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April 24, 2008
Our Innocence, Foreign Perversions: Gender and Sexuality in Nationalist Discourse with Agnieszka Graff at the Institute for Human Sciences, Boston University. Event information>>
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April 28, 2008
The Ethics of Atheism with Italian philosopher Paolo Flores D'Arcais, editor-in-chief of MicroMega, and Alan Wolfe, Director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College, at the Institute for Human Sciences, Boston University. Event information>>
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May 1, 2008
Fiction and Possibility with Polish writer Magdalena Tulli and American writer and director of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU Lawrence Weschler at the Institute for Human Sciences, Boston University. Event information>>
During the fall of 2007, the Institute for Human Sciences at Boston University hosted a series of six debates with ambassadors from Poland, France and Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal and Spain, and Greece. The events, which were generously funded by the European Commission Delegation in Washington DC, took place as part of a larger project of the Institute entitled Getting to Know the European Union: Member States in Focus. The project was conceived as a way to bring knowledge of the European Union, its policies, and institutions as they function on individual country level to a broader public. The debates with European Ambassadors centered on the question: “What does it mean, in practice, to be a member of the European Union?” While many of the Institute’s previous activities, including lectures by European Commissioners and policy experts, addressed this question from the vantage point of Brussels, these debates – in an effort to engage ordinary citizens and to highlight local economic, social, and cultural connections to Europe – brought individual member state perspectives into focus.
As part of the project we have launched our new EU for YOU website, featuring audio and video transcripts of IHS event and a forum in which we invite you to discuss European topics of interest. Please visit our CONNECT page and get invovled in our activities.
Other noteworthy happenings at the Institute were a discussion of Poetry and Politics with Tomasz Rozycki, the Polish poet and translator, recently nominated for the Nike award, and Major Jackson, American poet, Associate Professor of English at University of Vermont and a faculty member of the Bennington Writing Seminars, and a lecture by Slovenian sociologist, postmodern philosopher, and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek entitled Fear Thy Neighbor as Thyself: Antinomies of Tolerant Reason. it launches a new website – www.euforyou.org – featuring audio and video transcripts of IHS events and a forum to facilitate ongoing discussion of the European Union.
Photo essay by Tereza Novotna, PhD candidate, Boston University; Junior Visiting Fellow, IWM, Vienna
4/7/08 Olympic Torch Relay in Paris Halted as Protests Spread
Katrin Bennhold and John F. Burns, The New York Times
What was supposed to be a majestic procession for the Olympic torch through the French capital turned into chaos Monday as thousands of people from around Europe, many with Tibetan flags, massed to protest the passage of the flame. The torch went out several times, and police officers had to put it onto a bus to try to protect it as demonstrators swarmed the security detail. In the end, organizers canceled the final leg of the procession." More >>
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4/7/08 Kosovo’s Actions Hearten a Hungarian Enclave
Nicholas Kulish, The New York Times
A Hungarian minority group is pressing for greater autonomy in a region where its members outnumber Romanians. In Sfantu Gheorghe, when Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in February, hundreds of the town’s Hungarians took to the main square to demonstrate in favor of Kosovo, and by extension their own aspirations for autonomy. More>>
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4/7/08 Eurozone Outlook: Too Much Complacency
Simon Tilford, Centre for European Reform blog
A year ago the prospect of the dollar falling to 1.60 against the euro would have brought on cold sweats across Europe. Yet, here we are and there is no sense of crisis. Indeed, business confidence remains strong across much of the eurozone, credit is expanding rapidly, and exports are holding up well. On the face of it, the eurozone really does seem to be shaking off the recession in the US and the steep rise in the value of the euro. A closer look, however, reveals a less rosy picture." More>>
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