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Mellon Seminar on Human Rights in Africa Presents Next Lecture by James J. Hentz

James J. Hentz, professor and chair of the Department of International Studies and Political Science at Virginia Military Institute, will lecture at Washington and Lee University as part of the Mellon Seminar on Human Rights in Africa. The event will be Feb. 10 at 5 p.m. in Northen Auditorium, Leyburn Library.

Hentz will speak on “War across States in Africa.” The talk is free and open to the public. Complimentary refreshments will be served.

“Many of Africa’s post-Cold War wars have been misunderstood and don’t fit any of our traditional categories used to explain war,” said Hentz. “They are not between states; they are not civil wars; and they are not the so-called new wars. They are a new phenomenon that should be called wars across states.”

He will look at the conflicts centered on Mali in Northeast Africa and one centered on the Democratic Republic of Congo to illustrate the nature of wars across states.

Hentz is the co-editor of “New and Critical Security and Regionalism: Beyond the Nation State” (2003); editor of “Obligation of Empire: United States’ Grand Strategy for a New Century” (2004); and author of “South Africa and the Logic of Regional Cooperation” (2005). His most recent book is “The Nature of War in Africa” (forthcoming). He also is editor of The African Security Handbook (Taylor & Francis/Routledge).

He has contributed articles to journals and edited volumes, including Political Science Quarterly, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Journal of Modern African Studies and Hoover Digest.

In 2014, he won the Virginia Social Science Association (VSSA) award for scholarship in International Studies and Political Science. In 2007, Hentz won the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia and was awarded the Duignan Distinguished Visiting Fellowship at Stanfard University’s Hoover Institute. In 2003, he was a visiting Fulbright Scholar at the Miklós Zrinyi National Defense University, Hungary.