The Devil Really is in the Details: Why Specificity Matters in Understanding the Global Radical Right

Lecture | February 1 | 12-1:30 p.m. | 2538 Channing (Inst. for the Study of Societal Issues), Wildavsky Conference Room

Speaker: Brian Porter-Szűcs, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of History, University of Michigan

Sponsors: Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ISEEES), Center for Right-Wing Studies

There are obvious similarities between Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, Recep Erdoğan, Jair Bolsonaro, Jarosław Kaczyński, Rodrigo Duterte, Donald Trump, and all the other politicians we have come to call ‘populists.’ Not only is that label misleading, but analyzing them as part of a single ideological movement can lead to confusion. This presentation will use the example of Poland to...   More >

The Cutting Edge: Theory and the Avant-Garde in Ljubljana

Lecture | February 4 | 4-6 p.m. | B-4 Dwinelle Hall

Speaker: Kaitlyn Tucker, Humanities Teaching Fellow, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Chicago

Sponsors: Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ISEEES), Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

This talk examines the historical relationship between the Ljubljana School and the avant-garde. Beginning in 1967 with Slavoj Zizek’s and Rastko Mocnik’s first forays into concrete poetry and concluding with the School’s involvement in the Neue Slowenische Kunst movement during the 1980s, the talk analyzes the Ljubljana School's engagement with avant-garde aesthetics, and ultimately...   More >

Political Economy of Reforms in Europe’s Neighborhood

Lecture | February 5 | 4-5:30 p.m. | Stephens Hall, Geballe Room, 220

Speaker: Sergei Guriev, Chief Economist, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

Sponsor: Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ISEEES)

Continuing economic convergence in Europe’s neighborhood requires further structural reforms. We will discuss the political economy of reforms in specific transition countries including Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.

Shoroon Bumbagar: Tombs with Mounds in Central Mongolia

Lecture | February 7 | 4 p.m. | 180 Doe Library

Speaker: Nancy S. Steinhardt 
, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania

Moderator: Patricia Berger, History of Art, UC Berkeley, Emerita

Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS), UC Berkeley Mongolia Initiative

The talk begins with a tomb often known as Shoroon Bumbagar that was excavated in Bayannuur, Bulgan province, Mongolia, in 2011. Covered with murals but without an inscription or other information about its date, the tomb is studied alongside the better known tombs such as Pugu Yitu’s (d. 678), only five kms away, and tombs of Tang China and Sogdiana. Before drawing conclusions, the talk turns...   More >

Attacks on Gender Studies and Populism in Europe

Panel Discussion | February 11 | 4-5:30 p.m. | 201 Moses Hall

Panelist/Discussants: Laura Fantone, Gender and Women’s Studies, UC Berkeley; John Connelly, Institute for East European, Eurasian, and Slavic Studies, UC Berkeley; Pawel Koscielny, History Department, UC Berkeley

Sponsors: Institute of European Studies, Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ISEEES), Department of Gender and Women's Studies

Join Laura Fantone, John Connelly and Pawel Koscielny
exploring the roots of recent anti-gender populist discourses and measures in Europe, with a comparative focus on Italy and Poland.
Starting from summer 2018, when the Hungarian universities' gender studies programs were defunded and terminated, the panel will discuss how and why gender equality and identity became key threats.

Italian...   More >

Sincerity out, Authenticity in: Poetry on the Quest for Trust in the times of Post-Truth

Lecture | February 12 | 5:30-7 p.m. | B-4 Dwinelle Hall

Speaker: Stanislav Lvovsky, Auhtor

Sponsors: Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ISEEES), Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

Back then in the first half of 1990s new generation of Russian poets, — or its considerable part — found itself facing the challenge of inventing a new way to speak straightforwardly: readily available poetics either weren’t quite fit for the job or themselves were part of the problem to be resolved. Poetry optics, which has emerged at the time in the capacity of the solution, was the “new...   More >

Outsiders: The History of Refugees in an Enlarged Europe

Lecture | February 15 | 12-1:30 p.m. | 180 Doe Library

Speaker: Philipp Ther, Professor of Central European History, University of Vienna

Sponsor: Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ISEEES)

Refugees have permeated European history and the receiving states and societies have almost always profited from taking them in. This talk analyzes the major causes of mass flight and the oft traumatic journeys en route. Tracing the paths of the refugees, the narrative crosses the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, and so provides a wider vision of European history that includes the United States....   More >

“my petites madeleines are water canisters” : The Genres, Images, and Intertexts of Bosnia’s Remembered War

Lecture | February 19 | 5-7 p.m. | 3335 Dwinelle Hall

Speaker: Antje Postema, Lecturer, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian Language, UC Berkeley

Sponsor: Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ISEEES)

In Bosnia and Hercegovina, wartime artistic patterns of genre, image, and intertextual reference have set the terms for postwar memory-making. These versatile, enduring patterns also illuminate the reciprocal influence of memory and art in Bosnia from the 1990s to the present.

While wartime authors like Semezdin Mehmedinovic and Ozren Kebo infused the practical, didactic genres of the map and...   More >

Future Reading: What Is Anglophone Fiction in the 21st Century?

Lecture | February 21 | 4:30-6:30 p.m. | Wheeler Hall, 315, Maude Fife room

Featured Speaker: Rebecca L. Walkowitz, Professor and Chair, Department of English, Rutgers English

discussant: Grace Lavery, Assistant Professor, Berkeley English

discussant: Colleen Lye, Associate Professor, Berkeley English

discussant: Harsha Ram, Associate Professor, Slavic Languages and Literatures

Sponsors: Department of English, Townsend Center for the Humanities, John F Hotchkis Chair in English

From Exile to Utopia: A Yugoslav Writer’s Return

Lecture | February 25 | 4-6 p.m. | B-4 Dwinelle Hall

Speaker: Djordje Popovic, PhD candidate in Comparative Literature, University of Minnesota

Sponsors: Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ISEEES), Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

The act of writing assures that exile is never permanent in the mind of the writer even if it is an abiding feature of their reality. Dubravka Ugresic explores this paradox in her essay “The Writer in Exile,” suggesting that what separates the exiled writer from the migrant is the former’s ability to leave her footprints on the cultural map of the world, thus retaining the imprint of her...   More >

Around Arthur Szyk: Berkeley Scholars on Art and History: Poland Reborn: A State Between Democracy and Fascism

Lecture | February 26 | 5:30-7 p.m. |  Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life (2121 Allston Way)

Sponsor: Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life

This talk focuses on the divided Poland that emerged after World War I. On the one hand Poland had to accommodate the demands of generations of freedom fighters, while on the other...   More >

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Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland, 1914-1920 and 1945-1946: New Social-Psychological Perspectives

Lecture | February 28 | 5:30-7 p.m. | 270 Stephens Hall

Speaker: William Hagen, Professor Emeritus of History, UC Davis

Sponsor: Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ISEEES)

This talk will summarize the speaker’s arguments in his book, Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland, 1914-1920 (Cambridge UP, 2018), contrasting them with major recent works on the post-World War II years by Polish scholars Joanna Tokarska-Bakir and Marcin Zaremba. It will highlight interpretation focused on popular mentalities, societal traumas, and enactment of routinized, unreflected-upon...   More >