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New Mexico State University

Faculty

Yosef Lapid, professor of government, helps make sense of international relations
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Lapid's comprehensive knowledge guides his students in clarifying their ideas about cultures, governments and political systems.

Yosef Lapid has been teaching about government and international relations at New Mexico State University since 1990. His knowledge of these areas has been especially in demand since Sept. 11, 2001, when the number of students taking classes in international relations mushroomed.

“In the past students would grow impatient when you started to discuss ethical complexities and moral ambiguities. Now they’re more open to questions like, ‘Do terrorists have rights?’” he says.

Students are drawn to his classes because of his obvious level of comfort with the issues. He draws upon expertise in Hebrew, Rumanian and Hungarian, and his experience teaching and learning at other universities, to help students make sense of how the world and the U.S. appear to people outside the U.S. He taught for five years at Hebrew University in Israel and was awarded his Master of Philosophy and doctoral degrees in political science from Columbia University.

In addition to international relations, Lapid studies the philosophy of social science, identity, borders and security studies, the Middle East, national security, to name only the major areas. He has helped develop the Nick Franklin Lecture Series at NMSU, which invites world-renowned experts to speak on current topics in these fields.

Lapid has authored and co-authored books and articles on these subjects including "The Return of Culture and Identity in International Relations" (published in 1996 and re-issued in Chinese by Zhejiang People Press in 2003) and "Identities, Borders, Orders: Rethinking International Relations Theory "(published in 2001 by Minnesota University Press).

Lapid was a member of the executive board of the International Studies Association and the co-founder and chair of the Ethnicity, Nationalism and Migration Section of International Studies Association. He served on the editorial board of International Studies Quarterly, Journal of International Relations and Development, Millennium and Geopolitics. Since 2001, he is the lead editor of a book series on Culture, Religion and International Relations with Palgrave Press.