2020/21
Riikkamari Muhonen, PhD Candidate of Comparative History, Central European University
Abstract – Officially racism did not exist in the Soviet Union, a society that stated it was based on the principle of friendship between peoples and had welcomed groups of black people seeking refuge from racism in Western societies already in the 1920s. After the death of Stalin this type of friendship became also a central part of Soviet foreign policy, as internationalism was re-introduced to Soviet political agenda as part of the Thaw atmosphere. In the field of higher education this meant opening the doors of Soviet universities to students from the newly independent states of the Third World. During the 1960s there were altogether thousands of foreign students from all over the world studying in Moscow, which created a new, more multicultural atmosphere to the Soviet capital. Despite the official statements of the nonracist nature of the Soviet society, the experiences of students concerning Soviet attitudes towards people from different ethnic backgrounds varied.
Drawing from a wide range of sources, including interviews with alumni of Soviet universities, published memoirs, and Russian archival sources, Ms. Muhonen aims to present some of the different realities people of color experienced during their stay in Moscow. While especially during holiday seasons there were several racist attacks per week in different areas of Moscow city and the situation was eminently different in comparison to the experiences of black people in the 1920s, many students also experienced that their “exotic” looks made them interesting to the local population and that it was easy for them to find Soviet friends.
At the same time, orientalist perspectives that tended to highlight the underdevelopment reigning in the Global South due to colonialism were constantly present in the Soviet public sphere, portraying the Soviet Union as a developed and technically advanced supporter of these regions and their peoples, including foreign students. Promotion of internationalism as portrayed through the students was an important part of the Soviet public sphere and the students gained wide presence in Soviet media. In part, these efforts were also aimed to promote a positive image of the foreign students, as Soviet aid to foreign countries and reception of students also gained criticism among the general population.
Ms. Muhonen’s presentation aims to discuss the concept of race and racism in the Soviet context, as for instance it was not only the African students that were considered black in the Soviet Union, but, as one of her informants stated, “blackness” was a concept that was often applied to any people of non-European appearance. Ms. Muhonen will look at the explanations and reactions to different forms of “curiosity” and racism in the 1960s Soviet society as well as the change in attitudes that had taken place between the 1920s and 1960s.
Bio – Riikkamari Muhonen is a PhD candidate at the History Department of Central European University (Hungary/Austria). Her dissertation analyzes Moscow-based Peoples’ Friendship University as a case of Soviet cooperation with the developing world in the 1960s and 1970s, a topic she has also researched as a Fulbright visiting student researcher at University of California, Berkeley.
Co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology and the Eurasia Research Cluster.
Dr. Regina Römhild, Professor, Institute for European Ethnography, Humboldt University of Berlin
Abstract – The making of Europe can be studied through the lens of complex processes of “Othering”, i.e. processes of world-making through borders and boundaries defining a hegemonic “Europeanness” against subaltern formations of “Otherness”. However, these borders and boundaries are constantly contested and undercut in practices of (post)migrant mobilities and mobilizations. Hence, the un- and re-making of Europe can also be studied by looking at these destabilizing movements and their worlding projects. Seen through that lens, Other Europes are constantly in the making as well, if only in certain moments of unforeseen resistance, allience and conviviality. The talk will explore such moments along three ethnographic vignettes in which an improvised social imagination of “Post-Otherness” can be shown to be at work pointing to the presence of unknown futures beyond borderland Europe. It will be argued towards a radicalized perspective that focuses strongly on such subversive, convivial moments rather than merely on the making of borders and differences that especially critical research is predominantly concerned with.
Co-sponsored by the UBC Centre for Migration Studies, UBC Institute for European Studies and UBC Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies (CENES)
Dr. Amila Buturovic, Professor, Department of Humanities, University of York
Abstract – This study focuses on medical pluralism in Ottoman Bosnia through its confessional differences, medical theories, and curative practices. Given that medical knowledge circulated inter-regionally, between Europe and the Ottoman Empire, as well as intra-regionally, among Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Jews, the study sheds light on how premodern Bosnians negotiated their lives between local and trans-local values and systems of knowledge. A broader aim is to recalibrate the understanding of this historical period by focusing on the examples of cultural intimacy and cross-confessional dynamics drawn along the ideas and practices of healing. Primary sources include material and non-material culture, written multi-lingual sources that include treatises on medicine and religious healing; talismanic texts and amulets; herbalist and pharmaceutical manuals; and archival records that reflect the interactive and cross-confessional spirit of healing in Ottoman Bosnia. Steeped in the region’s cultural history, the study also seeks to counteract the current political climate that systematically endangers cultural intimacy through ethnic divisions, exclusivist discourse, and the legacy of the 1992-1995 genocide. Turning to a premodern past is not only a process of writing history but an act of rewriting the past and the recovery of memory which the present has targeted for destruction.
