Stanford University

Society

FSI researchers work to understand continuity and change in societies as they confront their problems and opportunities. This includes the implications of migration and human trafficking. What happens to a society when young girls exit the sex trade? How do groups moving between locations impact societies, economies, self-identity and citizenship? What are the ethnic challenges faced by an increasingly diverse European Union? From a policy perspective, scholars also work to investigate the consequences of security-related measures for society and its values.

The Europe Center reflects much of FSI’s agenda of investigating societies, serving as a forum for experts to research the cultures, religions and people of Europe. The Center sponsors several seminars and lectures, as well as visiting scholars.

Societal research also addresses issues of demography and aging, such as the social and economic challenges of providing health care for an aging population. How do older adults make decisions, and what societal tools need to be in place to ensure the resulting decisions are well-informed? FSI regularly brings in international scholars to look at these issues. They discuss how adults care for their older parents in rural China as well as the economic aspects of aging populations in China and India.

Heritage Bureaucracies: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives (Day 1)

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heritage bureaucracies

This conference aims to further our understanding of the institutional cultures, funding schemes and power structures underlying transnational institutions, with a particular focus on heritage bureaucracies. We bring together scholars working at the intersection of archaeology, anthropology, sociology and law to offer a broader understanding of the intricacies of multilateral institutions and global civic society in shaping contemporary heritage governance. Speakers will provide ethnographic perspectives on the study of international organizations, such as the UN and EU, in an effort to show the entanglement of political and technical decision-making.

A 2-day international conference organized by Claudia Liuzza and Gertjan Plets.

Speakers:

Brigitta Hauser-Shäublin (Institute of Ethnology, Göttingen University)
Ellen Hertz (Institute of Ethnology, University of Neuchâtel)
Miyako Inoue (Department of Anthropology, Stanford University)
Claudia Liuzza (Department of Anthropology, Stanford University)
Brigit Müller (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris)
Elisabeth Niklason (Department of Archeaology, Stockholm University)
Gertjan Plets (Stanford Archaeology Center, Stanford University)
Cris Shore (Department of Anthropology, The University of Auckland)
Ana Vrdoljak (Department of Law, University of Technology, Sydney)

Co-sponsored by Stanford Archaeology Center, Cantor Arts Center, Department of Anthropology, Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies, Stanford Humanities Center, The Europe Center, France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, The Mediterranean Studies Forum.

Contact: heritagebur@gmail.com

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Stanford Archaeology Center (BLDG 500)
488 Escondido Mall
Stanford University

Workshops

On Gun Laws, We Must Get the History Right

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As restrictions on the right to carry guns in public are challenged in American courts, Stanford historian Priya Satia argues that a rigorous analysis of British history and law (as it is invoked by both sides) supports the right of governments to regulate gun ownership and use in the October 21, 2015 edition of Slate.

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Slate
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Priya Satia
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Travelling Shots: Families Beyond Boundaries (Stanford, Day 2)

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The 5th annual Romanian Film Festival, themed "Travelling Shots: Families Beyond Boundaries," will be held on different dates at Stanford University, UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University starting on Nov. 5th and ending on Nov. 13th. 

Stanford University will host the festival on November 5th and November 8th.

 

Sunday, November 8, 2015:

  • 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm CHILD’S POSE by Calin Peter Netzer, drama, Romania, 2013
  • 3:15 pm – 4:45 pm WAITING FOR AUGUST by Teodora Ana Mihai, documentary, Belgium, 2014
  • 4:45 pm – 5:15 pm Q&A with director Teodora Ana Mihai
  • 5:30 pm – 6:15 pm Panel: “TRAVELLING SHOTS: FAMILIES BEYOND BOUNDARIES”
  • 6:30  pm – 8:15 pm Q.E.D. by Andrei Gruzsniczki, drama, Romania, 2013
  • 8:15 pm – 8:45 pm 
Q&A with director Andrei Gruzsniczki

For the complete list of other festival dates, times, locations and films, please visit https://rofilmfestival.wordpress.com/program/

 

Sponsored by Stanford's Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies  (CREEES), and the Special Language Program (SLP), and the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies at UC Berkeley (ISEEES) and the Department of Cinema at San Francisco State University. 

