Turkish culture is a vibrant and diverse mosaic shaped by centuries of history, blending influences from the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean. This presentation will present a general overview concerning the rich culinary traditions of Turkish culture, the beauty of the Turkish language, and the deeply engraved customs of the country. Turkish cuisine, known for its rich flavors and variety, is a reflection of the nation's cultural diversity, with dishes ranging from savory kebabs to sweet baklava. The structure of the Turkish language is unique and melodiously streams in to form a basic part of the nation's identity, carrying with itself the history and tradition of the people. That journey of exploration will be supplemented by a set of photos and short videos featuring some of the most iconic and historic sites in Türkiye-from Hagia Sophia in İstanbul to the city of Ephesus-with virtual tours into the very heart of this fascinating country.

Dr. Pelin Kumbet is currently a visiting researcher in the department of English and a Turkish language instructor at Language Resource Center at Cornell University. She is an Associate Professor in the department of Western Languages and Literatures at Kocaeli University, Turkiye. During her Ph.D. studies at Hacettepe University, Turkiye, she conducted her doctoral dissertation at the University of California, Riverside. Her dissertation discusses the cruciality of enacting dynamic, evolving, and living posthuman(ist) ethics, which embodies the acknowledgment of inherent and intrinsic values of all beings through different posthuman body representations, which was published as a book titled as Critical Posthumanism: Cloned, Toxic and Cyborg Bodies in Fiction. Dr. Kumbet’s general research interests include posthuman theory and ethics, posthuman bodies, transhumanism, medical and environmental humanities, ecocriticism in particular, the intersections between posthumanism, environmental humanities, gender issues, and science fiction. Her recent publications are “Toxic Agentic Legacy in Turkish Waters: From Sacrosanct Bodies to Toxic Bodies of Water,” “Invisible Agencies: Toxic Repercussions of Chernobyl and Bhopal,” “A Posthuman Quest for Establishing Self-Image Through Nature in Virginia Woolf’s The Waves” and “Reclaiming the ethno-divided land, identity and legacy in Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees.” She has also been teaching Turkish as second language and has been working on the intersections between Blue humanities, Turkish waters and trauma, eco-psychology and displacement.

The lecture offers an overview of the radical right's interactions with mainstream parties and the effect they have on setting political agendas in the region. The focus is on sensitive policy areas such as minority policies and asylum regulations. Based on a study of shifts in major parties’ policy positions and in minority-related policies, the lecture addresses the question to what extent the radical right has changed the quality of democracy in Eastern Europe. This question shall be answered by comparing three groups of countries that are distinct in terms of the relevance of radical right parties: Bulgaria and Slovakia; Hungary, Poland, and Romania; and the Czech Republic and Estonia.

About the speaker

Michael Minkenberg is professor of Comparative Politics at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). He studied Political Science, History, and Economics at the universities of Heidelberg, Freiburg/Br., Bonn and Cologne and at Georgetown University where he received his M.A. in American Government in 1984. He obtained his Ph.D. at the university of Heidelberg in 1989 and his Habilitation (venia legendi) in Political Science at the university of Göttingen in 1997.

Since 1989, he has taught comparative politics at Georgetown University, the universities of Göttingen and Heidelberg, at Cornell University and Columbia University. From 2007-10 he held the Max Weber Chair for German and European Studies at NYU.

Minkenberg's research interests include the radical right in liberal democracies; the relationship between religion and politics in Western societies; and, more recently, the role of state architecture in capital cities. He published widely on these topics in journals such as the European Journal of Political Science, Comparative Politics, Government and Opposition, West European Politics, Comparative Political Studies, East European Politics and Societies, the International Political Science Review.

His most recent publications are, with Zsuzsanna Végh, Depleting democracies: Radical right impact on parties, policies, and polities in Eastern Europe (Manchester University Press 2023), and Religion und Politik in westlichen Demokratien (Religion and politics in Western democracies) (Wiesbaden: Springer VS 2024).

There is an oft-told story about the concept of strategic stability and the function of arms control. The conventional story says that stability was a condition inherent to the logic of nuclear deterrence, and that arms control was a project to restrain the superpower strategic competition and promote stability. This lecture revises that story in two ways. First, it shows that stability was a metaphor introduced to security studies from distant fields having nothing to do with the study of strategy.

