European Studies

Nicole Morse - “Desantis vs Gender Studies: Fascism in the Freest State in the Nation”

Karina Barena Barajas - “Anti-gender movements in Latin America: a genealogy between neoconservatism and post-facism”

During World War II, Black people living in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe were in some cases incarcerated in internment and concentration camps. One of the most significant visual documents of this neglected chapter of the war are a series of drawings and paintings created by Caribbean artist Josef Nassy during his internment. This talk introduces the little known Josef Nassy Collection as a unique visual record of the experiences of Black prisoners in the Nazi camp system.

Snacks and Silent Listening Podcast Party

BYOE (Bring Your Own Earphones) for an opening of the podcast “Feminism, Fascism & the Future.” Some of the makers of this podcast will talk about the process of tracing the global rise of anti-gender ideology movements in podcast form. Then you can go listen to whatever episode you want (and bonus: many of our speakers for the conference are in these episodes)!

Matthew Rojansky will discuss the current state of the war in Ukraine and take questions from the audience.

Matthew Rojansky, the President and CEO of the U.S. Russia Foundation and a Distinguished Fellow at the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, is as much a regular at Congressional briefings and on prime-time news shows as he is on the streets of Moscow, Kyiv, or Berlin. One of the country’s leading analysts of US relations with Russia, Ukraine, and the region, he has advised governments and international organizations and leads track two diplomacy on Eurasian conflicts.

Officially, France does not recognize ethnic, religious, or linguistic minorities. Yet, France is the European country with the most varied origins among its population. How can we explain the disjuncture between a political discourse that claims to be difference-blind and the reality of day-to-day life of French citizens? What is the future for minority citizens in France?

This talk follows the trajectories of the survivors of the 1915 Armenian Genocide who remained inside Turkish borders after the signing of the 1918 Mudros Armistice (and during the Allied occupation years of Istanbul) and after the 1923 establishment of the new country as the Turkish Republic. How did the Kemalist state treat the remaining Armenians? What were Armenians’ responses to the new (but also old) Turkish regime?

“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay” —Oliver Goldsmith, “The Deserted Village” (1770) Inequality is on the rise in the contemporary global economy, both within prosperous economies and between developed and developing countries. Can democracy sustain itself while acquiescing in a growing gap between the world’s haves and have-nots? Does the American dream depend on a foundation of shared prosperity that is increasingly a historical artifact?