Monthly 1961 Zoom Programs

Please Join Us For Our Zoom Discussion with Mary Habeck ’96 PhD

“The Polarization of American Society”
Friday, October 15th, 11 am EDT

Associate Professor of Strategic Studies,
The Johns Hopkins University Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University Center for Security Studies
Adjunct Professorial Lecturer, American University

Register Here

We are pleased to have Dr. Mary Habeck speak to us on the reasons for the polarization of American society. Her talk will follow the development of today’s polarization and ask whether we can heal the chasm that divides America today. She has led a class on this topic for Yale Alumni College and will lead two sessions of a class on “Wars in the Head: Vietnam and Afghanistan” this fall. (One session is already sold out, but another that runs from October 11-November 15 has just been added.)

Dr. Habeck taught American and European military history in Yale’s history department from 1994 to 2005. She received her PhD in history from Yale in 1996 and an MA in international relations from Yale in 1989. Classmates may remember that she spoke to our class on Jihadism at a mini-reunion in New Haven in 2004. She currently teaches at Johns Hopkins, Georgetown and American University.

About Mary Habeck
Mary Habeck is a strategic planner and an expert on military matters, Islam, and extremism. She teaches on these issues at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Georgetown, and American University. Dr. Habeck is also a Senior Fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute. From 2005-2013 she was an Associate Professor in Strategic Studies at SAIS, teaching courses on extremism, military history, and strategic thought. Before moving to SAIS, Dr. Habeck taught American and European military history in Yale’s history department, 1994-2005. She received her PhD in history from Yale in 1996, an MA in international relations from Yale in 1989, and a BA in international studies, Russian, and Spanish from Ohio State in 1987.

Dr. Habeck was appointed by President Bush to the Council on the Humanities at the National Endowment for the Humanities (2006-2013), and in 2008-2009 she was the Special Advisor for Strategic Planning on the National Security Council staff, where she worked on extremism.

In addition to books and articles on doctrine, World War I, the Spanish Civil War, and al-Qa’ida, her publications include Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror (Yale, 2005) and three forthcoming sequels on extremist military and political strategies and on the United States in the ongoing war on terror. She is also finishing up an intellectual history on the problem of polarization in America today.

Future Events & Zoom Discussions

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Thursday, November 18, 2021, 1 pm EST – Bob Budnitz ’61, retired scientific staff at the University of California’s Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. Bob’s topic is “the current status of nuclear power worldwide, and its prospects for contributing to easing electricity shortages in a climate-constrained world.”

For the Zoom Discussion Committee: Richard Carr

This is the video of a previous Y61 Zoom Discussion with
Jonathan Holloway ’95 PhD
President of Rutgers University

Isn’t 400 Years Enough?
The History of Racism in America
Wednesday, September 15th, 1 pm EDT We are very fortunate to be able to present this talk by Jonathan Holloway, President of Rutgers University, former Provost of Northwestern University and former Dean of Yale College, Edmund S. Morgan Professor of African American Studies and Head of Hopper College. In 2010, Jonathan taught the course, “African American History: From Emancipation to the Present” which is available online through Yale. The title of Jonathan’s presentation, “Isn’t 400 Years Enough?” was taken from a letter to the New York Times which he penned earlier this year.Future Events & Zoom Discussions• Thursday, November 18, 2021, 1 pm EST – Bob Budnitz ’61, retired scientific staff at the University of California’s Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. Bob’s topic is “the current status of nuclear power worldwide, and its prospects for contributing to easing electricity shortages in a climate-constrained world.”