Bio – Amila Buturovic is a Professor at the Department of Humanities at the University of York. Her research interests span the intersections of religion and culture, primarily in the context of Islamic societies. Her latest book concerned the spaces and culture of death in Bosnia and Herzegovina, focusing on the questions of continuity and discontinuity in eschatological sensibilities, epigraphic texts, and commemorative practices in Bosnian cultural history. Currently, she is doing research on the culture of health in Ottoman Bosnia, investigating mainstream and alternative healers and healing practices and focusing on the interconfessional transmission of medical theories and manuals, amulets and talismanic practices, and herbalism.
This event is hosted by the UBC Interdisciplinary Histories Research Cluster and co-sponsored by the CENES Department, the UBC Institute for European Studies, and the UBC Centre for Migration Studies.
Jelena Todorovic, Ph.D. Candidate in Classics, Department of Classical, Near Eastern, and Religious Studies
Abstract – The place that the Greek heritage has had in the Serbian culture is somewhat different than the one we come across in the Western European traditions. From the first Serbian states in the early 9th century and the Medieval Serbian monarchies to the national awakening in the 18th century, and all the way to the modern days, the cultural dominance of the Orthodox Byzantium, and Hellenic heritage with it, has been determining in the shaping of Serbian identity. Hellenic and Byzantine Mediterranean has always been a preferred destination of Serbian authors, a place they approached with a pronounced sense of kinship, with a desire to discover their own spiritual continuities, and their own position in the world. What role did this patrimony that had helped define the Serbian identity have in Communist-ruled Serbia, in the times when all the national attributes were stigmatized and violently erased? This presentation discusses how the reception of Greek mythological tragedy in the postwar Serbian literature both mapped onto the unique sentiment that the Serbian authors had for Greek antiquity and provided a safe place for social and political criticism inside the communist apparatus.
Jelena Todorovic is a Ph.D. Candidate in Classics in the Department of Classical, Near Eastern, and Religious Studies, UBC Public Scholar, and Graduate Student Coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Histories Research Excellence Cluster. Her research interests are in ancient Greek and Roman drama and performance, reception studies, and disability theatre studies. Her doctoral research is focused on the interpretation and study of the representation of disability on the ancient Roman comic stage. Jelena’s current research projects include the project on the reception of classical poetry and performance in Modern Serbia.
Co-sponsored by the Institute for European Studies, the Centre for Migration Studies, and the Interdisciplinary Histories Research Cluster.
2019/20
Organized as part of a series commemorating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
On November 9, 1989, the border dividing Berlin and Germany was opened. Yet, despite having been physically dismantled, the Berlin Wall lives on in the thinking of many Germans. 30 years later it is time to take stock of the legacies of unification for Germany and, more broadly, Europe. This discussion with scholars of Europe and contemporary witnesses will take us back to what happened in the fall of 1989 and examine the social, cultural, and economic effects of unification.
The roundtable, moderated by Dr. Sima Godfrey (Wall Scholar at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, Department of French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies), will feature speakers including:
- Dr. Antje Ellermann, Director of the Institute for European Studies
- Prof. Kurt Huebner, Jean Monnet Chair for European Integration and Global Political Economy, Professor of Political Science
- Dr. Kyle Frackman, Associate Professor of German and Scandinavian Studies
- Prof. Lutz Lampe, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Pastor Hardo Ermisch, St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church
- Prof. Chris Friedrichs, Professor Emeritus of History
Presented by the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany, Vancouver in partnership with the Institute for European Studies, and the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies.
Organized as part of a series commemorating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Professor Emeritus Ulrich Reimkasten (Halle, Germany) in conversation with Dr. T’ai Smith (UBC Department of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory)
Presented by the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany, Vancouver in partnership with the Institute for European Studies, and the Department of Central, Northern and Eastern European Studies.
