Thomas Remington's visit to Clayton State

In an earlier post I discussed the grant I received from the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Alumni Development Fund at American Councils and the U.S. Department of State. For the grant I organized a Current Issues in the Post-Soviet Region Lecture Series and the culmination of that series was Thomas Remington's visit to Clayton State and his talk "Remaking the Social Contract in Russia." I first read Remington's work during my Politics in Russia class in undergrad and continued to read his research on institutions in Russia throughout my graduate career. When I received the grant Remington who is the Goodrich C. White Professor of Political Science at Emory University was the first person on my list of possible speakers and I was so happy when he accepted the invitation to come and speak. I am using the seventh edition of his Politics in Russia book in my POLS 4800 Post-Soviet Politics class this semester and so it was also great to give my students the opportunity to meet the author of their textbook as well. The visit went great, my students found his talk informative, and a number of CSU faculty including the Dean showed up for the talk. Remington was so humble and nice and it was great to meet someone who has made such a profound impact on the field and remained nice and down to earth in the process.

Thomas Remington autographing his book for one of my students

Me and Thomas Remington!