Le Moyne College Political Science Department
Welcome to the Political Science Department at Le Moyne College in Syracuse NY
Susan
Behuniak –
Interest in Political
Science:
The main question that fascinates me is the issue of
what counts as knowledge and how this affects how much
political power a person or group has. In my field of
constitutional law, I focus on how this question affects
the rights of people who are often marginalized:
patients, students, dissenters, women, the poor, and
people of color.
Personal Info:
I am a volunteer family caregiver with Hospice of CNY
and have also taught new volunteers both locally and in
Russia. I spend my free time (what free time!?!):
traveling, reading, walking my dogs, gardening, and
studying piano, yoga, and Russian
My interest in international politics got started sitting on the floor of my aunt Dot and uncle Frank Barron’s bedroom. As a kid at the height of the Cold War, I would listen, subversively, to Radio Moscow and Radio Havana on their Zenith Trans-Oceanic shortwave radio. Besides marveling at the great distance traversed by the radio waves, I wondered why the news reported on these stations was so different from that on the BBC or the Voice of America.
In high school, this interest led me to take a sophomore 20th century history course as an elective in my senior year at John Marshall High. It changed my life. This was 1966 and the schools in Richmond, Virginia, my home town, had only been integrated for five years. Here I had my first African-American teacher, Leontine Kelly, and I was one of only a few white kids in the class. Mrs. Kelly saw that 90% of her class were of African descent and taught the class from what would now be called an Afro-centric perspective.
Here that I first learned about colonialism, the African struggle for independence, and apartheid. In September 1966, South African Prime Minister Verwoerd was assassinated, stabbed to death on the floor of Parliament in Cape Town. Mrs. Kelly used that as a springboard to talk about the violence of the apartheid system of state-sponsored racism. Never understanding the racism of the Jim-Crow south where I grew up, I found the parallel situation in South Africa fascinating.
This fascination with international politics and South Africa led me to major in International Studies at Rhodes College and ultimately to a PhD in Government and International Studies at the University of South Carolina.
I have visited South Africa a dozen times doing research, and I was a member of the Yale University Southern African Research Program (SARP). In 1994 I was part of the SARP delegation of international observers at the 1994 election of Nelson Mandela.
At Le Moyne College I teach international politics, international human rights, and South African politics and research methods. I am also the director of the Le Moyne Center for Peace and Global Studies.
In my spare time I love to cook, boat, bicycle, and make wine. I also have a collection of shortwave radios, including two Zenith Trans-Oceanic models.
My primary interest in political science revolves around the issue of democracy, especially how we can teach civic education so that we can improve democracy by creating active citizens with democratic dispositions. I am interested in pedagogical approaches that can be used for citizenship education and the role that the university plays in a democracy.
Personally, I enjoy gardening, cultivating my Chardonnay grapes, making wine, traveling, and I am a practicing philatelist. I enjoy driving my 1990 Miata (Mimi) and working in local political campaigns.
General Interests: Political philosophy; Comparative Political Theory; Eastern European political theory as it relates to dissidence, resistance, totalitarianism and political ideology; Vaclav Havel’s political thought.
My choice of research topics is a reflection of my life experience. The 1989 Eastern European revolutions changed my outlook on political life, and I decided that it was a worthwhile effort to analyze and explain the nuances of political change. My hope is that the lessons of totalitarianism will help us avoid some of the potential pitfalls of liberal democracy.
The notion and practice of citizenship, in both liberal and non-liberal regimes, is one of my long-standing interests. My research integrates what I see as the new criticism of democratic citizenship that has emerged out of Eastern European dissident literature with existing contemporary political thought. My main interest is to critically analyze the political theory of Vaclav Havel, the Czech playwright, dissident and former President of the Czechoslovak Republic. I endeavor to show that Vaclav Havel’s essays, plays, speeches, and letters can be integrated into a coherent political theory, which contributes significantly to some of the central debates in modern political thought. With this research, I aspire to end “the strange silence of political theory” regarding the significance of contemporary Eastern European scholarship for contemporary political thought. Current project: analyzing the legacy of 45 years of anti-communist opposition in Eastern European documentaries and personal accounts.
Personally: I enjoy photography, I occasionally paint and I make jewelry. My guilty pleasure is reading Agatha Christie type novels and historical fiction series. I love to travel and I always look forward to visiting my parents in Romania.
Bio to be supplied at a later date.
Charles
Pulver Emeritus-
This page is managed by John Freie. of the Department of Political Science at Le Moyne College, the Jesuit College of Central New York.
E-Mail:freie@lemoyne.edu
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