Institute for European Studies
Esra Akcan
Professor, Architectural Theory
Esra Akcan is the Michael A. McCarthy Professor of Architectural Theory in the Department of Architecture. Her scholarly work on a geopolitically conscious global history of urbanism and architecture inspires her teaching. She is the author of Architecture in Translation: Germany, Turkey and the Modern House (Duke University Press, 2012); Turkey: Modern Architectures in History (with S.
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Bukovina: East European Microcosm
Cristina Florea in World in Focus
A new book from Cristina Florea (IES/PACS) recounts the complex history of Bukovina, a vanished borderland and buffer between Christendom and Islam. The region is now divided between Romania and Ukraine.
“[Bukovina] was a place where one might be born under one regime, grow up under another, come of age under a third, and die as a citizen of a completely different state. Within a single lifetime, people experienced multiple forms of government and were subjected to successive cultural and political projects.”
In Bukovina: The Life and Death of an East European Borderland (Princeton UP: December 2025), Cristina Florea tells the story of a place that no longer appears on maps, but continues to be shaped by competing national ambitions and the afterimages of successive empires.
Drawing on sources in Russian, Ukrainian, German, Romanian, French, and Yiddish, the book integrates stories of rural Ukrainians, Romanians, Germans, and urban German-speaking Jews and Poles who lived side by side in Bukovina—all navigating constant change and reinvention.
Today, Bukovina is once again at the center of geopolitical realignment, Florea said: “It is home to refugees fleeing eastern Ukraine and shaped by the afterlife of yet another empire: the Soviet Union. The story I tell in this book, as it has become painfully clear, has not ended.”
After the book's publication on December 16, Florea spoke with the College of Arts and Sciences about how the small borderland of Bukovina found itself at the forefront of modern state-building and governance projects that eventually extended through the rest of Europe.
“Enlightenment-era imperial projects, liberalism and its limits, competing nationalisms, two world wars, occupations and liberations, postwar reconstruction, and the dilemmas of governing diversity,” she said, “all unfold here almost as if we were watching Europe’s history on fast-forward.”
Cristina Florea is the Institute for European Studies Director's Faculty Fellow. She is an assistant professor of history (A&S) and frequent media voice on current events in Central and Eastern Europe.
Featured in World in Focus Briefs
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- World in Focus
Program
Greenland: The Last Colony in Europe
March 19, 2026
12:00 pm
Greenland: The Last Colony in Europe: The history, status and future of Greenland as seen from its closest European neighbour
President Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, former President of Iceland (2016–2024) and current Professor of History at the University of Iceland, explores Greenland’s complex path from colony to emerging nation. Drawing on Iceland’s own experience of gaining independence from Denmark, he examines the historical ties, political tensions, and geopolitical stakes that shape Greenland’s future amid growing great-power interest in the Arctic. The lecture offers a unique perspective from Iceland, Europe’s closest neighbour to Greenland, on questions of sovereignty, self-determination, and small-state resilience in an era of global change.
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Program
Einaudi Center for International Studies
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
Institute for European Studies
Voices of Resilience
May 2, 2026
7:00 pm
Alice Statler Auditorium
"Voices of Resilience" is a lecture-recital event, with 8 operatic performances and 5-10 embedded speeches on the role of music in peace-making. Held in collaboration with a Ukrainian classical voice non-profit, the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, and the Institute for European Studies, the event will uplift underrepresented Ukrainian composers in classical opera and educate about culture, poetics, narrative, migration, and peace pedagogy through musical performance.
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Program
Einaudi Center for International Studies
Institute for European Studies
Introducing the European Studies Minor Canvas Course!
This resource hub brings together everything you need for success in the European Studies Minor, including course information, undergraduate experiences in Europe, and more.
Information Session: Laidlaw Scholars Leadership & Research Program
January 6, 2026
11:00 am
The Laidlaw Scholars 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 twenty universities worldwide.
At this session, we'll share more information about the program, including independent international projects with the Einaudi Center’s trusted partners around the world for the summer 2026 leadership-in-action portion of the program, and tips for writing a successful application. Applications are due January 12, 2026.
Register here. Can’t attend? Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu.
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Program
Einaudi Center for International Studies
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
East Asia Program
Southeast Asia Program
Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Institute for African Development
Institute for European Studies
South Asia Program
Southwest Asia and North Africa Program
Information Session: Laidlaw Scholars Leadership & Research Program
December 16, 2025
2:00 pm
The Laidlaw Scholars 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 twenty universities worldwide.
At this session, we'll share more information about the program, including independent international projects with the Einaudi Center’s trusted partners around the world for the summer 2026 leadership-in-action portion of the program, and tips for writing a successful application. Applications are due January 12, 2026.
Register here. Can’t attend? Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu.
Additional Information
Program
Einaudi Center for International Studies
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
East Asia Program
Southeast Asia Program
Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Institute for African Development
Institute for European Studies
South Asia Program
Southwest Asia and North Africa Program
Claire Clifford-Langenek
Student Administrative Assistant
Claire Clifford-Langenek is a junior Archaeology major and European Studies minor and works as a student administrative assistant for the Institute of European Studies. She also holds a Cornell Tradition Fellowship.
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New York’s Wealthy Warn of Tax Exodus After Mamdani’s Win. It's Not Likely.
Cristobal Young, IES
Mayor-elect Mamdani promised to raise NYC's income tax on the rich. Sociologist Cristobal Young (IES) explains his data showing millionaires rarely migrate over taxes.
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US Terror Label in Venezuela Deepens Risk for Oil Companies
Nicholas Mulder, IES
Nicholas Mulder, a Cornell University professor, provides analysis on increased legal risk for companies interacting with Venezuelan state-owned entities following the US terrorist designation.