Artistic freedom is a fundamental democratic right.

Creative expression, from poetry to street art, theater, and literature, is often at the vanguard of political resistance and change, and so artists are some of the first to be silenced. In this panel, speakers discuss their own experiences as artists in authoritarian contexts where their ability to produce art was violently suppressed.

These artists have all found haven at Cornell. Their art speaks to the trauma of authoritarianism and the hope for change.

Speakers:

Sharifa “Elja” Sharifi, Afghan visiting scholar and 2022–23 Artist Protection Fund Fellow at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art

Pedro X. Molina, Nicaraguan political cartoonist and visiting critic with the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies

Khadija Monis '24, Afghan student, poet and artist

Rachel Beatty Riedl (moderator), director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and John S. Knight Professor of International Studies

The event is sponsored by the Johnson Museum and Global Cornell as part of the university’s theme this year on The Indispensable Condition: Freedom of Expression at Cornell. The event will be held in person and livestreamed.

CANCELED - General Physics Colloquium, Prof. Angela Di Fulvio, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Title:

Host: Paul Ginsparg

Abstract:

Hundreds of thousands of ethnic minority children have been seized by the Chinese government, detained, and beaten if they speak their native language, according to numerous human rights groups.

These reported violations of children’s rights will be explored in a symposium entitled “Uyghur Children in China’s Genocide” on Fri., Oct. 27, from 1-5 p.m. in Goldwin Smith Hall, room 76. The symposium will be hybrid; register in advance for the livestream.

As organizer Magnus Fiskesjö explains, the children’s parents and grandparents are Uyghur and Kazakh ethnic minority people who are detained separately, in “re-education” camps, forced labor, or prisons. Their children are put into a children's Gulag of "boarding schools" and "orphanages," currently estimated to hold up to 1 million children. Family separations and boarding schools are soon to expand to all ethnic children, he says.

“By way of brutal punishments and even sibling separation, children are forced to permanently forget their language and culture -- thus, the plan is clearly an intentional component of genocide as per the U.N. Convention -- in ways similar to the horrific 'Indian schools’ of the US and Canada’s past,” said Fiskesjö, associate professor of anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences. “Meanwhile, the rest of society is held in terror; international media is barred, and a campaign to intimidate and silence witnesses around the world, is also ongoing.”

The symposium will explore:

what is happening to children victimized by family separation, who are forcibly cut off from family, siblings, language, and culturewhy is the Chinese government doing thiswhat is the nature of the deep traumas the children endurehow can these wounds be remedied, if the genocide is halted tomorrowExperts, activists, and witnesses, including Uyghurs, will give presentations on these issues, including the experiences of “Indian schools” in the US and Canada. The panelists include:

Rukiye Turdush, independent scholar from East TurkistanZumret Dawut, camp survivor from East Turkistan, with her familyAdrian Zenz, Victims of Communism Museum and Memorial FoundationMagnus Fiskesjö, associate professor of anthropology (A&S)Jeffrey Palmer (Kiowa), associate professor of performing and media arts (A&S)Amy Bombay (Anishinaabe from Rainy River First Nations), Department of Psychiatry, Dalhousie University, CanadaSymposium Schedule:

1:00-1:15 p.m. Opening Remarks: Uyghur Children in China’s Genocide–context and Urgency by Magnus Fiskesjö, Anthropology, Cornell

1:15-1:30 p.m. State of Our Knowledge on the Chinese Family Separation and Child Indoctrination Policies by Adrian Zenz, Victims of Communism Museum and Memorial Foundation (12-minute pre-recording)

1:30-1:45 p.m. Indoctrination of Uyghur Children as part of the Genocide by Rukiye Turdush, an independent scholar from East Turkistan

1:45-2:45 p.m. Uyghur Experiences of Chinese Schooling by Zumret Dawut and family

2:45-3:00 p.m. Q&A moderated by Ruslan Yusupov, Fellow, Society for the Humanities at Cornell

3:00 p.m. Coffee/tea break

3:30-4:00 p.m. The Experience of Indian Schools in the USA by Jeffrey Palmer, Kiowa First Nations, Performing and Media Arts, Cornell

4:00-4:30 p.m. Trauma and Resilience: The Intergenerational Effects of Government Policies of Forced Assimilation and Child Removal by Amy Bombay, Anishinaabe from Rainy River First Nations, Department of Psychiatry, Dalhousie University, Canada

4:30-5:00 p.m. Q&A moderated by Allen Carlson, Government, Cornell

The symposium is sponsored by the East Asia Program, part of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. Cosponsors include the Reppy Program in Peace and Conflict Studies; Comparative Muslim Societies Program; American Indian and Indigenous Studies (CALS); Institute of Politics and Global Affairs (Brooks School); as well as the Institute for Comparative Modernities; Society for the Humanities; the Departments of Anthropology, Asian Studies, Sociology and Government; and the Program in Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies, in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Bartels World Affairs Lecture

Fantasy author N. K. Jemisin discusses how she learned to build unreal worlds by studying our own—and how we might in turn imagine a better future for our world, and reshape it to fit that dream.

