Institute for European Studies
An 11-year-old Unearthed Fossils of the Largest Known Marine Reptile
Caitie Barrett, IES
Caitlin Barrett, professor in the archaeology department, discusses archaeological finds in Pompeii.
Additional Information
IES Graduate Fellows Research Symposium
April 20, 2024
10:00 am
Uris Hall, G08
IES Graduate Fellows Research Symposium – April 20, 2024
Light breakfast: 10am.
Panel 1: Collective Action and Politics (10:15am-11:30am)
Counter-Propaganda, Social Ties, and Autocratic Resistance: Evidence from Radio Free Europe (Frances Cayton, Government)
Image ethics in worship in late medieval / Early Modern Europe (Savannah Emmons, Medieval Studies)
A Most Fascist War: Revisiting the Italian Invasion of Ethiopia (Chris Mingo, History)
Lunch break: 11:30pm-12:30pm
Panel 2: Trade, Business, Law, and Culture (12:30pm-2pm)
Chaucer, Gower and the Bounds of the European World (Thari Zweers, Medieval Studies)
The impacts of artificial intelligence on worker ownership in tech companies. (Stefan Ivanovski, Industrial and Labor Relations)
Cultural history (music) of financial capitalism; the South Sea Bubble of 1720. (Morton Wan, Musicology)
Protecting Antiquities in a Civilized Manner: Ottoman antiquities regulations and international legal thought in the late nineteenth century (Emre Susamci, History)
Additional Information
Program
Institute for European Studies
Transformative Archives and the Intersectional Black European Studies Project
April 12, 2024
4:00 pm
A. D. White House, Guerlac
Fatima El-Tayeb is Professor of Ethnicity, Race & Migration and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University.
Her research interests include comparative diaspora studies, queer of color critique, critical Muslim studies, decolonial theory, transnational feminisms, visual culture studies, race and technology, and critical European studies. Her publications deconstruct structural racism in “colorblind” Europe and center strategies of resistance among racialized communities, especially those that politicize culture through an intersectional, queer practice. She is the author of three books, Schwarze Deutsche. ‘Rasse’ und nationale Identität 1890 – 1933 (2001), European Others: Queering Ethnicity in Postnational Europe (2011) and Undeutsch. Die Konstruktion des Anderen in der postmigrantischen Gesellschaft (2016), and numerous articles on the interactions of race, gender, sexuality, religion and nation. Here current research projects explore the intersecting legacies of colonialism, fascism, and socialism in Europe and the potential of (queer) people of color alliances in decolonizing Europe. She is active in black feminist, migrant, and queer of color organizations in Europe and the US.
Additional Information
Program
Institute for European Studies
Does the “Fascism Debate” Matter for Understanding 2024 American Politics?
By Our Faculty
Article
Additional Information
Program
Type
- Article
Publication Details
Publication Year: 2024
Journal: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Publication Number: 708.1
Putin's Hidden Weakness
Foreign Affairs Op-ed by Bryn Rosenfeld
Bryn Rosenfeld (IES) and her coauthors explain why Putin's approval ratings "are far from a reliable indicator of popular support for the war."
Additional Information
Topic
- Democratic Threats and Resilience
- World in Focus
Program
Race and Modern Architecture
Esra Akcan, IES
Esra Akcan, professor of Architectural Theory, asks the question of what would happen if the architectural discipline was shaped by new ethical standards of hospitality toward immigrants.
Additional Information
Alain Elkann Talk: “On the Art of Writing and Donating My Papers to the Library”
March 26, 2024
4:00 pm
Carl A. Kroch Library 2B48
When internationally renowned Italian novelist and journalist Alain Elkann gave his papers to Cornell University Library in January, he opened up a trove of materials for scholars of contemporary Italian literature, as well as anyone interested in the art of fiction and journalism.
At this talk and presentation, Elkann will discuss his motivations for entrusting his papers to Cornell. He will also share insights about his historical novels that explore various facets of the Italian Jewish experience, and discuss his approach to interviewing prominent public figures ranging from artists to politicians.
After the talk, audience members will get a chance to view examples of Elkann’s books as well as his archival materials donated to the library’s Rare and Manuscript Collections, including handwritten drafts of novels and interview notebooks.
The event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited to the first 50 attendees. The talk will also be livestreamed.
Livestream Info:
https://cornell.zoom.us/j/95867329645?pwd=Y0Y4a3VyZ1h2bk50S0lGUTlnMHEwQ… (Passcode: 037605)
Or One tap mobile :
+16468769923,,95867329645# US (New York)
+16465189805,,95867329645# US (New York)
Webinar ID: 958 6732 9645
Additional Information
Program
Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies
Institute for European Studies
Campus visit by Alain Elkann
Talk by Italian author on his writing and his papers donated to the library
When internationally renowned Italian novelist and journalist Alain Elkann gave his papers to Cornell University Library in January, he opened up a trove of materials for scholars of contemporary Italian literature, as well as anyone interested in the art of fiction and journalism.