Second, it shows that stability was used to rationalize policies that had little to do with restraint. It turns out that key early arms control thinkers held close relationships with ballistic missile contractors. Top science advisors to the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations served as corporate board members and paid consultants to these companies. The scientists’ dual roles as employees of weapons contractors and as policy advisors were vulnerable to a strong conflict of interest.

The talk analyzes the impact of that conflict on US arms control policy and explores the techniques of concealment scientists and policymakers used to guard privileged financial arrangements.

About the Speaker
Benjamin Wilson is an Associate Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University. In 2025, he will publish a book with Harvard University Press about US strategists and science advisors during the Cold War.

Host
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

Co-host
Department of Science & Technology Studies

Insights from the Research of the Citizen Lab

In this presentation, Ronald J. Deibert, University of Toronto, will provide an overview of the Citizen Lab’s research with a special focus on case studies around mercenary surveillance and digital transnational repression. In particular, he will discuss the real-world impacts and unique ethical issues involving the type of mixed methods digital accountability research they have developed.

About the Speaker
Ronald J. Deibert is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto. The Citizen Lab undertakes mixed-methods research on global security, digital technologies, and human rights. The Citizen Lab’s reports routinely make world news, including front-page coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post, the Financial Times, and other major outlets. Deibert is the author of Black Code: Surveillance, Privacy, and the Dark Side of the Internet (Random House: 2013) and RESET: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society (House of Anansi, 2020). In 2013, he was appointed to the Order of Ontario. He was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal for being “among the first to recognize and take measures to mitigate growing threats to communications rights, openness and security worldwide.” In 2022, he was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada.

Host:
Cornell Brooks School Tech Policy Institute

Co-Host:
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

Sonia Boulos (Nebrija University, Spain) and Tamir Sorek (Penn State University), co-editors of the new journal Palestine/Israel Review, will give a talk, "Palestine/Israel Studies: Carving Out a New Intellectual Space" on Tuesday, September 3. This lecture is the first in the Palestinian Studies speaker series. Knowledge about Palestine/Israel is often shaped by conflicting political struggles. Separate scholarly fields for Palestine and Israel studies reflect different political agendas. Israel studies tend to normalize colonial power dynamics, while Palestine studies challenge them. This separation overlooks the intertwined nature of Palestinian and Israeli societies. Boulos and Sorek question if a new, integrated approach to studying these societies is possible, focusing on structural barriers like the unequal positioning of scholars and resource gaps. Sonia Boulos is an associate professor of international law at Nebrija University, Spain. Her research focuses on international protection of human rights. She has worked on human rights issues related to the Palestinian minority in Israel, such as, gender equality, due process in Ecclesiastical family courts, and the policing of the Palestinian minority in Israel. Boulos is a co-editor of the new journal Palestine/Israel Review. Tamir Sorek is a professor of Middle East history at Penn State University. He studies culture as a field of conflict and resistance, particularly in the context of Palestine/Israel. He is the author of The Optimist: A Social Biography of Tawfiq Zayyad (Stanford University Press, 2020), Palestinian Commemoration in Israel: Calendar, Monuments, and Martyrs (Stanford University Press, 2015) and Arab Soccer in a Jewish State: The Integrative Enclave (Cambridge University Press 2007). Sorek is a co-editor of the new journal Palestine/Israel Review. Sponsor: Department of Near Eastern Studies Co-sponsors: Jewish Studies Program Einaudi Center's Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) initiative

The Cornell China Center, through Global Cornell and its Global Hubs initiative, is offering faculty research grants for collaboration with Zhejiang University (ZJU).

Global Hubs collaborative research seed grants bring together Cornell and partner institution faculty to develop joint projects with the potential to create new or expanded research partnerships and cutting-edge scholarship with academic and societal impact. These international seed grants provide initial financial support for early-stage research projects or capacity-building efforts to create and sustain long-term collaborations and secure external funding.

Please join us on September 12, 9:00 a.m. EDT (updated time) for a joint info session to learn more about the ZJU-Cornell grant opportunity. A short presentation will be followed by time for Q&A.

Up to four (4) research proposals will be funded.