Co-sponsored by Stanford's The Europe Center,  Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and Stanford University Libraries and UC Los Angeles' Department of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Languages and Cultures, Center for European and Eurasian Studies, and the Romanian Student Club, and the “Nicolae Tonitza” High School, Bucharest, Romania, and Fundatia Semn, Romania.

Cubberley Auditorium
School of Education Building
485 Lasuen Mall
Stanford University

Film Screenings
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Understanding Russia's New Tsar: a lecture by Steven Lee Myers

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This event is now full.  Please contact khaley@stanford.edu if you would like to be added to the wait list.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is not the cipher he is sometimes thought to be. His early life, his career in intelligence, and his early service in the newly democratic St. Petersburg -- explain the policies now on display at home and increasingly abroad. Putin has evolved as the country has, becoming the most consequential leader of any country in the world. Although he is often portrayed as an enigma or as caricature, it is essential to understand the characteristics, events and goals that motivate him.  

Steven Lee Myers has worked at The New York Times for twenty-six years, seven of them in Russia during the period when Putin consolidated his power. He spent two years as bureau chief in Baghdad, covering the winding down of the American war in Iraq, and now covers national security issues. He lives in Washington, D.C.

 

 

 

Steven Lee Myers Diplomatic Correspondent, Washington Bureau, The New York Times
Lectures
European Security Initiative
European Security Initiative Lecture Series

New study links immigrant naturalization to long-term political integration

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One of the key policy debates in Europe centers on how best to integrate immigrants. The issue is particularly salient in Switzerland where immigrants make up almost 25% of the population. New research from scholars at Stanford and the University of Zurich demonstrates that naturalization substantially improves the political integration of immigrants. 

Jens Hainmueller, faculty affiliate of The Europe Center and co-director of the Immigration and Integration Policy Lab, along with his co-authors Dominik Hangartner and Giuseppe Pietrantuono, use an innovative research strategy to show that naturalization serves as a catalyst for integration. 

Between 1970 and 2003 residents decided on naturalization applications in secret ballot referendumsin some Swiss municipalities. The researchers compare immigrants who just barely won a referendum with those that just barely lost, and the resulting natural experiment provides a treatment and control group that are almost identical. 

"In some cases, the difference between them was merely a few votes, which turned 49% into 51%. It was down to luck whether people received Swiss citizenship or not," says Professor Hainmueller. 

And because the researchers were able to survey immigrants 15 years after their naturalization decisions, the study provides one of the first unbiased estimates of the causal impact of naturalization on the long-term integration of immigrants. 

In Switzerland, where immigrants must wait twelve years to apply for citizenship, the study suggests that reducing this waiting period could improve immigrant integration and positively impact Swiss society. 

The full article is located on the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences website.

A recent news article on this research can be found in the October 22, 2015 Stanford Report

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Martina Kaller

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Visiting Scholar at The Europe Center, 2024
Professor of Global History, University of Vienna
Distinguished Visiting Austrian Chair Professor at The Europe Center, 2015-2016
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Martina Kaller is a philosopher and historian with a clear professional background in global history and a main focus on the Global South. She studied in Vienna, Berlin and at the Universidad Autónoma de México (UNAM). She earned her Ph.D in epistemology of history from University of Vienna and did her postdoctoral thesis in modern history there as well. Her main research focus is on global food history and global studies of food.

At University of Vienna she co-directs the EU funded Master Erasmus Mundus-program, called “Global Studies—A European Perspective.” A consortium conformed by global studies specialists from the London School of Economics (UK), the University of Leipzig (Germany), Roskilde University (Denmark), the Willy Brand Center at University of Wroclaw (Poland), and at University of Vienna, proved that a joint studies program with incoming students from whole over the world works and equally turned greatly attractive for European students.