Additional Information
The "Fascism Debate" and 2024 U.S. Politics
New Article from IES Director Mabel Berezin
"With the spring 2024 primary upon us, social scientists can draw lessons from Europe’s past. Our task is to figure out which lessons are meaningful in the current American moment," writes IES director Mabel Berezin in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
In 2020, historians and public intellectuals began to ask whether fascism had come to America, with many analysts arguing in the affirmative. Where European political culture is characterized by secular and religious solidarity rooted in national state institutions, American political culture lacks collectivism and solidarity and is susceptible to nativism, a distinctly American impulse that is unmoored from institutional arrangements. In the 2024 American election cycle, analysts should focus on factors that threaten democratic institutions and strategies that strengthen democracy. Comparisons that apply imperfectly to the American situation will not save democracy.
Additional Information
Topic
- Democratic Threats and Resilience
- World in Focus
Program
Panel on Transnational Repression
April 25, 2024
4:30 pm
Biotechnology Building, G10
Governments engage in transnational repression when they reach across borders to silence dissidents living abroad. Tactics for transnational repression include assassinations, abductions, threats, and direct action against dissidents’ families and friends living within the repressive government’s territory.
This panel will focus on this global phenomenon and its local consequences for students and faculty members at Cornell, U.S. campuses more broadly, and other communities around the world. It will include the voices of dissidents affected by transnational repression as well as scholars and experts working in the field.
This is a panel discussion following the April 24 documentary In Search of My Sister screening. The film chronicles Rushan Abbas's relentless pursuit of truth and justice.
About the Panelists
Rachel Denber, Deputy Director of the Europe and Central Asia Division, specializes in countries of the former Soviet Union. Previously, Denber directed Human Rights Watch's Moscow office and did field research and advocacy in Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Estonia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. She has authored reports on various human rights issues throughout the region. Denber earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from Rutgers University and a master's in political science from Columbia University, where she studied at the Harriman Institute. She speaks Russian and French.
Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History, Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet is a prominent scholar of Iranian and Middle Eastern history. Her research addresses issues of national and cultural formation and gender concerns in Iran, as well as historical relations between the U.S., Iran, and the Islamic world. She is the author of highly influential works, including Frontier Fictions: Shaping the Iranian Nation, 1804-1946, which analyzed land and border disputes between Iran and its neighboring countries. These debates were pivotal to national development and cultural production and have significantly informed the territorial disputes in the region today. Conceiving Citizens: Women and the Politics of Motherhood in Iran, a wide-ranging study of the politics of health, reproduction and maternalism in Iran from the mid-19th century to the modern-day Islamic Republic.
Rushan Abbas, founder and executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs. Rushan Abbas’s activism started in the mid-1980s as a student at Xinjiang University, co-organizing pro-democracy demonstrations in Urumchi in 1985 and 1988. Since she arrived in the United States in 1989, Ms. Abbas has been an ardent campaigner for the human rights of the Uyghur people. Ms. Abbas is the founder and executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) and became one of the most prominent Uyghur voices in international activism for Uyghurs following her sister’s detainment by the Chinese government in 2018. Ms. Abbas has spearheaded numerous campaigns, including the “One Voice One Step” movement, which culminated in a simultaneous demonstration in 14 countries and 18 cities on March 15, 2018, to protest China’s detention of millions of Uyghurs in concentration camps.
Sean Roberts is an Associate Professor in the Practice of International Affairs and Director of the International Development Studies (IDS) MA program at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He received his MA in Visual Anthropology (2001) and his PhD in Cultural Anthropology (2003) from the University of Southern California. While completing his Ph.D. and following graduation, he worked for 7 years for the United States Agency for International Development in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, managing democracy, governance, and human rights programs in the five Central Asian Republics. He also taught for two years as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Europe, Eurasian, and Russian Studies before coming to the Elliott School in 2008. Academically, he has written extensively on the Uyghur people of China and Central Asia, about whom he wrote his dissertation, and his 2020 book The War on the Uyghurs (Princeton University Press).
About the Moderator
Rebecca Slayton, Director of the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, is an associate professor of science and technology studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. Her research and teaching examine the relationships among risk, governance, and expertise, focusing on international security and cooperation since World War II. Her first book, Arguments that Count: Physics, Computing, and Missile Defense, 1949-2012 (MIT Press, 2013), shows how the rise of a new field of expertise in computing reshaped public policies and perceptions about the risks of missile defense in the United States. Her second book project, Shadowing Cybersecurity, examines the emergence of cybersecurity expertise through the interplay of innovation and repair. Slayton is also working on a third project that examines tensions intrinsic to creating a “smart” electrical power grid—i.e., a more sustainable, reliable, and secure grid.
Host
Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
Additional Information
Program
Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
Comparative Muslim Societies Program
East Asia Program
Institute for African Development
South Asia Program
Institute for European Studies
Southeast Asia Program