The Europe Center is jointly housed in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford Global Studies Division.
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.
This book, edited and written by leading scholars in the field(s) of neuroscience, ethics, law and healthcare policy, provides a unifying perspective of how a philosophical understanding of pain and medicine gives rise to the ethics and policies of pain care. Toward these ends, the chapters shed light on how pain and the experience of the patient and clinician establish the moral obligations of pain medicine, and the conditions necessary to enact pain care on a global scale. In this context, the authors consider possible ethical systems and approaches that are important to, and viable for pain medicine, and provide perspectives into the ways that moral obligations and practical realties are wedded to (and should underscore) any and all practice guidelines, health policy, and laws. In these ways, this volume provides erudite discussions of how contemporary knowledge of pain could and should influence the moral values, and conduct, tenor and value(s) of medical practice, and how this knowledge might serve as a foundation upon which to construct policies toward a more meaningful, patient-centered pain medicine in the future.
Stanford University and German publishing house Suhrkamp Verlag are pleased to jointly sponsor the international lecture and publication series devoted to new work by Stanford faculty on contemporary and historical subjects. Hosted at Stanford by the Forum on Contemporary Europe at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and in Berlin by Suhrkamp, this series responds to the need for insight and trans-Atlantic dialogue on today’s most pressing issues. Senior scholars whose work has earned influence on discussion and policy are selected to bring their voice to this
In 2009-2010, the Program on Human Rights will partner with FCE and DLCL to launch part 2 of the Contemporary History and the Future of Memory series by adding "Reconciliation" to the mission. This series will examine scholarly and institutional efforts to create new national narratives that walk the fine line between before and after, memory and truth, compensation and reconciliation, justice and peace. Some work examines communities ravaged by colonialism and the great harm that colonial and post-colonial economic and social disparities cause. The extent of external intervention creates discontinuities and dislocation, making it harder for people to claim an historical narrative that feels fully authentic. Another response is to set up truth-seeking institutions such as truth commissions. Historical examples of truth commissions in South Africa, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Morocco inform more current initiatives in Canada, Cambodia, Colombia, Kenya, and the United States. While this range of economic, social, political and legal modalities all seek to explain difficult pasts to present communities, it is not yet clear which approach yields greater truth, friendship, reconciliation and community healing. The "History, Memory, and Reconciliation" series will explore these issues.
The series will have its first event in February 2010. Multiple international scholars are invited.
CISAC Conference Room
University of Vienna School of Law
Schottenbastei 10-16
1010 Vienna, Austria
Lukas Feiler is Vice Director at the European Center for E-Commerce and Internet Law, Vienna, and is working remotely as a software developer and system administrator for Empowered Media, New York. He earned his law degree from the University of Vienna School of Law in 2008 and a Systems Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP) certification from (ISC)² in 2009. He also studied U.S. cyberspace and intellectual property law at Santa Clara University. Previous activities include a traineeship with the European Commission, DG Information Society & Media, Unit A.3 "Internet; Network and Information Security" in Brussels (2009), an internship at Wolf Theiss Attorneys at Law, Vienna (2006), several software developer positions with software companies (2000-2006), and a teaching position for TCP/IP networking and web application development at the SAE Institute Vienna (2002-2006). He is the co-author of the book “On the Way to the Surveillance State? New ICT Surveillance Measures” (2009, in German) and lead developer of the open source project Query2XML, which was accepted for inclusion in the official PHP Extension and Application Repository. He joined the Transatlantic Technology Law Forum as a TTLF Fellow in August 2009.
Twenty years ago, a few months before the Berlin Wall fell, the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama predicted "not just the end of the Cold War … but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."
He was wrong, of course, as were all the "end of" prophets of the past. Liberal democracy is hardly what inspires current forces like Iranian Khomeinism, global jihadism, the caudillismo of Latin America, or the neo-tsarism of Russia. But what about Europe?
The collapse of the 3.7-meter-tall monster in Berlin on Nov. 9, 1989, did bring about—or, more accurately, complete—a momentous transformation of the Old Continent. For the past 2,000 years, Europe had been the source of the best and the worst in human history. It invented practically everything that matters: from Greek philosophy to Roman law, from the Renaissance to the fax machine, from Brunelleschi to Bauhaus. But this was also where the world's deadliest wars erupted, killing tens of millions. It was in Europe that the most murderous ideologies were invented: communism, fascism, and Nazism, complete with the Gulag, the Gestapo, and Auschwitz.
That history truly ended with the Berlin Wall. Gone are the million soldiers who once manned a line running from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and so are thousands of nuclear weapons. The French and Germans no longer fight over Alsace-Lorraine, and it's impossible to imagine another partition of Poland, or mass murder in the name of the Lord, or a flood of refugees like the tens of millions who crisscrossed Europe in the 20th century. Yes, we recently saw ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, but that was a cottage industry compared with what Hitler and Stalin wrought, and it was quickly bankrupted by the U.S. Air Force.