Her teaching philosophy is guided by a firm belief in the freedom of inquiry, encouraging students to discover and rigorously research the questions that emerge from their own interests, while applying stringent methodological standards. She welcomes difference, dialogue and respect among diverse and divergent points of view. Her courses are characterized by mutual respect, a sense of responsibility and reliability.

 

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Art and Protest in Putin's Russia

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The Pussy Riot protest, and the subsequent heavy handed treatment of the protestors, grabbed the headlines, but this was not an isolated instance of art being noticeably critical of the regime. As this book, based on extensive original research, shows, there has been gradually emerging over recent decades a significant counter-culture in the art world which satirises and ridicules the regime and the values it represents, at the same time putting forward, through art, alternative values. The book traces the development of art and protest in recent decades, discusses how art of this kind engages in political and social protest, and provides many illustrations as examples of art as protest. The book concludes by discussing how important art has been in facilitating new social values and in prompting political protests.


Lena Jonson is Associate Research Fellow at UI. Her research currently focuses on Russian domestic politics and issues of political and societal change (modernisation) as well as the contemporary role of culture and its standing in Russia.

Lena Jonson has published several articles and works examining Russian society and politics (mainly foreign and security policy), Russia's relations with Europe and Russian relations with the former Soviet territories. She has also published widely on Central Asia, and on Tajikistan in particular. 

Lena Jonson is one of the founders of the network "Sällskapet för studier av Ryssland, Central-och Östeuropa samt Centralasien" (1997) and was its first chairperson. She has been a guest researcher at George Washington University and the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Centre, as well as a scholarship recipient at the universities of (then) Leningrad and Moscow. From 2005-2009, she served as Cultural Attaché at the Swedish Embassy in Moscow. In 2002, she worked as a Political Officer at the OSCE-office i Dushanbe, Tajikistan. In 1997-1998, she was a Senior Researcher at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.

Sponsored by the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies and co-sponsored by The Europe Center.

Lena Jonson Associate Research Fellow Speaker Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI)
Lectures
European Security Initiative
European Security Initiative Lecture Series

Sarah Cormack-Patton

Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA  94305
 

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Post-doctoral Fellow at The Europe Center, 2015-2016
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Sarah Cormack-Patton received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh in August 2015. She is a political economist working at the nexus of comparative politics and international relations with a focus on European politics. Sarah is interested in how the cross-border movement of goods, capital, and people impacts the domestic policy-making process, and how domestic politics affect these cross-border flows. In her current research, Sarah examines these questions through the lens of international migration. Sarah's doctoral dissertation examined the ways in which varying bundles of migrant rights affect domestic preferences over immigration, the effect of these rights on the policy-making coalitions that form over immigration, and how these preferences aggregate in various institutional environments. In addition to her Ph.D., Sarah holds a BS in International Affairs and Modern Languages (French) and MS in International Affairs from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a MA in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh.

 

Migration crisis divides European policymakers

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The recent discovery of at least 50 dead migrants aboard a boat off the shores of Libya sparked a discussion on KQED Radio’s “forum with Michael Krasny" about the escalating crisis (Thurs., Aug. 27, 2015). Cécile Alduy, Stanford associate professor of French literature and affiliated faculty at The Europe Center was one of those asked to weigh in on Europe’s migration policy struggle.

Also joining the discussion was Gregory Maniatis, senior European Policy Fellow at the Migration Policy Institute and Tom Nuttall, Charlemagne columnist for The Economist.

Visit KQED Radio's Forum web article “More Migrants Found Dead as Hundreds of Thousands Flee to Europe” to download a recording of this interview.

 

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Shutterstock photo of immigrants at the border between Greece and Macedonia.
Idomeni, Greece - August 19 , 2015: Hundreds of immigrants at the border between Greece and Macedonia. | Ververidis Vasilis / Shutterstock.com
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