Organized as part of a series commemorating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Film screening of Andreas Dresen’s film Gundermann (2018), winner of the 2019 German Film Award for Best Feature Film. The renowned German filmmaker Andreas Dresen transformed the biography of real-life figure Gerhard Gundermann into an intense cinematic reflection about life during the time of the German Democratic Republic. The film considers, among other things, Gundermann’s life as a coal miner, singer, and his complex and contested relationship with the East German secret police.
Presented by the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany, Vancouver in partnership with the Institute for European Studies and the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies.
Connor Doak, University of Bristol
“The Poetics of Masculinity: Rereading Vladimir Mayakovsky”
Abstract – How might masculinity be performed in verse? What is the relationship between class;masculinity and modernist poetic experimentation? Is there a poetics of masculinity? This talk explores these questions through the case study of the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930), who began his career as a Futurist provocateur in a yellow blouse, reinvented himself as the Soviet worker-poet par excellence in the 1920s, before becoming disillusioned and taking his own life in 1930. I argue that Mayakovsky used formal experimentation in his verse and drama to negotiate a position of gendered agency during a period of political and social transformation, as Russia experienced war, revolution, and the establishment of the world’s first socialist state.
Co-sponsored with the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies.
Right-Wing Populism and Climate Change in Europe
In a current study by adelphi, Stella Schaller and Alexander Carius investigate how right-wing populist parties in Europe behave in the field of climate change. Alexander Carius will present some of this research, which examines the voices and the weight of right-wing populist parties in the formulation of European climate policy.
Right-wing populist parties are part of the governments of eight EU member states and are making up a quarter of MEPs after the European elections in May 2019. The dwindling trust of citizens in democratic institutions and in Europe, the re-sorting of party spectrums, the declining influence of traditional popular parties as well as the emergence of multi-party coalitions and minority governments will all make governance increasingly difficult. At the same time, we are experiencing a profound transformation of life, work and mobility: European societies are facing epochal changes through digitalisation, urbanisation and climate change.
Bio – Alexander Carius is founder and Managing Director of adelphi, the Berlin-based think tank. One of the leading consultants on environmental and development policy in Germany, he is in demand around the world as a speaker, facilitator, and advisor. He is a ground-breaking thinker, innovative designer, nimble strategist, and global influencer. He translates scientific insights into practical options for governments, non-governmental organizations, industry associations, and companies. He works with a diverse range of actors to develop, design, and implement international negotiations, agenda-setting processes, and consultations.
Presented by the Germany Embassy in Ottawa in partnership with the Institute for European Studies and the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions.
2018/19
Jo Labanyi, New York University
Abstract – The relatively new field of the history of the emotions has made us aware that feelings, and the way they are conceptualized, are culturally specific. But this is a layered history of overlaps between emotional regimes that belong to different time frames and of returns, in new contexts, to ways of thinking about feeling from the past. The talk will consider how the history of the emotions can help us appreciate the non-linearity of historical processes.
Bio – Dr. Jo Labanyi is Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at New York University. She is a specialist in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Spanish literature, cinema and visual culture. She has also worked in gender studies, popular culture, and memory in relation with the Spanish Civil War. Notable among her many publications are Constructing Identity in Contemporary Spain: Theoretical Debates and Cultural Practice (Oxford University Press, 2002), Gender and Modernization in the Spanish Realist Novel (Oxford University Press, 2000 – published in Spanish as Género y modernización en la novela realista espanyola, Cátedra, 2011) and is joint author of Engaging the Emotions in Spanish Culture and History (Vanderbilt University Press, 2016).
Presented by the Department of French, Hispanic & Italian Studies, in partnership with the Peter Wall Institute and the Institute for European Studies.
Andreas Stuhlmann, University of Alberta
Abstract – The fiftieth anniversary of the events of 1968 and the fortieth anniversary of the crisis of the so-called ‘Deutsche Herbst’ (German Autumn) of 1977/78 have rekindled interest in the history of the TV drama Bambule (Riot). It is the story of rebellion in an institution for girls. It was a joint project of director Eberhard Itzenplitz and journalist Ulrike Meinhof, but it never aired until 1994. The talk will focus the work on a critical edition of Bambule, including the other adaptation of the script.
