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Hans Kundnani on Eurowhiteness and the European Project

Hans Kundnani on Eurowhiteness and the European Project

Centre for European Studies Podcast Season 1, episode 5

Visiting professor in practice at the London School of Economics, Hans Kundnani sits down with Center for European Studies graduate researcher and PhD candidate Braden Russell for an interview during his visit to UBC in March 2026. In the interview, Kundnani discusses the current and historical role of EU integration, as well as its connections with colonialism, racism, and militarism. The UBC Centre for European Studies podcast is supported by funding from the Faculty of Arts and the 2024-27 Erasmus+ Program of the European Union through the Jean Monnet Actions in the field of Higher Education: Centers of Excellence program.

Dr. Sara Shneiderman and Dr. Jeevan Baniya on Disaster Governance, Infrastructural Development, and Migration between Nepal and Europe

Centre for European Studies Podcast Season 1, episode 4

Dr. Sara Shneiderman and Dr. Jeevan Baniya jointly discuss how funding from the European Union is flowing into Nepal to support infrastructure development and “good governance” at the local level, while young people are leaving the country through labour migration to global locations including Europe. They consider how these dynamics unfold within the broader geopolitical contexts between the EU, China, and India. This lecture took place in the Jean Monnet Center of Excellence in Critical Infrastructure Studies at UBC. The UBC Centre for European Studies podcast, and this episode is supported by funding from the Faculty of Arts and the 2024-27 Erasmus+ Program of the European Union through the Jean Monnet Actions in the field of Higher Education: Centers of Excellence program.

Due to technical difficulties, episode 4 will be released on Apple Podcasts at a later date. 

Dr. Ellen Marie Jensen on Green Colonialism and Sámi Activism

Centre for European Studies Podcast Season 1, episode 3

Visiting Professor Ellen Marie Jensen from the Sámi University of Applied Sciences discusses with CES Researcher and PhD candidate Braden Russell the topic of green colonialism and Sámi activism in Norway and the broader arctic region. The UBC Centre for European Studies podcast, and this episode, are supported by funding from the Faculty of Arts and the 2024-27 Erasmus+ Program of the European Union through the Jean Monnet Actions in the field of Higher Education: Centers of Excellence program.

Dr. Kiran Klaus Patel on the History of the European Union and Today’s World

Centre for European Studies Podcast Season 1, episode 2

Invited Speaker Dr. Kiran Klaus Patel, from Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany delivers a lecture on the history of the European Union and its changing positions regarding economic and securitization polices and in volatile times. The UBC Centre for European Studies podcast, and this episode is supported by funding from the Faculty of Arts and the 2024-27 Erasmus+ Program of the European Union through the Jean Monnet Actions in the field of Higher Education: Centers of Excellence program.

Worldmaking Projects and the Infrastructural Nexus: An Interdisciplinary Exploration by Mathias Albert / Heidi Tworek / Tobias Werron (Eds.)

Dr. Heidi Tworek, CES Affiliate and Professor of History and Public Policy, has published a new monograph on worldmaking and infrastructure along with Dr. Mathias Albert and Dr. Tobias Werron!

How do idealistic projects for shaping the world relate to the actual political organization of world politics? The contributors to this volume provide a fresh perspective on the formation of order in world politics. They develop and utilize the concept of ›Worldmaking Projects‹ (WMPs). These are projects that throughout history have sought to advance specific visions of order, such as national, imperial, or international. A particular emphasis is put on the central, yet often overlooked role that infrastructures play in this regard. The nexus between infrastructures and worldmaking is explored in relation to different Worldmaking Projects, including those in the air and in space, as well as in the polar regions.

*All information copied from publisher’s website

Dr. Alessandro Mongili on Infrastructure and the “Not-Quite-West”

Centre for European Studies Podcast Season 1, episode 1

Visiting Professor Alessandro Mongili from the University of Padua delivers a lecture at the Centre for European Studies and the Jean Monnet Center of Excellence in Critical Infrastructure Studies. The UBC Centre for European Studies podcast, and this episode is supported by funding from the Faculty of Arts and the 2024-27 Erasmus+ Program of the European Union through the Jean Monnet Actions in the field of Higher Education: Centers of Excellence program.

