Dr. Lyn Boyd-Judson
Director
213.740.5499
Email: lynboyd@usc.edu

Lyn Boyd Judson is director of the USC Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics and has taught at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism and the USC School for International Relations. Previous affiliations include RAND, the Carter Center of Emory University, the Hong Kong Legislative Council, the United States Embassy Berlin-Third Reich Document Center, the USC's Center for International Studies, the Walt Disney Company Asia-Pacific, and Dow Jones News Service.

Boyd-Judson's research and teaching focus on diplomacy, ethics, global governance, and international negotiation. Her first book was published April 2011, Strategic Moral Diplomacy: Understanding the Enemy's Moral Universe. She has published in International Studies Quarterly, Foreign Policy Analysis, Carnegie Pew Case Studies in Ethics and Diplomacy (Georgetown University), and Leiden Journal of International Law. She is currently working on books on the ethics of state involvement in women's global health (edited with Patrick James, USC) and stories of global citizenship (co-author Julia Taylor Kennedy, Carnegie Council).

Boyd-Judson is a University Fellow at the USC Center for Public Diplomacy, faculty advisor for the USC Journal of Law and Society, and a member of Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. In Fall 2010, she was selected as a Global Fellow of the Carnegie Counci for Ethics in International Affairs, a three-year commitment as member of a working group to re-imagine a global ethic. She has served on the executive boards of the International Political Science Association RC 29, the International Studies Association-West and the Women's Caucus for International Studies (ISA), of which she is a past Chair.

Click here to visit Dr. Boyd-Judson's website

Recent teaching:

International Relations 101: Global Affairs in the 21st Century

Elizabeth Connely
Levan Program Coordinator
Email: connely@usc.edu

Elizabeth received her BA in political science from San Francisco State University with an emphasis on Latin American and African politics. She has had the opportunity of living and studying in South America and West Africa and is particularly interested in the way ideas and ideologies are spread and shared across borders. Her interest in ethics stems from her interest in justice and responsibility, and prior to joining the Levan Institute she worked with  after school programs for youth and legal services for LGBTQ victims of violence. Elizabeth plans on studying migration in graduate school and working with asylum and refugee rights in the future.

Alyssa Minn
Levan Work Study Student
alyssami@usc.edu

Alyssa is a junior pursuing a Bachelors in International Relations with honors.  She has gained work experience in Shanghai, China; Berlin, Germany; and Los Angeles, California, which has allowed for the application of her studies in a direct, experiential manner.  Most recently, she was a research analyst at Atheneum Partners, a global investment research and advisory firm located in Berlin, Germany.  In addition to working at the Levan Institute, Alyssa teaches at inner-city high schools through the Teach International Relations Program and is a research assistant at the School of International Relations.  She most recently presented her research paper, entitled “Ethnic Korean Population in Japan: The Last Frontier?” at the ASU 4th Annual Asian Studies Graduate Conference in Tempe, Arizona (November 2011).

Please contact Dr. Boyd-Judson if you are interested in a work-study opportunity with the Institute.

PROGRAM DIRECTORS:

Sharon Lloyd (Levan Coffeehouse Conversations)

Professor of Philosophy, Law, and Political Science Sharon Lloyd works in the history of political philosophy, with special attention to the moral and political theory of philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Her research focuses on contemporary moral and social issues, political philosophy and its history, animal rights and liberal feminist philosophy. With a joint appointment in the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and the Gould School of law, Lloyd’s work in philosophy has attracted the interest of legal scholars and is often published in law reviews. She is regarded as an important voice in the current generation of liberal feminists. Professor Lloyd enjoys teaching in USC’s honors program and general education on such topics as self-identity and moral responsibility, political obligation, and social ethics for earthlings and others through science fiction.

James Collins (Performing Wisdom)

James Collins is assistant professor and undergraduate advisor in the department of Classics. His current research develops the notion of philosophy as a political and social pursuit among other competing and similarly commodified lifestyles. This project aims at determining the pragmatics of a “marketplace of ideas” (i.e., the economy, cohesion, identity and mobility of intellectual communities) in the larger marketplace of a variety of political and social landscapes. Collins co-founded the interdisciplinary Philosophical Stages program while completing his Ph.D. at Stanford. Philosophical Stages develops strategies for introducing people of all ages and walks of life to philosophy as an active, live discipline through dramatic and rhetorical performance. The program has moved in new directions at USC, through partnerships with the Levan Institute, the Joint Education Project and the thematic Option honors program. Professor Collins has taught a variety of courses at USC including undergraduate courses in Ancient Epic and Classical Mythology, major courses on Greek and Latin poetry and prose and graduate surveys of Latin literature.

GRADUATE ETHICS FELLOWS:

Joshua Crabill