As a witness to the famine caused by the British in India, Partition and the bloody aftermath, the futile East-West Pakistan relationship, the language movement, and the inevitable Liberation War, Muzharul Islam was not contained by the typical “postcolonial" hangover and neither was he an advocate of the “regional”. Islam saw “modernity” as a “politics” of nation-building and was therefore able to hold three otherwise opposed positions, without any conflict with each other: Marxist politics, the progressive attitude of the west, and the need for a strong a cultural identity. His architecture not only laid the foundation of modern architecture in the region but also set on to voice a perception of “modernity” that would fuse a solidarity of the thinkers, artist, writers and even politicians of his time. “An Unchartered Modernity” is journey of the works of Muzharul Islam, seen beyond the typical “gaze” of modern architecture. Muzharul Islam is considered one of the greatest architects of the Indian subcontinent and his work till date remains not only as a source for understanding “modernity” in Bengal, but also to look beyond the confinement of “regionalism” and charters a path in architecture where architecture is able to recalibrate its role.

Dr Nurur Rahman Khan is a partner of the renowned architectural practice of Tanya Karim N R Khan and Associates. He graduated from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, and completed his Masters from the same institution with the honor of Ahsanur Rahman Gold Medal. He went on to do this Doctoral Degree at IUAV University of Venice. He is an educator who has taught and lectured in many Universities and Seminars and currently a Professor at Bangladesh University and adjunct faculty of Stamford University Dhaka, and visiting faculty at North South University. He also was a Masters studio guide at IUAV. He is a scholar on Muzharul Islam, Louis I Kahn’s work in the subcontinent and the critique of Modern Architecture in the region. He is the author of The Assembly Building, a book published on the occasion of the birth centennial of Louis I Kahn, and Muzharul Islam: Selected Drawings, the first book to be published on Muzharul Islam. .

Ithaca Premiere>2018 > Germany/Lebanon/Norway > Directed by Jumana Manna
Forced to relocate from Aleppo to Lebanon due to the Syrian civil war, an international agricultural research center must begin the laborious process of replanting its seed collection from the back-up bank located beneath the Arctic permafrost in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The film captures the articulation between this large-scale international initiative and its local implementation in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, carried out primarily by young migrant women. In Arabic, Norwegian & English. Subtitled. Cosponsored by Cornell's Migrations Initiative and the Einaudi Center. More at www.jumanamanna.com/Wild-Relatives
1 hr 5 min

We will start taking reservations one week in advance of a film's first play date.
Reservations can be made here:
https://cinema.cornell.edu/virtual-cinema-order-form

WILD RELATIVES - Trailer from KLE on Vimeo.

Prof. Mona Krook leads an interactive discussion of her new book, Violence Against Women in Politics (Oxford University Press, 2020).

The author will join for a conversation about their work. No formal presentation will be given; please read in advance. A link to the reading will be sent with the registration confirmation.

Part of the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) seminar series.

About the author

Mona Lena Krook is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Rutgers University. She earned her Ph.D. from Columbia University. Her interests include democratization and good governance, gender and electoral politics, electoral gender quotas, candidate selection, political representation, political parties, and qualitative methods. Among her many publications include: Quotas for Women in Politics: Gender and Candidate Selection Reform Worldwide (Oxford University Press 2009) and The Impact of Gender Quotas (Oxford University Press, 2012), and most recently, Violence Against Women in Politics (Oxford University Press, 2020).

Anna Lührmann joins the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) for a discussion of her working paper, "Disrupting the Autocratization Sequence: Towards Democratic Resilience."

The author will join us for a discussion of her work. No formal presentation will be given; please read in advance. A link to the reading will be sent with the registration confirmation.

About the author

Anna Lührmann is an Associate Professor at the University of Gothenburg (Docent) and the Deputy Director of the Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem). Prior to turning to academia, Anna was a Member of Parliament in the German National Parliament (2002- 2009) and later worked in Sudan for two years. She received her PhD in 2015 from Humboldt University (Berlin) with a thesis on United Nation’s electoral assistance. Anna Lührmann holds a M.A. degree in “Research Training in Social Sciences” from Humboldt University (Berlin), a M.Sc. degree in Gender and Peace Studies from Ahfad University (Sudan) and a B.A. in Political Sciences from FernUniversität Hagen (Germany). She served as a consultant for UNDP, the World Bank and others. Her research has been published among others in the American Political Science Review, Electoral Studies, Democratization and the Journal of Democracy.

Current research

Anna's current research focuses on how and why democracy is eroding in many countries across the world and what we can do to stop it. Furthermore, she leads V-Dem’s Pandemic Backsliding project, which investigates how government responses to Covid-19 affect democracy. She also contributes to the Failing and Successful Sequences of Democratization- Project.