Historians have long been interested in the questions of how and why multinational empires gave way to nation-states. As revisionist scholars of various empires have lamented during the last few decades, post- imperial nationalist historiographies all too frequently construed the transition from empire to nation-state as a natural process governed by universal laws of awakening nationhood. But in light of the nation-state’s recurring seriality, the revisionist emphasis of each case’s inherent capriciousness creates new interpretive problems—in particular as we zoom out to a more global purview. In evaluating key terms in the global historiography about imperial disintegration and nation-state formation, such as contagion, inevitability, and teleology, this talk challenges revisionist accounts and argues that gestures to “contingency” are ill-suited to the purpose of explaining the global spread of the nation-state form during the last 250 years of world history. The talk ultimately points specifically to the centrality of popular sovereignty as a vehicle for the proliferation of nominal nation-states in the modern world.

Michael Goebel is the Einstein Professor of Global History at Freie Universität Berlin and co-director of the university’s Center for French Studies. Since his Ph.D. (University College London, 2006) he has also worked at the European University Institute, Harvard University, and the Geneva Graduate Institute. Following his 2015 book Anti-Imperial Metropolis, which won the Jerry Bentley Prize in World History, he has increasingly grown interested in the emerging field of global urban history. He is currently the Principal Investigator of the SNSF-funded project Patchwork Cities, which explores the history of segregation in port cities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

On Tuesday, April 8, Michael Goebel will be giving another lecture, Black Monserrat: Race, Migration, and Real Estate in Nineteenth-Century Buenos Aires as part of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Seminar Series.

Co-Sponsored by the Department of Government, Department of History, Institute for Comparative Modernities, and Institute for European Studies.

Based on years of ethnographic research on France’s present antiracist movement and mobilization against state violence, I introduce a framework of “suspect citizenship” which demonstrates how ethnoracial minorities are constantly outside of the boundaries of full societal inclusion. I argue that postcolonial plural societies like France position a certain populations as suspect or suspicious, due to their ethnoracial assignment. I examine suspect citizenship at the nexus between active citizenship, belonging/non-belonging, antiracism at a macro level, and activism against state violence. I consider how certain populations are automatically rendered suspicious or suspect by virtue of their ethnoracial assignment on micro and macro levels, and how this construction of citizenship is not just a postcolonial formation. I discuss how we can understand how individuals resist their categorization as suspect through examining mobilization against state violence, as well as how suspect citizenship exists without state recognition of ethnoracial difference. Suspect citizenship is therefore a framework and mode for understanding and making sense of how colonial hierarchies are maintained in postcolonial or neocolonial societies.

Jean Beaman (she/her) is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Ph.D. Program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), and on leave from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research is ethnographic in nature and focuses on race/ethnicity, racism, international migration, and state violence in both France and the United States. She is author of Citizen Outsider: Children of North African Immigrants in France (University of California Press, 2017), as well as numerous articles and book chapters. She is also an Associate Editor of the journal, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power and a Corresponding Editor for the journal Metropolitics/Metropolitiques. She was a 2022-2023 fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, and a Co-PI for the Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar grant, “Race, Precarity, and Privilege: Migration in a Global Context” for 2020-2022.

Host
Institute for European Studies

Cosponsors
Sociology
French Studies

Since the end of the 17th century, English and French navigators increased their presence throughout the Pacific to connect existing Atlantic trade with Asia. Their navigations through the Pacific familiarized them with advantageous sites—such as in Tierra de Fuego—which functioned as stopovers. These new navigations posed a significant threat to Spain’s attempts to control maritime commerce between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans that passed through American waters. Spain’s need to diversify its maritime routes became clearer still after the Seven Years’ War and the English capture of La Havana and Manila. As a response, peninsular authorities considered extending Spain’s maritime presence in the Pacific by better using isthmus areas like Tehuantepec and Nicaragua. This presentation aims to explain how Spain’s new maritime projects reconsidered the geostrategic position of the isthmus as a crossable point between the Atlantic and the Pacific. In the case of Tehuantepec, the new projects were related to the Maritime Department of San Blas and Spanish expansion into the Northwest of America; in the case of Nicaragua, however, the projects focused on proposals to better connect with Asian trade. These cases let us think about the different particularities that exist in the maritime projects show how Spanish geostrategic considerations for the isthmuses of Tehuantepec and Nicaragua stressed the plurality of imperial visions exerted by late Bourbon officials.