Jemisin's lecture kicks off The Future—a new Global Grand Challenge at Cornell. We invite thinkers across campus to use their imaginations to reach beyond the immediate, the tangible, the well-known constraints. How can we use our creativity to plan and build for a future that is equitable, sustainable, and good? Learn more on October 4.

After her talk, Jemisin joins a panel of distinguished Cornell faculty to explore how we can take a brave leap into the visionary future. What can we collectively achieve when we focus on "what we want," rather than "what I can do"? And when we've imagined a better future for our world, how do we chart the path—starting today—with practical steps to take us there?

Anindita Banerjee, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, College of Arts and SciencesJohn Albertson, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of EngineeringKaushik Basu, Carl Marks Professor of International Studies, Professor of Economics, A&S***

A reception with refreshments will follow the lecture and panel.

Lecture: 5:30 | Rhodes Rawlings Auditorium, Klarman HallThe Future panel, featuring Jemisin and Cornell faculty: 6:15Reception and book signing: 7:00-8:00 | Groos Family AtriumReserve your free ticket for the in-person watch party.

General admission seating is now sold out. By registering for a watch party ticket, you will have an in-person seat reserved in an adjacent classroom near the auditorium where the lecture will be livestreamed. Please follow signage upon your arrival. All watch party attendees are invited to join the post-lecture reception and book signing at 7:00 in Groos Family Atrium, Klarman Hall.

Livestream: For Local, National, and International Viewers

The lecture and panel will be livestreamed. Register to attend virtually at eCornell.

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How are N. K. Jemisin’s novels acts of political resistance? Read a Bartels explainer by Anindita Banerjee.

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Book Signing

Ithaca’s cooperatively owned independent bookstore, Buffalo Street Books, will be selling a wide selection of N. K. Jemisin’s books after the lecture.

Meet N. K. Jemisin and get your book signed at the reception!

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About N. K. Jemisin

N. K. Jemisin is the first author in the science fiction and fantasy genre’s history to win three consecutive Best Novel Hugo Awards, for her Broken Earth trilogy. Her work has also won the Nebula and Locus Awards. She was a 2020 MacArthur Fellow. Jemisin’s most frequent themes include resistance to oppression, the inseverability of the liminal, and the coolness of Stuff Blowing Up. She has been an advocate for the long tradition of science fiction and fantasy as political resistance and previously championed the genre as a New York Times book reviewer. She lives and works in New York City.

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About Global Grand Challenges at Cornell

Global Grand Challenges bring together Cornell's world-class strengths—vision, expertise, people, and resources—in a multiyear focus to understand humanity's most urgent challenges and create real-world solutions. Global Cornell organizes and supports related research collaborations, courses and academic programs, student experiences, campus events, and more. Cornell's first Global Grand Challenge is Migrations, launched in 2019.

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About the Bartels World Affairs Lecture

The Bartels World Affairs Lecture is a signature event of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. This flagship event brings distinguished international figures to campus each academic year to speak on global topics and meet with Cornell faculty and students, particularly undergraduates. The lecture and related events are made possible by the generosity of Henry E. Bartels ’48 and Nancy Horton Bartels ’48.

This conference aims to bring together Afghan scholars and Afghanistan experts, primarily the next generation, to engage in discussions about the future of Afghanistan by analyzing past failures.

Afghanistan has faced conflict, crisis, instability, and civil war for the past half-century. In each period, political elites implemented top-down approaches, paired with external interventions, to overcome these problems. Unfortunately, these political frameworks failed to bring about lasting positive change in Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan have experienced communist, Islamic, and democratic regimes, and they have witnessed the destructive consequences of these political designs. To envision a better tomorrow for Afghanistan, it is crucial for the country's next generation of scholars to critically examine the past and ask several critical “what” and “why” questions.

What events led us to the current situation? What failures and problems prevented us from seizing opportunities for state-building and nation-building? Why did different political designs fail in Afghanistan? Why did the democratic establishment collapse? Why has Afghanistan been unable to utilize international aid effectively for infrastructure and development? By asking such questions, we can move on to asking “how” questions. How can the people of Afghanistan come together, learn from the past, and build a brighter future? This future must be inclusive, egalitarian, multicultural, democratic, free, and, above all, a home for every citizen of the country.

