Randall Woods to Kick Off Fulbright Conference With Keynote Address

Photo by Russell Cothren

Randall Woods

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Randall Woods, noted J. William Fulbright biographer and the John A. Cooper Distinguished Professor of History, will welcome scholars from around the globe with a keynote address at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 31, in Giffells Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Fulbright was one of the authors of the liberal internationalism that spawned the Cold War and led to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, yet he was a critic of both. Woods' lecture, "Fulbright Internationalism: A Retrospective," will address that paradox.

"Committed to liberal internationalism and international educational exchange, Fulbright was also at heart a Southern politician, who early in his career represented the region's sectional interests, including opposition to the civil rights agenda," Woods said.  "Like other Southern moderates he would come to embrace the Second Reconstruction. But that dichotomy — between provincialism and cosmopolitanism — revealed a divide that still has consequences for America's global policies, and for the perception others have of the U.S. international presence. More significant, Fulbright's reasoned opposition to the conflict in Vietnam is currently being referenced by critics of the second Iraqi war."

Woods is the author of Fulbright: A Biography, which was awarded the Robert H. Ferrell Prize for the Best Book on American Foreign Relations and the Virginia Ledbetter Prize for the Best Book on Southern Studies. It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. He has served as the John G. Winant Professor of American Government at the University of Oxford, Mellon Fellow at the University of Cambridge and Stanley Kaplan Distinguished Visiting Professor at Williams College.

The address will kick off a two-day symposium, "J. William Fulbright in International Perspective: Liberal International and U.S. Global Influence," examining many aspects of foreign policy and Fulbright's contributions. Seventeen scholars from around the world will participate in the conference, which is the sixth in the Blair Legacy Series.

The Blair Legacy Series invites senior scholars to assess the regional, national and international impact of politicians, intellectuals and social leaders. Participants in previous conferences have produced four manuscripts and a fifth is in production.  

About the Center: Diane D. Blair Center of Southern Politics and Society was established by an act of U. S. Congress in 2001, making it one of the rare research centers in the country to be established by congressional appropriation. It was named in honor of Diane Divers Blair who taught in the Political Science department at the University of Arkansas for thirty years. Her career outside of teaching included extensive public service as chair of both the U. S. Corporation of Public Broadcasting and the Commission on Public Employee Rights. She was also a founding member of the University of Arkansas Press. In 1992, she joined the Clinton presidential campaign as a senior researcher, after which she was appointed a guest scholar at the Brookings Institute. She returned in 1996 as a senior advisor on the Clinton re-election team. Diane D. Blair was a champion of interdisciplinary research and critical thinking, and she reached across the academic aisles often and with ease. The Blair Center reflects her academic model and strives to approach the study of the American South from a variety of angles, attempting to reveal the undercurrents of politics, history, and culture that have shaped the region over time.

About the University of Arkansas: The University of Arkansas provides an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate students in more than 200 academic programs. The university contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Arkansas among only 2 percent of universities in America that have the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Arkansas among its top American public research universities. Founded in 1871, the University of Arkansas comprises 10 colleges and schools and maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio that promotes personal attention and close mentoring.