On Monday, March 3, Dr. Pinzón will also be participating in a Spanish-language conversaiton with Dr. Ernesto Bassi, titled "Maritime History from Latin American Shores."

Guadalupe Pinzón Ríos is a Doctor in History from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the UNAM, where she is currently a researcher and professor at the Institute for Historical Research. Pinzón Ríos is also a member of the National System of Researchers and an advisor of the graduate program in history. She has been studying maritime port activities throughout the Pacific, especially in New Spain, and has published Acciones y reacciones en los puertos del Mar del Sur. Desarrollo portuario del Pacífico novohispano a partir de sus políticas defensivas (1713-1789) and Hombres de mar en las costas novohispanas. Trabajos, trabajadores y vida portuaria en el departamento marítimo de San Blas (siglo XVIII). She also has various published works, articles, and book chapters.

Co-sponsored by Romance Studies, Science & Technology Studies, , and Society for the Humanities.

Latin America and the Caribbean: Connection, Integration, and Negotiation

LACS invites Cornell faculty, staff, graduate, and undergraduate students to participate in its Annual Research Symposium on February 21 and 22, 2025. This symposium aims to be a vibrant community-building space, fostering collaboration and dialogue among scholars, researchers, and practitioners from diverse disciplines and backgrounds. By bringing together Latinamericanist and Caribbeanist voices, the event will create opportunities for meaningful exchange, networking, and the co-creation of ideas. Through panel discussions and informal gatherings, participants can build lasting connections, form interdisciplinary partnerships, and contribute to a shared vision of regional integration and cooperation.

América Latina y el Caribe: Conexión, Integración y Negociación

LACS invita a la comunidad de Cornell a participar en su simposio de investigación anual a llevarse a cabo los días 21 y 22 de febrero de 2025. Este simposio tiene como propósito ofrecer un espacio comunitario que promoverá la colaboración y el diálogo entre académicos, investigadores y profesionales de diversas disciplinas y formaciones. Al unir voces latinoamericanistas y caribeñistas, el evento creará oportunidades para el intercambio, el networking y la co-creación de ideas. A través de discusiones de paneles y encuentros informales, los participantes podrán construir conexiones duraderas, formar colaboraciones interdisciplinarias y contribuir a una visión compartida de integración y cooperación regional.

Friday, February 21

5:00-5:15 Welcome, Ernesto Bassi Arevalo, Director of LACS

5:15-6:30 - Panel 1. Historicizing the Caribbean; Moderator: Harry Churchill

Carmine Couloute, “Haiti’s Two-Tiered Citizenship”Karina Beras, “Incendiary Instances, Extrinsic Energies”Jean-Michel Mutore, “The Discourse of Slavery Abolition on San Andrés and Old Providence, 1842-1873”Kaori Quan, “What Père Duchesne Saw in Saint-Domingue: Watching the Haitian Revolution from Afar”6:30-8:30 - Reception

Saturday, February 22

9:00-9:30 - Breakfast

9:30-10:45 - Panel 2. Bodies of Water; Moderator: Isabel Padilla

J. Rafael Ponciano, “Concerning Space and Atmosphere: Disaffected Kinship in Salón de belleza by Mario Bellatin”Michael Cary, “Engineering the Wetlands: Power, Infrastructure, and Agrarian Change in Ñeembucú, Paraguay”Jack Brown, “Do Dead Fish Like Merengue? Popular Music and Climate Change in the Caribbean”Maoz Bizan, “The Uruguayan Hydropower Network under Drought” 10:45-12:00 - Panel 3. Democracy and Representation; Moderator: Rocío Salas-Lewin

Emma MacCallum, “How Penal Populists Erode Democratic Norms: Legitimization of Undemocratic Anti-Crime Policies”Delphi Lyra, “The Effects of Top Down Polarization: The PT Party and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil”Vivian Yellen, "Governing ‘White Gold’ during a ‘Pink Tide’: The Political Economy of Chile’s National Lithium Strategy" 12:00-1:00 - Lunch

