Our New Section: The Spoken Word

In our initial website update of 2008 we are pleased to launch a new section of American Diplomacy, “The Spoken Word: Speeches of Special Interest.” It will highlight with brief reviews and links some of the most interesting and important of the many speeches and presentations related to American diplomacy and foreign policy that appear on the Internet. Its purpose is to alert readers to this material, help them decide if they wish to listen to it or read the text, and provide convenient, one-click access. It will be analogous to our Internet Article Reviews section, which has proved to be a popular feature.

We believe that foreign affairs professionals, educators, and students, as well as serious general readers interested in these topics, should find the new section useful in making their Internet reading and research more efficient and enjoyable.

As throughout the journal, in The Spoken Word section we will endeavor to present a balanced selection of material with a variety of viewpoints.

New Section Editor
We are delighted to introduce as editor of The Spoken Word a long-time American Diplomacy supporter and frequent contributor, Francis Sempa.

An Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania since 2002, Francis was previously a Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and an Assistant District Attorney for Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania. Also, he is an adjunct professor of political science at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where he has taught courses on American national security, defense, and foreign policy as well as comparative politics.

Francis has written a book on Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21st Century, introductions to four other books on American foreign policy, and numerous articles for journals, including Strategic Review, The National Interest, National Review, Presidential Studies Quarterly, The Human Rights Review, and International Social Science Review, as well as American Diplomacy. He also served on the National Advisory Council for the Study of the Presidency, 1988-1999.

Francis is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Scranton and a graduate of the Penn State/Dickinson School of Law. He lives in Old Forge, Pennsylvania, with his wife Mary and five children.

Submissions Invited
Speech reviews may be submitted to Francis Sempa at msempa@yahoo.com.
Reviewed material should be on international affairs topics relevant to American diplomacy and foreign policy and should be readily accessible on the Internet, preferably both in written transcript and video versions.

Reviews should be brief, usually about 300 words (500 words maximum). Normally, they should include a short summary and an assessment of why the speech is of particular interest or merit, as well as an indication of the speaker’s qualifications and the occasion and forum at which the speech was delivered.