Bio – Dr. Andreas Stuhlmann joined the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta after teaching Modern German Literature and Media Culture at University College Cork in Ireland and the University of Hamburg. His research interests include critical theory, exile literature and migration, dispositive and genre, literary polemics, German-Jewish cultural history, among his latest publication are articles and book chapters on Jewish Avenger characters, Hannah Arendt, Bert Brecht, Douglas Sirk, and Egon Monk.
Presented by the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies in partnership with the Institute for European Studies.
Bruno Amable, Professor (Economics, University of Geneva)
Abstract – In the 2010s, France was in a situation of systemic crisis, namely, the impossibility for political leadership to find a strategy of institutional change, or more generally a model of capitalism, that could gather sufficient social and political support. Prof. Amable examines the various attempts at reforming the French model since the 1980s, when the left tried briefly to orient the French political economy in a social democratic/socialist direction before changing course and opting for a more
orthodox macroeconomic and structural policy direction.
Bio – Bruno Amable has been a professor at the University of Geneva since August 2016. He was previously professor of economics at the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. He is a recognized specialist in the various forms of capitalism, institutions and their influence on innovation and industry. He has published numerous contributions on the interactions between globalization, industrial policy and technical progress. In recent years, Prof. Amable has been expanding his interests in labour markets, European structural reforms and employment policy.
This talk is co-sponsored by the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, the IES, and the Consulate General of France in Vancouver.
Marc Helbling, University of Bamberg
Abstract – Over the last two decades in political science an increasing number of policy indices have been created to go beyond single case studies or the comparison of a small number of cases. The aim of this method session is to look at how regulations in a particular policy field can be quantified for large-N analyses, what the potential of such policy indices are and which limitations they face. Using the example of the recently built Immigration Policies in Comparison (IMPIC) database challenges regarding conceptualization, measurement and aggregration will be debated. After a short presentations students will get the opportunity to discuss questions regarding their own research or more general questions in the field of policy index building.
Bio – Marc Helbling is a Professor in political sociology at the Department of Political Science at the University of Bamberg and a Research Fellow at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center where he has previously been head of the Emmy-Noether research group ‘Immigration Policies in Comparison’ (IMPIC). He works on immigration and citizenship policies, nationalism, national identities, xenophobia/islamophobia, and right-wing populism. His research was awarded the Young Scholar Research Award from the Mayor of Berlin, the Best Article Award (Honorable Mention) by APSA’s Section on Migration and Citizenship and the Best Paper Award by the Immigration Research Network of the Council for European Studies. He has also received a Fernand Braudel Fellowship at EUI and an ARC Distinguished Visiting Fellowship at CUNY.
Presented by the Institute for European Studies in partnership with UBC Migration.
Join us for a conversation with Ciarán Cannon, Irish Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, as he discusses Ireland, EU, and Canada after Brexit.
Bio – Ciarán Cannon is Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade with special responsibility for the Diaspora and International Development. He is a TD representing Galway East. Ciaran is formerly the Minister of State for Training & Skills at the Department of Education & Skills. He was first elected to Dáil Eireann in February 2011. Ciaran was elected to Galway County Council in June 2004, to represent the Loughrea Electoral Area. Following the 2007 General Election An Taoiseach nominated him to Seanad Eireann. Ciaran is also a strong advocate of the use of technology in education and is the founder of Excited – The Digital Learning Movement. He has worked closely with teachers and industry leaders to make the case for the introduction of computer science as a subject in Irish schools. Ciaran was born in Kiltullagh, Athenry and he lives there with his wife Niamh and son Evan. He is an award winning musician and songwriter and some of his work has been performed by the RTE Concert Orchestra. He is also an avid cyclist and regularly participates in a 900km fundraising cycle for the Irish Pilgrimage Trust, a national charity caring for children and young people with disabilities. Ciaran was chosen as one of Galway’s People of the Year in March 2002.
Galya Diment, University of Washington
Abstract – The talk will be based on the volume Diment is editing for Anthem Press, H.G. Wells and All Things Russian. One of the most fascinating aspects of Wells’s relationship with Russia is his rather outsized influence on Soviet science fiction. The talk will pay particular attention to the impact the English writer had on Alexander Belyaev, a pioneer of sci fi in the USSR, author of Professor Dowell’s Head (1925) and The Amphibian Man (1928). Wells and Belyaev met during Wells’s visit to the Soviet Union in 1934.
