Hopkins-Nanjing Center Blog

HNC Co-Director and Resident Professor of Political Science Adam K Webb's new book has been released.  The World's Constitution: Spheres of Liberty in the Future Global Order  is available in a free e-book version (from Routledge and Amazon Kindle) thanks to the generous support of the Johns Hopkins Libraries Open Monograph Initiative (JHLOMI). Book description: Global governance is tightening and foreshadows that world state formation will become a live political issue in this century. Some observers treat it as inevitable amid the urgency of global issues. They foresee a technocratic scaling up of the model of state authority that has prevailed at the national level for over two hundred years. Many critics and members of the public around the world look askance at that prospect. They rightly fear a moral vacuum of authority disconnected from the world’s traditions, and a concentration of power that would be damaging to liberty or even dystopian in its upshot. Still, they oft...

What led you to the Hopkins-Nanjing Center? What made you choose the HNC? After several undergraduate study-abroad programs in Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou, I knew that I wanted to spend part of graduate school in China. I initially applied in late-2019 and was able to travel to Nanjing for a tour of the campus, which I really enjoyed. I was drawn to the program because of how unique it was. First, the program is taught entirely in Chinese but targeted at international students. From a content perspective, Chinese professors are teaching topics on international relations that are of interest to international students. These factors allow one to learn Chinese perspectives in the Chinese language, an important way to study China. In contrast, other degree programs in China for international students are typically taught in English.  Furthermore, HNC students come from various parts of the world and the programme is designed such that all students have to live, eat, and breathe tog...

Towards the end of the fall semester, Hailey McGleam, our SAIS Global Careers Manager, engaged the HNC community in a workshop about “Professional Correspondence” regarding the etiquette of professional communication, emails and cover letters. We spent an hour laughing, questioning our history of correspondence, and learning how to improve our professional communication skills.   This Blog highlights important communication skills discussed in depth from one of our career related seminars. Regardless of who we are, a professional, current SAIS student or candidate, or a reader randomly browsing through the HNC blog page, we all have our fair share of mishaps in our deliberations. Perhaps you spelled someone’s name wrong on an email exchange; sent an AI inspired correspondence that made you sound more poetic than you are; or contacted the wrong professor (with the right name) telling him how much you love his class (which they do not teach). It happens to us all. Hailey knew this an...