Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs

Once best known for its cows and coal mines, the Spanish region of Asturias has become a cultural capital in recent years. Rural pueblos are at the epicenter of this renaissance, challenging urban-centric ideas of cultural production. Musicians, writers, and other artists look to the region’s agrarian and industrial past to imagine new futures. They incorporate folklore and ways of knowing inspired by older generations, constructing alternative notions of rurality grounded in queerness, inclusivity, and sustainability.

2024, Maria Pevchikh and Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation released Traitors, a provocative documentary series asking how Russia’s democratic opening of the 1990s ended in Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian regime. The film places much of the blame on the political and economic elites surrounding Boris Yeltsin, focusing on corruption, privatization and the rise of the oligarchs, the controversial 1996 presidential election, and ultimately the choice of Putin as Yeltsin’s successor.

How has geography become the central infrastructure of political authority in Putin’s Russia? Dr. Sofia Gavrilova (Fung Global Fellow, Princeton and Senior Researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography), argues that that propaganda in Russia operates less through persuasion than through participation — by enrolling ordinary people in the everyday work of imperial reproduction. At the heart of the project is the concept of the “Volunteer Empire”: an empire reproduced through organized presence, care, and curated experience.

Jack Zhang, University of Kansas, is the founder and director of the Trade War Lab, a social science lab dedicated to dual mission of understanding

Did you study abroad in 2025-26? Come meet up with other Middlebury students who did too at our returnee reception. IGST faculty and study abroad staff will be on hand to welcome you back, raise a glass, and listen to your stories. [Bring your government ID for 21+ libations.]

Are you interested in learning more about the Rohatyn Global Scholars Program? Join us for one of our Information Sessions to find out more. 

Choose one of the following Info Sessions:
     Wednesday, September 16th from 4:00 pm - 4:45 pm (snacks provided)
     Tuesday, September 22nd from 12:30 pm -  1:15 pm (with pizza)
     Tuesday, September 22nd from 4:00 pm - 4:45 pm (snacks provided)

Are you interested in learning more about the Rohatyn Global Scholars Program? Join us for one of our Information Sessions to find out more. 

Choose one of the following Info Sessions:
     Wednesday, September 16th from 4:00 pm - 4:45 pm (snacks provided)
     Tuesday, September 22nd from 12:30 pm -  1:15 pm (with pizza)
     Tuesday, September 22nd from 4:00 pm - 4:45 pm (snacks provided)

International and Global Studies’ Global Migration and Diaspora Program presents “Democratic Drain: Global Migration and the Struggle for Democracy” with Justin Gest.

The Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs Global Fellows Program presents “Interactive Peacemaking and Coordination in Complex Peace Processes” with Susan Allen.

This public event will welcome a delegation of Maori and Pasifika colleagues visiting Middlebury College from Aotearoa/New Zealand. Panel members will discuss the role of purakau (storytelling), waiata (song), and whakatauki (proverbs) in Indigenous Maori and Polynesian practices of wellbeing and planetary stewardship. Through the teachings of the kuaka, a shorebird known for its remarkable migration from Aotearoa to North America, this event invites attendees to explore the idea that journeys are collective and community futures can soar in spaces of mutual learning, responsibility, and relationship.