SCHEDULE

9:00 am Welcome Sharif Hozoori, South Asia Program, Cornell University

9:15-10:45 am Panel 1: Balancing Governance in Afghanistan: Secularization, Sharia, and Patrimonialism

Farid Tookhy, Senior Fellow, Institute for Peace & Diplomacy Divergent Notions of Political Authority: A Century of Theoretical and Physical Contestation

Mohammad Mansoor Ehsan, International Affairs, George Mason University Sharia Vigilantism Under the Taliban Rule in Afghanistan

Zinab Attai, Government, Cornell University Seeing like a Neopatrimonial State: Reframing the Study of Afghanistan’s Political Architecture

Chair: Mathew Evangelista, Government, Cornell University

11:00 am – 12:30 pm Panel 2: Afghanistan's Nation-Building Struggle: Identity, Inclusivity, and the Public Sphere

Mirwais Balkhi, Fellow, Wilson Center Afghanistan’s Next Generation’s Initiative: A New Social Contact for Living Together

Omar Sadr, Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh The Rise and Fall of Afghanistan’s Public Sphere

Sayed Hassan Akhlaq, Philosophy and Critical Thinking, Coppin State University Acknowledging Effective Afghan subjectivity

Chair: Seema Golestaneh, Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University

1:30-3:00 pm Panel 3: Constitutional Law: Political Order, Rule of Law, and Public Perspectives

Bashir Mobasher, Sociology, American University Islamic Republic versus Islamic Emirate: What Constitutional Order People Want?

Mahir Hazim, Law, Arizona State University The Politics and Constitutionality of Law-Making in the Afghan Republic: An Authoritarian and Unrestrained Executive

Shamshad Pasarlay, Law, University of Chicago A Constitutional Postmortem: The Rise and Fall of Afghanistan’s 2004 Constitution

Chair: Chantal Thomas, Law School, Cornell University

3:00 pm Conclusion Tawab Danish, Law School, Cornell University

Register to attend virtually. No registration required for in-person attendance.

Organized by the South Asia Program and the Cornell Law School's Clark Initiative for Law and Development in the Middle East and North Africa. Cosponsored by the Departments of Near Eastern Studies and Government, and the Religious Studies, Comparative Muslim Societies, and Peace & Conflict Studies Programs.

History of a Timely Idea

What do we mean when we talk about environmental justice? Usually, we mean the crucial struggle against specific forms of injustice: dirty factories in poor, Black-majority neighborhoods; unequal access to green space; radioactive waste seeping into Native water supplies; the poisoning of Latinx farm workers; the flight of refugees from drought, famine, fires, and storms.

Aaron Sachs, Professor of History at Cornell University, will discuss how environmental justice can also offer a radical, positive vision of collective thriving—as a historical perspective reveals. The idea of environmental justice, connecting the common good to the protection of common, shared environments, goes back centuries. This talk will use the lens of history to reconsider the ways in which environmental justice could shape our common future.

About the speaker

Dr. Aaron Sachs is a Professor of History at Cornell University. His general focus is on nature and culture. He examines how ideas about nature have changed over time and how those changes have mattered in the Western world. He is writing a book called Environmental Justice: History of a Timely Idea, which explores a theme he has worked on since 1995, when he published a pamphlet for the Worldwatch Institute entitled Eco-Justice: Linking Human Rights and the Environment. He was also the founder and coordinator of the Cornell Roundtable on Environmental Studies Topics (CREST), which for a decade brought together faculty and graduate students across all the environmental disciplines on campus.

Host

Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

Politics and Protest: Historical, Sociological, and Political Perspectives

Drawing from first-hand experience and research into the U.S. nuclear freeze movement of the 1980s and the Iraq antiwar movement of 2002-09, David Cortright (University of Notre Dame) will discuss the challenge of attempting to evaluate if policy is shaped by social movements against war and nuclear weapons.

By examining specific episodes and social action campaigns and their impacts, he will review, and in some cases contest, historical and political interpretations of these events. His arguments will engage sociological debates on the boundaries between civil resistance movements and engagement in institutional politics and include a set of conclusions on strategies for peace and disarmament action.

Register to attend the lecture and reception.

About the Speaker

David Cortright is professor emeritus of the practice at the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. Previously, Cortright was the director of policy studies at the Keough School’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and director of the institute’s Peace Accords Matrix project, the largest existing collection of implementation data on intrastate peace agreements.

Cortright has written widely about nonviolent social change, nuclear disarmament, and the use of multilateral sanctions and incentives as tools of international peacemaking. He has provided research services to the foreign ministries of Canada, Denmark, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland, and has served as consultant or advisor to agencies of the United Nations, the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, the International Peace Academy, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Hosts and Sponsors

This event is a University Lecture hosted by the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies.