The Europe Center is jointly housed in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford Global Studies Division.
Philippines Conference Room
112 Pigott Hall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht is the Albert Guérard Professor in Literature, Emeritus (since 2018) , in the Departments of Comparative Literature and French and Italian. During the past two decades, he has received twelve honorary doctorates from universities in seven different countries. While Gumbrecht continues to be a Catedratico Visitante Permanente at the University of Lisbon and became a Presidential Professor at the Hebrew University (Jerusalem) in 2020, he continues to work on two long-term book projects at Stanford: "Phenomenology of the Human Voice" and "Provinces -- a Historical Approach."
From the Middle Ages until World War II, Poland was host to Europe's largest and most vibrant Jewish population. By 1970, the combination of Nazi genocide, postwar pogroms, mass emigration, and communist repression had virtually destroyed Poland's Jewish community. Although the Poles themselves were subjected to enormous cruelties in the twentieth century, questions about the extent of their antisemitism and its role in the fate of Polish Jewry are today hotly disputed.
Antisemitism and Its Opponents in Modern Poland serves as an effective guide to some of the most complex and controversial issues of Poland's troubled past. Fourteen original essays by a team of distinguished Polish and American scholars explore the different meanings, forms of expression, content, and social range of antisemitism in modern Poland from the late nineteenth century to the present. The contributors focus on both the variations in antisemitic sentiment and those Poles who opposed such prejudices.
Central themes of this significant, balanced, and timely contribution to a contentious and often emotional debate include the deterioration of Polish-Jewish relations in the era of national awakening for both the Poles and the Jews, the meaning of the various forms of violence against the Jews, intellectual movements in opposition to antisemitism, the role of the Catholic Church in promoting antisemitism, and the prospects for the Church to atone for this shameful chapter in its recent history.
Building 40, Room 41E
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
Education
Current courses
Previous courses
Selected publications
Current projects
After a long detour into Russian contemporary culture, politics and society, Gregory Freidin, has returned to his old flame, the Isaac Babel project, a critical biography - as much of Isaac Babel as of the magnetic and elusive voice animating his compact and fragmented oeuvre. He hopes to finish the manuscript, A Jew on Horseback, in a few months. As a follow-up, he is planning, along with Gabriella Safran and Stephen Zipperstein (History and Jewish Studies), an international conference on Babel for the fall of 2003. Together with the Berkeley sociologist, Victoria E. Bonnell, he has begun research on a book-lingth study, tentatively entitled Conjuring up a New Russia: Symbols, Rituals, and Mythologies of national Identit, 1991-2002.
Professional activities
The 2005-06 Academic Year got off to an exciting start for the European Forum. Following the recent terror attacks in Madrid and London, the Forum plans to be organizing a variety of events on the manners in which European countries and institutions are facing the threat of terrorism. In the first weeks of the Fall Quarter the European Forum hosted several European politicians, academics and authors. On October 12 John Bruton, European Union Ambassador to the United States and former Prime Minister of Ireland (1994-97), presented his views on Europe and the United States as global partners in a fascinating lecture for a crowd of about 100 faculty and researchers.
Earlier during the Fall term the European Forum was honored to welcome Latvian Foreign Affairs Minister Artis Pabriks. On September 21 he gave a lecture on Latvia's current challenges in foreign policy and homeland security, and answered questions on Latvia's relations with the United States and its position within the European Union.
During a visit to Stanford on October 4 German sociologist Heinz Bude, from the University of Kassel, presented his views on the most recent German elections from a broad, societal and historical perspective, paying attention to the 1968 student uprisings and their long-term impact on German society. Later on in October Christian Deubner, from the CEPII research center in Paris, shared his opinions on current developments in French politics, with a focus on the French rejection of the EU Constitution earlier this year and its impact on France's position in the EU.
On October 26 German author Peter Schneider offered his reflections on the cultural differences between Europe and the United States. He compared the relationship between the two continents to a marriage that has its ups and downs, but endures. In a seminar on November 3 Josef Joffe, Editor of the German newspaper Die Zeit, pointed at cultural, demographic, political and economic reasons to argue that the European Union is not about to become a new superpower. Both events drew much attention and a large audience from the Stanford community.
Later on in November there will be talks on the effects of the Europeanization of the holocaust on the attitudes toward Jews (November 16), by Werner Bergmann from the Technische Universität Berlin; and on Poland's current economic dilemma's (November 17), by Wojciech Bienkowski, from the Warsaw School of Economics.
Encina Hall, C152
616 Serra Street
Stanford CA 94305-6055
Marinés Fornerino is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Universidad Rafael Urdaneta in Maracaibo, Venezuela. She received a joint Ph.D. in Public Policy and Political Science from Indiana University in 2002.
Project Summary
One Hundred Years of Liberalism centers on Venezuela under President Hugo Chávez, addressing democracy, political theory, and the Venezuelan experience, particularly over the last two years. The book focuses on the idea that democracy itself is being refashioned in a way that is more communitarian than neoliberal. The project not only traces how this plays out theoretically, but -- by examining the new Venezuelan constitution, the social projects and missions of the Chávez government, and the speeches and writings of President Chávez himself -- explores how, in practice, democracy can be understood divorced of its liberal roots.
Michel Oksenberg Conference Room
Okimoto Conference Room
In its communication on Wider Europe in 2003, the Commission launched a new program to structure its relations with its neighbors, the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP). With the 2004 EU enlargement in mind the EU wanted to start forging closer bonds with its new neighbors in the East. The objectives of the ENP would be to provide political stability and economic prosperity to its neighbors. The ENP would thus prevent that the new EU borders would become stark political and economic dividing lines. In exchange for reforms the EU would offer its neighbors further economic integration. The integration would fall short of EU membership, however. Prospects for membership would not be provided in the medium term, even though the approach is reminiscent of the path taken in the enlargement process. In the two years that have transpired since its launch, the EU has set out strategies and action plans for different countries as part of the ENP.
The workshop intends to study a variety of aspects of the ENP: legal, institutional, economic and political issues. It will analyze the specific characteristics of the policy and its expected political and economic impact on the neighbors, the EU's border regions and the rest of the EU. In studying these various issues a wide range of points of view will be considered: views from within the EU and from within the EU institutions, as well as perspectives from Eastern Europe, North-Africa, the Middle East and North-America.
Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room
The Europe Center
Encina Hall
Tim Josling is a Professor, Emeritus, at the (former) Food Research Institute at Stanford University; a Senior Fellow by courtesy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; and a faculty member at FSI's Europe Center. His research focuses on agricultural policy and food policy in industrialized nations; international trade in agricultural and food products; and the development of the multilateral trade regime. His recent research topics include the reform of the agricultural trading system in the World Trade Organization; the treatment of agriculture in bilateral trade agreements; the use of geographical indications in food markets; the role of health and safety regulations in trade; the impact of climate change legislation on agricultural trade policies; and the treatment of biofuel subsidies in the WTO.
At Stanford, Josling teaches a course in the Economics and Political Economy of the Multilateral Trade System, in the International Relations program. Before coming to Stanford in 1978 Josling taught at the London School of Economics and the University of Reading, England. His academic background includes a B.Sc. in Agriculture from the University of London (Wye College), a M.Sc. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Guelph, Canada, and a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Michigan State University.
Josling is a member of the International Policy Council on Food and Agricultural Trade and former Chair of the Executive Committee of the International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium. He holds a Visiting Professorship at the University of Kent, in the United Kingdom, and is a past President of the UK Agricultural Economics Association. He has also been a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for International Economics in Washington. In 2004 he was made a Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association.
Encina Hall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
Christophe Crombez is a political economist who specializes in European Union (EU) politics and business-government relations in Europe. His research focuses on EU institutions and their impact on policies, EU institutional reform, lobbying, party politics, and parliamentary government.
Crombez is Senior Research Scholar at The Europe Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University (since 1999). He teaches Introduction to European Studies and The Future of the EU in Stanford’s International Relations Program, and is responsible for the Minor in European Studies and the Undergraduate Internship Program in Europe.
Furthermore, Crombez is Professor of Political Economy at the Faculty of Economics and Business at KU Leuven in Belgium (since 1994). His teaching responsibilities in Leuven include Political Business Strategy and Applied Game Theory. He is Vice-Chair for Research at the Department for Managerial Economics, Strategy and Innovation.
Crombez has also held visiting positions at the following universities and research institutes: the Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane, in Florence, Italy, in Spring 2008; the Department of Political Science at the University of Florence, Italy, in Spring 2004; the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan, in Winter 2003; the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, Illinois, in Spring 1998; the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Summer 1998; the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, in Spring 1997; the University of Antwerp, Belgium, in Spring 1996; and Leti University in St. Petersburg, Russia, in Fall 1995.
Crombez obtained a B.A. in Applied Economics, Finance, from KU Leuven in 1989, and a Ph.D. in Business, Political Economics, from Stanford University in 1994.
From the outset, the transatlantic relationship has been more than a mere marriage of convenience. It encompasses a community of states, which are committed to common values, ideals and interests. Europe and North America can look back on a common cultural and intellectual history and they are bound together by a cultural affinity.
Transatlantic relations have benefited from the conscious decision made by the US not to withdraw from Europe in 1945, as it had done after the end of the First World War but, rather, to maintain a long-term presence. This injected an element of stability into Western Europe, which made it possible to tackle the European integration project.
Naturally, there are also conflicts of interests and areas of friction within this community of values. The transatlantic community has never been a perfect community of interests. We are each other's cousins, not identical twins.
Current contentious issues are not limited to the military action by the United States against the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Europe and the U.S. also have divergent viewpoints on issues such as climate protection, the death penalty or relations with international organizations. However, leading politicians on both sides of the Atlantic know that it is in everyone's interest to deal responsibly with such differences.
The visit by President Bush to Brussels and to Germany at the start to his second term as American president has helped to refocus the transatlantic relationship.
Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room