Join Einaudi Center experts for World in Focus Talks on global events in the news and on your mind. Our faculty's research and policy insights put the world in focus.

This year we’re hosting informal campus discussions on many Tuesday afternoons. This week’s topic:

Hostile drone activity has risen sharply in Europe this fall. The incidents have shut down airports, heightened military alertness, and triggered diplomatic responses from NATO and EU countries. Many analysts believe the incursions are part of a Russian-led hybrid warfare campaign designed to disrupt aviation and critical infrastructure, probe defenses, and test NATO’s resolve.

How will different parts of Europe react to drone threats? What could be the impacts on international relations and the conflict in Ukraine?

***

Featured Faculty

James Rogers | Brooks Tech Policy InstituteBryn Rosenfeld (IES) | GovernmentMagnus Fiskesjö (EAP, PACS, SEAP) | AnthropologyAgnieszka Nimark (PACS) | Affiliated ScholarChris Way (IES, PACS) | GovernmentDavid Cortright (PACS) | Visiting Scholar

***

Conversations Matter at Einaudi

This conversation is hosted by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and its regional and thematic programs. Find out what's in store for students at Einaudi!

Go global in summer 2026! Global Internships give you valuable international work experience in fields spanning global development, climate and sustainability, international relations, communication, business, governance, and more.

Applications are open now.

Register here. Can’t attend? Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu.

***

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.

Io Capitano (translated as "I’m the Captain") is a contemporary drama capturing the journey of two young Senegalese men seeking a brighter future in Europe. Between their dreams and reality lies a treacherous journey through a labyrinth of checkpoints, the scorched Saharan desert, a fetid North African prison, and the vast waters of the Mediterranean where thousands have died packed inside vessels barely fit for passage. As they navigate dangerous sea crossings and uncertain borders, the film highlights the courage, desperation, and hope that drive migrants in search of safety and a better life.

Combining intimate storytelling with broader political context, Io Capitano offers a compelling look at modern migration challenges and the human stories behind the headlines.

Following the film, we will be joined by Tristan Ivory (assistant professor, global labor and work) and Gehad Madi (United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants).

Free admission! This event is part of the Migrations Program's film series at Cornell Cinema. Cosponsors include the Institute for African Development and the Institute for European Studies. All all are part of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies.

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 Cornell's cohort-based intercultural community-engaged learning summer experience in Ecuador, and tips for writing a successful application. Applications are due January 12, 2026.

Applicants are also strongly encouraged to attend a Q+A webinar about the summer experience in Ecuador. Q+A webinars are scheduled for November 5 and November 6.

Register here. Can’t attend? Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu.

***

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.

For the summer 2026 Leadership in Action experience, students will be placed with the Pachaysana Foundation exploring what it means to be an intercultural leader in today’s complex, fractured world. Please attend this Q+A webinar with Pachaysana Foundation to learn more about their work and how the Laidlaw Scholars explore leadership as something we live—grown in relationship and rooted in the wisdom of agrarian, Indigenous, and activist communities.

Attendance and participation in the Q+A are highly recommended for Laidlaw Scholars applicants. Applications are due January 12, 2026.

Register here. Can’t attend? Another Q+A webinar is scheduled for November 5.

Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu with questions.

***

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.

Slurry to Melody: On Bela Balazs, or, How History Makes Order out of Chaos

For a copy of the paper, email: cf476@cornell.edu

For the summer 2026 Leadership in Action experience, students will be placed with the Pachaysana Foundation exploring what it means to be an intercultural leader in today’s complex, fractured world. Please attend this Q+A webinar with Pachaysana Foundation to learn more about their work and how the Laidlaw Scholars explore leadership as something we live—grown in relationship and rooted in the wisdom of agrarian, Indigenous, and activist communities.

Attendance and participation in the Q+A are highly recommended for Laidlaw Scholars applicants. Applications are due January 12, 2026.

Register here. Can’t attend? Another Q+A webinar is scheduled for November 6.

Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu with questions.

***

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.

What did Soviet empire look like in intimate terms—as experienced and perceived through the lens of interpersonal relations? Despite many decades of scholarship on Soviet society and subjectivity, we have very few neighborhood-level studies of sociability and materiality, although interpersonal experience and relations undoubtedly played a key role in defining belonging, identity, and/or alienation. In other words, to make sense of the legacies of Russian colonialism, we need to think not only of top-down policies and myths of the “friendship of peoples” (although these cannot be excluded, of course), but also of how people applied, adjusted, and lived within this system—something shaped, as this talk shows, by the very material, economic, and geographic conditions of their day-to-day lives.

Attendees are invited to join discussion afterwards 3:30-4:20 on neighborhoods of Soviet and post-Soviet Tbilisi “ with Heather DeHaan, Dr. Maria C Taylor and students in LA6930 course on Second World Urbanism.

Speaker

Heather DeHaan is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies Program at Binghamton University. Her research has focused on the making of Soviet cities, but whereas her first book (Stalinist City Planning, Professionals, Performance and Power [U. Toronto Press, 2013]) focused primarily on urban planning, her current research explores the contributions of ordinary urban denizens. This research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Fulbright, and the Kennan Institute.

Host

The Institute for European Studies, part of the Einaudi Center for International Studies