Each successful proposal may receive up to $20,000 from Cornell (for Cornell expenses) and up to CNY 150,000 from ZJU (for ZJU expenses), with each university funding its own side of the project budget it its own currency.

Application deadline: October 4, 11:59 p.m. EDT

Project duration: January 1–December 31, 2025

Register for the Info Session for Cornell faculty on Zoom.The grant RFA and application links will be provided here shortly when available.

Learn about additional seed grants available with other Global Hubs partners.

Description:

In Afghanistan, poetry operates as a common idiom, appearing frequently in everyday speech by those who have and have not received formal education. In this talk, I explore the idea of a communal self that emerges through the composition of poetry in the service of jihad as seen in Afghan resistance literatures written during the 1980s war with the Soviets. This is evidenced partially through the publication of anonymized poetry and the obfuscation of the authorial voice. I argue that when poetry is composed on behalf of jihad, it is no longer written only by and for the self, but becomes part of a broader campaign, therein gesturing to something larger.

Biography

Seema Golestaneh is Associate Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell. Her research, situated at the nexus of anthropology and religious studies, is focused on expressions of contemporary Islamic thought in the Persian-speaking world, with particularly interest in how metaphysical experiences make themselves known in the socio-material realm via aesthetics and epistemology. Her forthcoming book, Unknowing and the Everyday: Sufism and Knowledge in Iran, examines the social and material life of gnosis (ma’arifat) for disparate Sufi communities in Iran. Essentially an anthropology of the imagination, my work also relies heavily on textual ethnography and analysis, emphasizing the importance of hermeneutics within the Iranian socio-theological sphere. Prof. Golestenah is currently at work on a project tentatively entitled Utopia Lost?:Afghan Theories of Radical Poetics and Islamic Governance. Drawing largely from archival materials and oral histories, Utopia Lost investigates the dreams and aspirations of Afghan intellectuals in the late 1980s and 1990s for forms of government that did not come to pass.

Please join us for the Cornell Brooks School Center on Global Democracy's inaugural event:

Fostering Global Democracy: Freedom and Responsibility

REGISTER HERE

9:00 am – 9:30 am Coffee Reception - Willard Straight Hall

9:30 am – 11:00 am Welcome and Keynote Conversation - Willard Straight Hall

Opening remarks by Michael I. Kotlikoff, interim president, Cornell University, and Colleen L. Barry, dean, Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy.

Keynote Conversation with Ron Daniels, president of Johns Hopkins University, about his book What Universities Owe Democracy. Moderated by Rachel Beatty Riedl, Peggy Koenig ’78 director, Brooks School Center on Global Democracy.

11:30 am - 4:15 pm Panel Discussions – Statler Hotel

Welcome: Kenneth Roberts – Cornell University, Einaudi Center faculty fellow, Democratic Threats and Resilience

11:30 am – 12:45 pm Global Democracy and Fundamental Freedoms (Statler Amphitheater)

Chair: Suzanne Mettler - Cornell UniversityThomas Garrett – Cornell University, Brooks Faculty and Einaudi Center Lund Practitioner in ResidenceFelix Maradiaga - Nicaragua Freedom FoundationElene Panchulidze - European Partnership for Democracy Kate Wright – University of Edinburgh

12:45 pm - 1:30 pm Lunch (Taylor Room A&B)

1:30 pm – 2:45 pm Global Democracy and the Danger of Insecurity (Statler Amphitheater)

Chair: Gustavo Flores-Macías - Cornell UniversityRichard Youngs - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Joseph Sany – US Institute of PeaceJennifer Dresden – Protect Democracy, Violence and Democracy Impact TrackerSabrina Karim - Cornell University

2:45 pm – 3:00 pm Coffee break (Conference foyer)

3:00 pm – 4:15 pm Global Democracy and Effective Governance (Statler Amphitheater)

Chair: Jamila Michener - Cornell UniversityAmbassador Michelle Gavin - Council on Foreign RelationsLinda Stern - National Democratic InstituteJavier Sajuria – Queen Mary University of LondonVineeta Vijayaraghavan – Leadership NowDAA Lesley Warner – USAID, Democracy Rights and Governance Bureau4:15 pm – 5:30 pm Reception - Statler Hotel (Pennsylvania Room)