Barbara J. Falk
Associate Professor, Canadian Forces College.
Last Contribution:
Vaclav Havel's Message Resonates Still
Contributor Biography
Dr. Falk holds a BA in political science from the University of Victoria, an MA and PhD from York University, and an MSL (master of studies in law) from the University of Toronto. She joined the academic staff of the Canadian Forces College (CFC) as an associate professor in September 2006, after teaching for over 10 years in a number of post-secondary contexts. Most recently, she is a Fellow at the Munk Centre's Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies for International Studies at the University of Toronto, where she teaches in the MA International Relations Program.
Before returning to academic life, she worked for 10 years in progressively responsible management positions in women’s issues, human resources, and labour relations, in both the public and private sectors. She was the director of human resources at Sony Music Canada and the director of compensation and labour relations policy for the government of Ontario.
Her areas of research and teaching specialization include political philosophy, theories and practices of dissent, Cold War history, the politicization of justice, theories of war and terrorism, post-9/11 debates on international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict, comparative security and terrorism law, contemporary public policy in Canada, the United States, and Central and Eastern Europe, paradigms of transitional justice, and debates regarding globalization and global governance.
In 2002, she published the first thorough and comparative account of dissident theory and activism under communism, entitled The Dilemmas of Dissidence in East-Central Europe: Citizen Intellectuals and Philosopher-Kings. In 2004 she was awarded a Canada Council grant for the research and writing of her second book, which will compare postwar political trials across the east-west divide as well as examine the post-9/11 world as a 21st century cultural and political Cold War.
In 2008, she published a monograph entitled “Making Sense of Political Trials: Causes and Categories” in the Controversies in Global Politics and Societies series of the Munk Centre for International Studies.
