Authoritarian governments try to isolate individuals from one another, but in the age of Twitter and Facebook, this is impossible. Or as one blogger put it, “Now I know who my comrades are.” Social media helps people overcome feelings of powerlessness, leading to the rise of a new kind of citizen.
Emily Parker, author of Now I Know Who My Comrades Are, will offer accounts of how prominent dissidents and ordinary citizens use the Internet to expose injustices, challenge authority, and transform lives in China, Cuba, and Russia during her talk on Wednesday, March 12, at 7 p.m. in Buchner Hall of Goucher College’s Alumnae/i House.
This event, co-sponsored with the Ivy Bookshop in Roland Park, is the first in “A Global Conversation,” a new author event series focused on international affairs. It is free and open to the public, but tickets must be reserved at goucher.edu/tickets or by calling 410-337-6333.
Parker is digital diplomacy adviser and senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute and think tank that focuses on a wide range of issues, including national security, technology, health, energy, education, and the economy.
Previously, she was a member of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s policy planning staff. Parker is also a former International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, an Arthur Ross Fellow at Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations, and a Global Policy Fellow at Carnegie Moscow Center. Additionally, she founded Code4Country, the first open government coding marathon between the United States and Russia.
Parker has written for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Slate.com, Newsweek, Foreign Policy, The New Republic, Far Eastern Economic Review, Project Syndicate, and World Affairs. She has worked in China and Japan and speaks Chinese, Japanese, French, and Spanish. She graduated with honors from Brown University with a double major in international relations and comparative literature in French and Spanish. She earned a master’s from Harvard in East Asian studies.
More information about Parker can be found at emilyparkerwrites.com.