The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) Summit just a few weeks ago revealed the ever-growing presence of nonwestern nations arraying themselves against NATO and the West. The BRICS nations share one common concern: U.S. sanctions on global trade and investment. New alliances and old enemies make understanding U.S. foreign policy a requirement rather than an elective. The world is smaller and faster in this communications age. Not only do relations with China, the Middle East, climate change, terrorism, and global health matter, but understanding how the world views our exporting of our own ethics and values through foreign policy is an important reason to engage in your future and our country’s future. Join postdoctoral fellows Jonathan Ng, Ashlyn Hand, and Augusta Dell’Omo in the 2023 Gail Koppman History Lecture to gain a deeper insight into the forces that are shaping our world and the current state of U.S. foreign policy. Moderated by Jeff Engel.

About the Lecture:
Gail Koppman was a passionate educator, voracious reader and lifelong learner. Born in Philadelphia, Gail graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pennsylvania in 1964. She began teaching in the Terrell and Richardson school districts and later taught economics at Richland Junior College. After raising her children, Gail taught social studies for more than 20 years at Good Shepherd Episcopal School.

In addition to teaching her students study skills and instilling a work ethic that would benefit them throughout their lives, Gail hoped to spark a lifelong curiosity about history, current events and the world. Her dedication to education was recognized over the years in the countless letters and emails that she received and treasured from former students and their parents.

Gail valued the educational contributions of the Council to the DFW community. Not only did she enjoy attending programs, she also appreciated bringing her students to various events and introducing them to different views and ideas.

In honor and remembrance of Gail and her lifelong dedication to education, her husband, Ed, and daughter, Katherine, have established the endowed Gail Koppman History Lecture.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Jeffrey A. Engel is founding director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University and professor in the Clements Department of History. He graduated magna cum laude from Cornell University. Engel also studied at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford University, and received his M.A. and Ph.D. in American history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He taught American history, international relations, and grand strategy at the University of Wisconsin, Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Haverford College. At Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government & Public Service he was a professor and director of programming for the Scowcroft Institute for International Affairs. Engel has authored or edited twelve books on American foreign policy.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Augusta Dell’Omo is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University. She received her Ph.D. in history from the University of Texas at Austin in 2022. She specializes in U.S. foreign policy and race in international relations from the late Cold War to the present. Dell’Omo’s dissertation Saving Apartheid: Transatlantic Whiteness in the U.S.-South African Relationship, 1980-1994, analyzes the construction of a transnational network of white supremacist political, religious, and terroristic organizations seeking to stabilize white rule in South Africa while working against congressional and presidential sanctions policies. Her work has been published in Cold War History and Diplomatic History. You can find her public facing work on Washington Post, Inkstick Media, AJ+, and CNN International. Committed to bridging the gap between academia, policymakers, and the general public, Augusta works as an associate policy researcher at the Bridging Divides Initiative at Princeton University. Previously, Augusta produced two podcasts – Right Rising and 15 Minute History.

Ashlyn Hand joined SMU’s Center for Presidential History in the fall of 2022. Her current project, Prioritizing Faith: International Religious Freedom and U.S. Policy Choices (1993-2017) compares the varied approaches to promoting freedom of conscience abroad during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations. Prioritizing Faith shows how evolving bureaucratic dynamics, agenda-setting processes, and strategic shifts at the presidential level interact and change U.S. policy. Ashlyn received her Ph.D. from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin in 2021 where she was a graduate fellow at the Clements Center for National Security. Prior to joining the team at CPH, she was a fellow with the America in the World Consortium, completing a pre-doctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins SAIS (2020-2021) and a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University (2021-2022). Ashlyn’s work has been published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution and the Journal of Church and State and Foreign Policy.

Jonathan Ng joined the Center for Presidential History in August 2022. His book project, The Unquenchable Fire: The Arms Trade and Reproduction of the U.S. Empire, 1960-1988, illuminates the influence of military contractors on foreign policy and the legacy of U.S. interventionism since the Vietnam War. One of the first multi-archival histories of the arms trade, his research demonstrates that foreign clients repeatedly saved firms from bankruptcy, underwrote weapons development, and became vital links in a global military-industrial complex. Ng received his Ph.D. in U.S. history from Northwestern University and previously was the Jay T. Walker Postdoctoral Fellow in U.S. and global history at the University of Tulsa. He has contributed articles to both popular and scholarly journals, including Diplomatic History, and enjoys helping students of U.S. foreign policy understand the inextricable relationship between the past and present.