Bio – Dr. Galya Diment is a Professor in the Slavic Department, Thomas L. & Margo G. Wyckoff Endowed Faculty Fellow, and Joff Hanauer Distinguished Professor in Western Civilization at the University of Washington. She is known for her work in Russian Jewish Studies and Anglo-Russian connections as well as her expertise on Nabokov and Goncharov. Her current project is a study of H.G. Wells and Russia.
Presented by the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies in partnership with the Institute for European Studies.
Mark Kayser, Hertie School of Governance
Abstract – Parties decide policy. Yet, cross-national research into the determinants of policy largely ignores the office- and policy-seeking incentives of parties. Because parties are strategic and forward-looking, they adopt policy positions to attract potential future coalition partners and increase their probability of remaining in or entering government. Building on a new measure that combines coalition formation models with polling data to estimate the expected coalition inclusion probabilities of nearly all parties in most developed parliamentary democracies at a monthly frequency, we estimate the effect of coalition prospects on environmental policy in nine parliamentary democracies. The coalition inclusion probability of green parties — regardless of whether they are in government — significantly predicts the environmental policy stringency of sitting governments. In contrast, political polling, which does not capture the strategic incentives of coalition formation, fails to predict environmental policy stringency.
Please join us for a round table with Roopa Desai Trilokekar (Assoc. Professor of Education, York University), Merli Tamtik (Asst.. Professor of Educational Administration, University of Manitoba) and Robert Harmsen (Profesor of Political Science, University of Luxemsbourg). This round table will evaluate the internationalization strategies of universities and governments in Europe and North America, with panelists discussing various aspects of change and resiliency in higher education. Are internationalization policies converging or diverging? Has internationalization become a primary end for universities, or just a means to achieve other objectives like access, equity or cost recovery?
2017/18
With panelists:
Professor Antje Ellermann, Director of the Institute for European Studies and Associate Professor of Political Science at UBC
Professor Kurt Hübner, Jean Monnet Chair for European Integration and Global Political Economy at UBC
Professor Richard Johnston, Canada Research Chair in Public Opinion, Elections, and Representation at UBC
Professor Steven Weldon, Director of the Centre for Public Opinion and Political Representation and Associate Professor of Political Science at Simon Fraser University
Chaired by Professor Rima Wilkes, Professor of Sociology at UBC
Francisco Colom
Spanish National Research Council in Madrid
Bahar Rumelili, Associate Professor and Jean Monnet Chair, Department of International Relations, Koc University
Abstract – The European Union is widely credited for consolidating a democratic ‘security community’ in Europe, and bringing about a definitive break with war-torn and authoritarian/totalitarian pasts in many European countries. Drawing on recent discussions in ontological security studies, this talk points out that these radical breaks may have come at the expense of ontological insecurity at the societal and individual levels in Europe. While conventional teleological narratives often treat reconciliation and breaking with the past as automatic by-products of European integration, ontological security theory calls for greater attention to the societal tensions and anxieties triggered by these transformations and how they are being managed –more or less successfully- through reconciliation dynamics and memory politics in different societal settings. The analysis draws comparative theoretical and empirical insights from case-specific literatures on reconciliation and memory politics in Europe to develop an ontological security perspective on European integration.
Please join us for a roundtable with the French Consul General, Philippe Sutter; British Consul General, Nicole Davison; and German Consul General Josef Beck, convened by Professor Kurt Huebner.
Sabine Sparwasser, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Canada
Presented by Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions and co-sponsored by the Institute for European Studies.
Jürgen Salay, policy officer at the European Commission and 2017-2018 EU Fellow at the University of Washington, Seattle.
Visiting scholar Maria Rosaria Di Nucci from the Environmental Policy Research Centre, Freie Universitat, Berlin.
Dr. De Nucci is principal investigator “WinWind” funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 program.
Dr. Di Nucci will share her research findings on factors for and against a community’s acceptance of wind energy. Her research work engages multi-stakeholders and extends through Germany, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Poland and Spain. Her talk is hosted by the Institute for European Studies, UBC in partnership with Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS) at UBC.
Presented by the Institute of European Studies in partnership with the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions.