Conference at Yale Explores Oil as Historical, Cultural and Political Force

The Howard R. Lamar Center for the Study of Frontiers and Borders and International Security Studies at Yale will host a two–day conference, April 29–30, in which scholars representing a range of disciplines will discuss the impact the quest for petroleum has had on people throughout the world.

The “Conference on Global Oil Frontiers” begins at 2:30 p.m. on Friday with a panel titled “Oil and the ‘American Century’: Historical Boundaries, Exploratory Claims.” Panel presenters are Karen R. Merrill, Williams College; Paul Sabin, Yale Law School; and Brian Frehner, Southern Methodist University. The panel will take place in Room 211 of the Hall of Graduate Studies (HGS), 320 York St.

At 4:30 p.m., Michael Klare, the Five–College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College, will deliver the keynote address for the conference. The address, “Petroleum Flows and Political Conflict,” will be given in Sudler Hall of William L. Harkness Hall, 100 Wall St.

A morning roundtable, “International Frontiers: The Oil Industry, Local Politics and Indigenous Cultures,” will take place in Room 211 of HGS, 9:30–11:30 a.m. Participants in the roundtable are Robert Vitalis, Director of the Middle East Center at the University of Pennsylvania; David S. Painter, who teaches in the history department and the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University; and Jane Guyer, professor of anthropology at Johns Hopkins University and advisor to the World Bank and the governments of Chad and Cameroon on the Chad–Cameroon Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project.

The conference is free and open to the public and no registration is required. For more information, contact the Lamar Center at 203–432–2328, lamar.center@yale.edu or www.yale.edu/lamarcenter. For directions to the University, visit the website http://www.yale.edu/visitor/directions.html.