Post-wall Europe, meanwhile, has come to mean peace, social democracy, and the EU Commission, which has made Karl Marx's prediction come true at last: after the final class struggle, "power over men" would yield to the "administration of things." So it has: regulation has replaced revolution, and the welfare state has trumped the warfare state. Marx got only the timing wrong; it would take 140 years from the Communist Manifesto to the fall of the wall.
But the wait was worth it. The wall fell without bloodshed; the Soviet Union was the first empire that died in bed, so to speak, with barely a shot being fired. The Velvet Revolutions that made Europe whole again truly ended European history as we knew it. Traditional revolutions beget counterrevolutions and new rounds of repression and revolt. That cycle was broken in 1989, a miraculous first that bodes so well for the future. Yes, conflict continues in Europe, but not the kind that sets fire to history. Today the clashes are over taxes and spending, zoning and shop-closing hours, the sway of Brussels and the reserve rights of national capitals, abortion and same-sex marriage. Politics hasn't been abolished, but the really touchy items have been safely outsourced to the courts—far from the streets and even from parliaments.
The fall of the wall did not create this brave new world; it sped it up and ratified it. But as a revolution without victims (except for the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who was shot, and a few other leaders who served short prison terms), Nov. 9, 1989, deserves a towering monument in every European capital—a marker of something completely new under the European sun. Unlike in 1789, the promise of peace and liberty was truly delivered. Unlike in 1919, when the continent erupted in revolutions that spawned totalitarian counterrevolutions, 1989 brought an end to the worst part of European history. That's not bad when you consider the origins: a flustered East German functionary looking into the TV cameras and announcing, well, yes, as far as he knew, East Berliners could freely cross into the West—right now.
Elsewhere in the world, history continues in its bloody fashion. But if you want to know how to end it nice and smoothly, check out what Europe managed 20 years ago.
Click here to listen to the audio transcript of "Eyewitness to History: The Fall of the Berlin Wall" featuring FSI Senior Fellow and FCE Research Affiliate Josef Joffe.
Born in 1940 and raised in southern Germany, Peter Schneider has greatly contributed to the literary and cultural life of Germany over the last four decades. After finishing his studies in German, History, and Philosophy in 1964, Schneider became a central figure in the 1968 Student Protest Movements in Berlin and Turin, Italy. After completing his Staatsexamen in higher education, Schneider began his career as a writer with his novel Lenz. After the success of Lenz in Germany, over twenty other novels, screenplays, and volumes of journalistic essays followed, including the English translated works Der Mauerspringer (The Wall Jumper, 1984), Extreme Mittelage (The German Comedy, 1990), Paarungen (Couplings, 1996), and Eduards Heimkehr (Edward's Homecoming, 2000). Schneider's screenplays were filmed by Reinhard Hauff - Messer im Kopf (Knife in the Head) and Margarethe von Trotta - Das Versprechen (The Promise). His essays can be found in Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, The New York Times, Time Magazine, and Le Monde.
Since 1985, Peter Schneider has served as a guest professor at Stanford, Princeton, Dartmouth, Harvard, Washington University St. Louis, and Georgetown University. During the 1996-97 academic year, Schneider was awarded a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. Peter Schneider returned to Georgetown as the Parker Distinguished Writer-in-Residence in the fall of 2000 and took up his role as Roth Distinguished-Writer-in-Residence with the spring semester 2001. During the spring of 2002 he taught at the Emory College's Halle Institute as a Distinguished Fellow.
This event is jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe, Center for European Studies, Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in the Humanities, Department of History, and Stanford Humanities Cener.
Audio Synopsis:
Peter Schneider recounts his experience and impression of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the changes he has observed over the past twenty years. Schneider was in Dartmouth, NH when the wall fell, having recently written that more than a wall divided Germans, and that it could only come down if the idea of reunification were abandoned. He felt disbelief when the wall fell, an event he describes as a "miracle that did not appear in any political calculus." Schneider credits the fall of the wall to pressure from the East German people, and cooperation between German and American politicians. Britain and France, in contrast, resisted the idea of a unified Germany, as did intellectuals and many Germans.
Schneider is struck by the city's transformation over twenty years, including new Western style housing and beautified storefronts. He relates how he observed a new generation of young Germans "taking charge" of the national flag as a symbol of joy rather than sorrow during Germany's hosting of the 2006 World Cup. However, he warns that it would be wrong to assume this progress signifies a new, shared culture. Germany illustrates the adage that a happy marriage is the product of long-term hard work, and much work remains to be done. Schneider describes that "a wall in the heads" of Germans persists, along with a clear generational gap. There is also significant economic disparity between East and West, including in unemployment rates and wages. He predicts that East Germany may rely on financial transfers from the West for another two decades or more.
Schneider observes that reunification has changed both sides and predicts an "Easternization of West Germany". He cites multiple surprising political developments of recent years including the election of the first female chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the rise of the PDS leftist party in the West.
In conclusion, Schneider provides a ready answer to the question of how happy Germans are twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall: "as far as Germans can be happy, and warm up to the pursuit of happiness, we are almost happy." A discussion session follows Schneider’s presentation.
Levinthal Hall
Stanford Humanities Center
