"I always sang in church always was in a gospel choir and directed choirs and always performed, but I never thought of it as a powerful thing." -- Charles King
Charles King (born 1967) is Professor of International Affairs and Government at Georgetown University, where he previously served as Chairman of the Faculty of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.
He is the author of five books, Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams (W. W. Norton, 2011), Extreme Politics: Nationalism, Violence, and the End of Eastern Europe (Oxford University Press, 2010), The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus (Oxford University Press, 2008), The Black Sea: A History (Oxford University Press, 2004) and The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture (Hoover Institution Press, 2000), as well as articles and essays in World Politics, International Security, Slavic Review, Foreign Affairs, and other academic and popular publications. He teaches courses in comparative politics, East European studies, and international affairs and is a three-time recipient of teaching awards from Georgetown University.
Before coming to Georgetown in 1996, he was the Rank and Manning Junior Research Fellow at New College, Oxford University, and a Research Associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. He has appeared on media outlets from CNN and the BBC to the History Channel and MTV.
A former Marshall scholar and Fulbright scholar, King holds a B.A. (History) and B.A. (Philosophy), both summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Arkansas and an M.Phil. (Russian and East European Studies) and D.Phil. (Politics) from Oxford University.
"I have grown in my writing and I care about it now and I know how important it is to write stuff.""I know at my church a lot of the times we sung from hymn books and as we got older we started to change with time. I can honestly say that I was never influenced to write for the church.""I think in church you're raised like God is God and you are here.""I think there are some songwriters who are just brilliant who can write and then I think there are some songwriters who can like me I have a problem writing chorus lyrics but I can write a song in a story like that.""The gift of song is just like... I think music is one of those true things in this world that is universal.""We influence singing but never really songwriting.""You can fill this table up with people who are racist, homophobic, Satanist worshippers, sexist and we can be arguing but if you put on a song, I guarantee that people will stop and listen and that's what I love about music, it can bring people together.""You know when I really realized like "wow" what a gift this is was when I sang at camp and a girl wrote me a letter and said the song that I sung kept her from committing suicide."