1:00-2:15 - Panel 4. Transformations; Moderator: Jack Brown

Diego Cepeda, "Agency of the Unknown: Porous Subjectivity in Elaine Vilar Madruga's El cielo de la selva"Paulo Lorca, “Revisiting the Aesthetic Machine”Vanessa Sandoval, “Bugs, Bias, and Colonialism: Decolonizing Entomophagy in Mexico”Daniel Rosa Hunter, “Bored Writing: Crossings of Virtuality and Fiction in Teresa de la Parra’s Ifigenia (1924)” 2:15-3:30 - Panel 5. Global Mobilities and Governance; Moderator: Marcos Pérez Cañizares

Gorka Villar Vázquez, “The visit to Italy of Chilean communist leader Luis Corvalán (1977). An episode of the ideological tensions of the International Communist Movement in the West”Rocío Salas-Lewin, “Behavioral Responses to the Crisis of Representation: Voice and Exit in Chile and Spain”Dayra Lascano, “Bias or Bond? Alignment and Its Influence on Regional International Organizations”Tianran Chen, “Beyond “Saving” Life: Biopolitical Dynamics and Virus Narrative in Saving the World”3:30-3:45 - Coffee break

3:45-5:00 - Panel 6. Communities and Agency; Moderator: Leonardo Santamaría Montero

Alonso Alegre-Bravo, “Power to the People: Seeking Fair Electricity Access Indicators in Guatemala”Stephanie López, “Reframing Local Archives and Community Organizing in Medellín, Colombia”Brume Dezembro Iazzetti, “Travestis will save Brazil!”: Intersectionality, political history, and the gender/national identityCarolina Osorio Gil, “Semillas de Resistencia / Seeds of Resistance: Building a Medicinal Plants Project with a Campesina/o Resistance Movement in Antioquia, Colombia”Amanda Vilchez and Edwin Eddy Johan Machaca Condori, “Beyond Language: Collaborative Translation and the Recovery of Traditions”

The Laidlaw Undergraduate Leadership and Research Program promotes ethical leadership and international research around the world—starting with the passionate leaders and learners found on campuses like Cornell. Open to first- and second-year students, the two-year Laidlaw program provides generous support to carry out internationally focused research, develop leadership skills, engage with community projects overseas, and become part of a global network of like-minded scholars from more than a dozen universities. We’ll also share tips for approaching potential faculty research mentors and writing a successful application.

Can’t attend? Contact laidlaw.scholars@cornell.edu.

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The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies hosts info sessions for graduate and for undergraduate students to learn more about funding opportunities, international travel, research, and internships. View the full calendar of fall semester sessions.

Are you interested in the intersection of mental health and culture, global health, and community engagement? Do you want to gain field research skills and learn about indigenous communities in South India’s beautiful and fragile Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve? If so, the Cornell-Keystone Nilgiris Field Learning Program might be for you!

As part of the day-long Refugee Pathways Symposium, organized as part of the community-engaged course, PUBPOL 3050/5050: Refugee Pathways and Resettlement Policy, in collaboration with Cornell Law School and the Migrations Program, Dr. Elizabeth Campbell, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration will give a keynote address.

As part of the day-long Refugee Pathways Symposium, organized as part of the community-engaged course, PUBPOL 3050/5050: Refugee Pathways and Resettlement Policy, in collaboration with Cornell Law School and the Migrations Program, representatives from RISE and Interfaith Works (Syracuse), The Center (Utica), and Ithaca Welcomes Refugees will discuss the post-election landscape for refugee resettlement in Upstate NY. Lunch will be provided. Registration required.

Dr. Heba Gowayed will join us virtually to discuss her recent book, Refuge: How the State Shapes Human Potential (2022) as part of the day-long Refugee Pathways Symposium, organized as part of the community-engaged course, PUBPOL 3050/5050: Refugee Pathways and Resettlement Policy course in collaboration with Cornell Law School and the Migrations Program. Refreshments provided for in-person participants.