The Oxford Handbook of Global Realisms by Katherine Bowers and Margarita Vaysman

Realism is an artistic practice that aims to faithfully represent reality. Historically, it has been practiced across different media, from early pictorial art and epic oral narratives, through literature and visual arts, to film, music, and digital media. However, an understanding of what it means to “faithfully represent reality” is not universal; rather, it varies from culture to culture.

The Oxford Handbook of Global Realisms brings the diversity of global realisms—literary, visual, sonic, dramatic, and digital; Victorian and modernist; socialist, capitalist, magical and marvelous, postcolonial, environmental, and posthuman—to the fore. By foregrounding theories, practices, and forms of realism that are less well known to anglophone readers than “classic” realisms, The Oxford Handbook of Global Realisms revises the Eurocentric geography of the concept. It offers a broad chronology that overcomes the habitual fixation in studies of realism on the nineteenth century as its starting point and offers, instead, a more flexible timeline of this artistic practice. The handbook’s four sections—“Theories of Global Realism,” “Practices of Global Realism,” “Global Realisms and the Novel,” and “Intermedial Global Realisms”—present realism as a transnational, transhistorical, and intermedial global phenomenon. The Oxford Handbook of Global Realisms offers a global view of realism through contextualized case studies, showcasing previously underrepresented and marginalized theories, practices, forms, and media of realist cultural production.

*All information copied from publisher’s website

Fashion Communications between Italy and China by Dr Gaoheng Zhang

In this in-depth study, author Gaoheng Zhang analyses the relationship between the Italian ready-to-wear fashion industry and the Chinese fast fashion industry, focussing on the 2000s and 2010s.

Looking first at the communication of Italian fashion in China before examining the impact of Chinese migrants and Chinese fashion on the Italian fashion industry, the author unpacks perceived tensions between “made in China” fast fashion and “made in Italy” ready-to-wear that is viewed as “slow” fashion. In doing so, Zhang exposes the nuances, controversies and ambivalences of Italy’s and China’s intertwined fashion systems, revealing not only the competition between these two countries, but also their collaboration.

Italian Dumplings and Chinese Pizzas: Transcultural Food Mobilities by Dr. Gaoheng Zhang

Dr. Gaoheng Zhang, CES Affiliate and Associate Professor of Italian, has published a new monograph on food in Italy and China!

Zhang shows how China-Italy food mobilities relayed in popular culture helped forge Chi­nese and Italians’ socioeconomic identities in recent decades by fundamentally shaping contempo­rary Chinese and Italian consumer cultures. This book addresses China-Italy food cultures against the backdrops of two epoch-making socioeconomic processes. During the 1980s, Chinese cuisine became the first non-European food widely available in Italy, thanks to the widespread presence of Chinese eateries. Only American fast food, which established itself in Italy around the same time, enjoyed comparable popularity as a destination for Italian culinary tourism. Meanwhile, in the early 1990s, together with American hamburgers and fried chicken, the American food chain Pizza Hut’s pizzas and spaghetti were the first non-Asian foods that post-Mao Chinese customers recognized as “Western.”

The book proposes a critical framework that analyzes transcultural food mobilities by seriously assessing the confluence of diverse mobilities and their impact on food cultures. Ulti­mately, the study shows that a sophisticated interpretation of transcultural food mobilities can help address alterity and build understanding in a world of increasing political and cultural polarization.

Trans* Geschichten der Moderne: »Geschlechtsumwandlung« im 20. Jahrhundert und ihre kolonialen Geister by Dr. Jonah I. Garde

Dr. Jonah I. Garde’s book Trans* Geschichten der Moderne: »Geschlechtsumwandlung« im 20. Jahrhundert und ihre kolonialen Geister was published on June 17, 2025 by [transcript] Independent Academic Publishing.

Wie ist Trans* Geschichte mit Modernität und Kolonialität verwoben? Jonah I. Garde zeigt, dass »Geschlechtsumwandlung« im frühen 20. Jahrhundert sowohl als Zeichen wissenschaftlichen Fortschritts galt als auch tief in rassistischen Theorien über das Menschsein verwurzelt war – und auch in populären Massenmedien einen zentralen Ort der Auseinandersetzung mit Modernität und Kolonialität darstellte. Dabei wird deutlich, wie sich die Perspektive auf Trans* Geschichtsschreibung verändert, wenn kolonialgeschichtliche Aspekte in den Fokus rücken.

*All information copied from publisher’s website