CIGI Chair in Foreign Policy Development 

Balsillie School of International Affairs

Contact Information

Office Location:  CIGI 57 Erb Street, W. Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6C2
Phone Number:  519.885.2444 Ext 275
Email:  jblight@balsillieschool.ca
Personal web site:  http://www.watsoninstitute.org/contacts_detail.cfm?id=15

Education

M.P.A., John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1984-in international security and defense policy.

Ph.D., University of New Hampshire, 1974-in history of the behavioral sciences.

M.A., University of New Hampshire, 1973-in cognitive psychology.

A.B., University of Michigan, 1970-in psychology, history and philosophy.

Areas of Specialization

U.S. foreign policy
Cold War crises and conflicts
Conflict Prevention
The method of critical oral history
Empathy in international affairs and international security

Short Bio

 James Blight was born and grew up in Flint, Michigan, a city rendered ludicrous and infamous by Michael Moore in his first successful documentary film, "Roger and Me." (Fortunately, when Jim was growing up, the city was expanding, its residents were optimistic, and its population roughly twice as large as today.) Following a nasty and brutish, but mercifully short three-year career as a minor league baseball player (pitcher, Detroit Tigers organization), he got serious, went back to college, earned a trio of academic degrees and began a career as a cognitive psychologist. Finding psychology largely disconnected from important social issues of the day, especially the threat of nuclear war, he went back to school (yet again!) at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where he earned another degree, and where he remained for seven years as a researcher and director of Harvard's Project on Avoiding Nuclear War. While at Harvard, he developed a research method called critical oral history, which involves the simultaneous interaction of decision-makers, scholars and information in declassified documentation on targeted historical episodes. The first episode he investigated was the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, in studies carried out at first while at the Kennedy School and, from 1990-2009, while based at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies, often in collaboration with David Welch, and always in collaboration with janet Lang. While at Brown, Jim, janet and their many collaborators employed critical oral history to investigate the U.S. war in Vietnam, the collapse of U.S.-Soviet relations in the late 1970s, and several other seminal episodes in U.S. foreign policy. In addition to more traditional research and writing, Jim and janet have been heavily involved in the making of two recent, award-winning films: The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2004), and Virtual JFK: Vietnam if Kennedy Had Lived (2008). A recent focus of their research is U.S.-Iran relations since the Islamic Revolution, undertaken with colleagues at MIT and George Washington University. Jim enjoys cooking (Italian, mainly, having married into a family of Italian-American foodies), playing golf, hiking and watching the Boston Celtics with his spouse and colleague, janet Lang.

Most recent scholarly publications

(with janet M. Lang and David A. Welch). Virtual JFK: Vietnam, if Kennedy Had Lived (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009). (The companion book to the Koji Masutani film, "Virtual JFK." See: http://www.virtualjfk.com/.)

(with janet M. Lang). The Fog of War: Lessons From the Life of Robert McNamara (Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). (The companion book to the Errol Morris film, "The Fog of War," released by Sony Classics Entertainment, 19 December 2003.) (See: http://www.sonyclassics.com/fogofwar/.)

(with Robert S. McNamara). Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing and Catastrophe in the 21st Century, expanded, post-9/11 paperback edition (New York: PublicAffairs, May, 2003). Also published in Arabic, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 2003.

(with Philip Brenner). Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba's Struggle With the Superpowers After the Missile Crisis (Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).

(with janet M. Lang.) "When Empathy Failed: Using Critical Oral History to Revisit the Collapse of U.S.-Soviet Detente in the Carter-Brezhnev Years." Journal of Cold War Studies, due to be published in the Spring 2010 issue (with commentaries by five scholar-practioners, with responses from the authors).

(with janet M. Lang.) "Virtual JFK: The 44th President's Foreign Policy Challenge." Truthdig.com, posted on 29 October 2008.

Recent academic / professional awards

Recipient of the 2009 Golden Palm Award from the Mexico International film Festival for Virtual JFK: Vietnam if Kennedy Had Lived (Co-producer).

Elected in 2008 to membership in the Screenwriters Guild of America/West, by virtue of having been co-writer (with janet M. Lang and Koji Masutani) of the script for Virtual JFK: Vietnam if Kennedy Had Lived.

Finalist for the 2008 Special Jury Prize, and for the Best International Feature Film, for Virtual JFK: Vietnam, if Kennedy Had Lived, at Hot Docs: The Toronto International Documentary Film Festival. (Co-producer)

Rockefeller Foundation Resident Fellow, Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, Italy, August-September 2005, to pursue work (with janet M. Lang and David A. Welch) on a book manuscript, Virtual JFK: Vietnam, if Kennedy Had Lived.

Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, for The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara, given to Director Errol Morris and Sony Pictures Classics, at ceremonies in Los Angeles, CA, February 2004. (Principal adviser, with janet M. Lang, to both Errol Morris, and to his subject, Robert S. McNamara, for the three years "The Fog of War" was in production.)

Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing and Catastrophe in the 21st Century (with Robert S. McNamara), expanded, post-9/11 paperback edition New York: PublicAffairs, 2003, named by The New York Times a "New and Noteworthy Book" of 2003.

Courses Taught