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.

Stalin and Genocide

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This lecture summarizes the argument of a forthcoming book (Suhrkamp, Princeton University Press) that Stalin's crimes of the 1930s should be considered genocide. This requires a review of historical/legal concepts of genocide and of the mass killing of the period itself.

Norman Naimark is the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies: a professor of history; core faculty member of FSI's Forum on Contemporary Europe; and an FSI senior fellow by courtesy. He is an expert on modern East European, Balkan, and Russian history. His current research focuses on the history of genocide in the 20th century and on postwar Soviet policy in Europe. He is author of the critically acclaimed volumes: The Russians in Germany: The History of the Soviet Zone of Germany, 1945-1949 (Harvard 1995) and Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in 20th Century Europe (Harvard 2001).  Most recently, he has co-edited books on Yugoslavia and its Historians (Stanford 2003), Soviet Politics in Austria, 1945-1955: Documents from the Russian Archives (in German and Russian, Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2006),  and The Lost Transcripts of the Politburo (Yale 2008). 

Naimark is a senior fellow by courtesy of the Hoover Institution and Burke Family Director of the Bing Overseas Studies Program at Stanford. He also was chair of Stanford's Department of History and programs in International Relations and International Policy Studies. He has served on the editorial boards of a series of leading professional journals, including: The American Historical Review, The Journal of Modern History, Slavic Review, and East European Politics and Societies. He served as President of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (1997) and as chairman of the Joint Committee on Eastern Europe of the American Council of Learned Societies and Social Science Research Council (1992-1997). 

Before joining the Stanford faculty, Naimark was a professor of history a Boston University and a fellow of the Russian Research Center at Harvard. He also held the visiting Catherine Wasserman Davis Chair of Slavic Studies at Wellesley College. He has been awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1996), the Richard W. Lyman Award for outstanding faculty volunteer service (1995), and the Dean's Teaching Award from Stanford University for 1991-92 and 2002-3.

This event marks the Stanford inauguration of the series developed with the Forum on Contemporary Europe at FSI, in partnership with Suhrkamp Verlag.  

The series is also supported by the Division of Humanities and Sciences,the Stanford Humanities Center, Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, and the German Stanford Club.


Levinthal Hall

Norman M. Naimark

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C235
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 723-6927 (650) 725-0597
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Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Robert & Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies
Professor of History
Professor, by courtesy, of German Studies
Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Naimark,_Norman.jpg MS, PhD

Norman M. Naimark is the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies, a Professor of History and (by courtesy) of German Studies, and Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution and (by courtesy) of the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies. Norman formerly served as the Sakurako and William Fisher Family Director of the Stanford Global Studies Division, the Burke Family Director of the Bing Overseas Studies Program, the Convener of the European Forum (predecessor to The Europe Center), Chair of the History Department, and the Director of Stanford’s Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies.

Norman earned his Ph.D. in History from Stanford University in 1972 and before returning to join the faculty in 1988, he was a professor of history at Boston University and a fellow of the Russian Research Center at Harvard. He also held the visiting Catherine Wasserman Davis Chair of Slavic Studies at Wellesley College. He has been awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1996), the Richard W. Lyman Award for outstanding faculty volunteer service (1995), and the Dean's Teaching Award from Stanford University for 1991-92 and 2002-3.

Norman is interested in modern Eastern European and Russian history and his research focuses on Soviet policies and actions in Europe after World War II and on genocide and ethnic cleansing in the twentieth century. His published monographs on these topics include The History of the "Proletariat": The Emergence of Marxism in the Kingdom of Poland, 1870–1887 (1979, Columbia University Press), Terrorists and Social Democrats: The Russian Revolutionary Movement under Alexander III (1983, Harvard University Press), The Russians in Germany: The History of The Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949 (1995, Harvard University Press), The Establishment of Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe (1998, Westview Press), Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing In 20th Century Europe (2001, Harvard University Press), Stalin's Genocides (2010, Princeton University Press), and Genocide: A World History (2016, Oxford University Press). Naimark’s latest book, Stalin and the Fate of Europe: The Postwar Struggle for Sovereignty (Harvard 2019), explores seven case studies that illuminate Soviet policy in Europe and European attempts to build new, independent countries after World War II.

 

Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
Affiliated faculty at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
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Norman M. Naimark Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies, Department of History. By courtesy: Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute, Senior Fellow Hoover Institution, Professor German Studies. Speaker
Lectures
Stanford-Suhrkamp Lecture and Publication Series

Religion and Politics in a post-Secular Age

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The aphorismic and fragmentary quality of Rabbinic discourse creates theological nuggets that are both wonderfully compact and enigmatic. Rather than read Rabbinic statements as fragments of an elusive systematic theological undergrid I will, in a Wittgensteinian mode, examine Rabbinic religious language from within a frame of life. Specifically, I will examine the way the Mishnah, the formative text of Rabbinic Judaism, as a relatviely restricted and enclosed language game, speaks about God. The discussion will focus on "makom," "place," as a name of God treating it as a constitutive metaphor of this religious way of life.

Co-sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe, Taube Center on Jewish Studies, and Department of Literatures, Cultures and Languages.

Building 260, Pigott Hall
German Studies Library
Stanford University

Menachem Lorberbaum Chair, Department of Jewish Philosophy, Talmud and Kabbala, Tel Aviv University Speaker
Seminars

Culture and Pain. Toward Pain Care for a Global Community: From Philosophy to Economic Considerations

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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.

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Pain Medicine: Philosophy, Ethics and Policy (M. Boswell and J. Giordano, eds.), Linton Atlantic Press
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Stanford-Suhrkamp Lecture and Publication Series

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

"History, Memory and Reconciliation" - a new joint series from FCE and the Program on Human Rights

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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.  

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Lukas Feiler

University of Vienna School of Law
Schottenbastei 10-16
1010 Vienna, Austria

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Vice Director at the European Center for E-Commerce and Internet Law, Vienna
Feiler.jpg JD

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.

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