr. Alexeev concentrates on the behavior of various economic agents (enterprise managers, consumers, and government officials), paying special attention to informal aspects such as underground economic activities.  Dr. Alexeev’s research has appeared in Journal of Economic Theory, Review of Economics and Statistics, and European Economic Review, as well as in comparative economics journals and edited volumes.  Since early 1992 Dr. Alexeev, who is a native of Russia, has been actively participating in technical assistance programs targeting the former Soviet Union.

Purnima Bose is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Cultural Studies Program.  She received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1993.  Dr. Bose is a post-colonial scholar whose earlier work focused on British colonialism and the links between Irish and Indian feminists and nationalists in the first half of the twentieth century.  In recent years her research interests have expanded to include globalization, the role of corporations in public life, and anti-globalization resistance with particular attention to the ways in which globalization shapes the Indian (U.S.) diaspora and its conception of identity and history.  Her  projects are united by attention to hegemonic structures on the one hand and activism on the other.  While her formal training is in Comparative Literature, her scholarship is a mix of history, cultural studies, social movement theory and feminist analysis.

Gardner Bovingdon is Associate Professor of Central Eurasian Studies and East Asian Languages and Cultures and Adjunct Professor of Political Science.  He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 2002.  Dr. Bovingdon’s research interests include politics in contemporary Xinjiang, Taiwan, and Central Asia, state-sponsored nationalism in those regions, and theories of nationalism and ethnic conflict.  His research has appeared in edited volumes as well as the journals Modern China, Twentieth Century China, and the East-West Center’s Policy Studies.  His book, The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land, was published by Columbia University Press in August 2010.

Eduardo Brondizio is Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology and received his Ph.D. from Indiana University in 1996.  Dr. Brondizio is motivated by the study of rural populations and small farmers in Brazil and Latin America, their ways of life and livelihoods, their social and economic identities, and their importance to the larger society.  His teaching experience includes both undergraduate and graduate courses.  He recently published the book “The Amazonian Caboclo and the Açaí Palm: Forest Farmers in the Global Market” (The New York Botanical Garden Press, 2008).

Lynn Duggan is Associate Professor in the Labor Studies Program within the School of Social Work and received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  Her research interests are in social and family policy in Europe, focusing mainly on Germany.  She is also interested in women and development and is currently co-editing a new edition of The Women, Gender, and Development Reader.  Dr. Duggan teaches courses on labor and the global economy as well as class, race, gender, and work. 

Kevin Jaques has taught at IU since 2001 after completing his Ph.D. in Emory University’s West and South Asian Religions program.  He is interested in medieval Muslim biography, especially Tabaqat literature, and the rhetorical methods used by authors to shape their histories of the development of religious-intellectual disciplines, especially Islamic law and theology.

Kirstine Lindemann is Senior Assistant Dean and Director of Undergraduate Academic Affairs for the College of Arts and Sciences.  She earned her Ph.D. in German Studies at IU, and she teaches in that department when time allows.  Currently not actively engaged in research, she focuses her attention on undergraduate students and the education they (need to) receive.  Her most recent international travels were to a workshop in Copenhagen and a middle school in Manisa.

Michael McGinnis is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Political Science.  He received a B.S. in Mathematics from the Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Minnesota.  In his research he uses game theory to explore strategic interactions in world politics, including the effects of faith-based organizations on global policy pertaining to humanitarian relief, development, human rights, and peace-building.  Dr. McGinnis teaches courses in public policy, research methods, and religion and world politics.

Robert Robinson is Professor of Sociology and received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1979.  Dr. Robinson has published articles in American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, and Social Forces using comparative and historical methods to address a broad range of questions in social stratification, economic history, the sociology of religion, and political sociology:  How does belief in the American Dream shape popular attitudes toward social justice? Why did factories develop as a form of production in 19th-century America?  At Indiana University he has been awarded the Edwin H. Sutherland Award for Excellence in Teaching, the IU Trustees Teaching Excellence Recognition Award, the Sylvia E. Bowman Award for Distinguished Teaching (an IU system-wide award), and the Outstanding Mentor Award of the Sociology Graduate Student Association.  He is Co-Director of the Sociology Department’s Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program.

Kathleen Sideli is Associate Vice President for Overseas Study at Indiana University.  Her active career includes teaching for 25 years in IU-Bloomington’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese; contributions to three editions of NAFSA’s Guide to Education Abroad for Advisors and Administrators; chair of NAFSA’s Section on U.S. Students Abroad (1999-00); chair of the IIE/SECUSSA Data Collection Committee (1999-2003); former chair of the Board of Directors and founding president of the Forum on Education Abroad (2001-present); and current chair of CIEE’s Academic Consortium Board.  

Gregory Waller is Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication and Culture.  He received his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1978.  Dr. Waller is currently working on two major projects: a history of 16mm, traveling exhibition, and the non-theatrical film industry during the 1930s-1940s; and Japan-in-America, a comprehensive look at the presentation of Japan across varied media from 1890 to 1915, a project which includes a traveling exhibit and a digital archive.  His teaching experience includes undergraduate and graduate courses in film history, criticism, and theory; cultural studies; media research methods; film and literature; Japanese film and culture; film genres (including courses in horror, detective, war, documentary, and comedy); teaching film and television; special topics courses on Vietnam and World War II, ideology and popular film, independent American film, ethnicity and film, Hollywood in the 1930s, multiculturalism and media, and the contemporary American film industry; film and American popular music; and American literature.  Dr. Waller has published five books and his research has appeared in journals such as Cinema Journal, Black Film Review, Film Quarterly, and Screen.