In This Issue: March 2014
EUCE Brussels Program
Curriculum Development Grant
Explore UT
WWI Exhibit
American Shakespeare Center Performances
Rapoport Speaker Series
"Headscarf Controversies Go Global"
"A Conversation on Palestine-Israel"
"Similarities and Discrepancies in Hegemonic Sports in Europe and America"
"Scenes of Remediation in German Literature 'around 2000'"
"Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg"
EUCE Brussels Program
Application Deadline: March 21

 

The European Union Center of Excellence is pleased to offer grants to two Texas high school teachers and three UT Austin undergraduate students to travel to Brussels in the summer of 2014 through the EUCE Brussels Program. The trip is funded through the support of the European Commission and organized by the Network of European Union Centers in the U.S.

 

All Texas high school teachers are eligible. However, special consideration will be given to those who teach a course or courses that deal with some aspect of the European Union and to those who are involved in the Euro Challenge.

 

All UT undergraduate students may apply and may be from any discipline. Special consideration will be given to those in a program or major that study some aspect of the European Union.

 

Funding includes round-trip airfare to/from Brussels, hotel accommodations and some meals.

The 2014 trip will take place June 15-20, 2014. The agenda is currently being organized but should be similar to previous years.

 

Applications and supporting materials are due by 5:00 p.m. on March 21, 2014.

 

For more information and a link to the application, please visit http://tinyurl.com/EUCEBrussels 

Curriculum Development Grant

Know a Texas High School teacher who might be interested? CES is offering a $400 grant for a teacher to develop a curriculum unit over the summer of 2014 on a European topic. Units may be used for World Geography, World History, or other classes where a focus on Europe is included.
  
All Texas high school teachers may apply. Application deadline is April 18, 2014. The chosen teacher will submit updates throughout the summer with the final unit due by August 10th.
  
Click here to apply or contact Sally Dickson at CES for more information.
  
EVENTS                   
Please view the individual webpages prior to events as times and locations may change.
 
  
Explore UT
UT Austin Campus
Saturday, March 1, 2014
11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
  

Join us for the "Biggest Open House in Texas." With over 400 activities, there's something for everyone. 

 

CES will once again be hosting the "Flags of Europe" table where kids can color various flags from European countries and learn a bit more about the region. We'll also be participating with Hemispheres "Languages of the World" where you can learn words in various world languages including Serbian, Italian, Russian, and Arabic. Be sure to stop by and say hi!

 
The World at War 1914-1918
Harry Ransom Center
  

The Harry Ransom Center's current exhibition (February 11-August 3, 2014) draws on its collection and "illuminates the experience of the war from the point of view of participants and observers preserved for a twenty-first-century generation through letters, drafts, and diaries, memoirs and novels, photographs and drawings by battlefield artists, and propaganda posters."

 

In addition to the exhibit, the HRC is also hosting a number of events to help celebrate the exhibition.

 

Wednesday, March 5, Noon

Poetry on the Plaza: Poetry of World War I

Located in the plaza in front of the HRC's main entrance.

 

Thursday, March 20, 7:00 p.m.

Curator Tour: Join exhibition co-curators Jean M. Cannon and Elizabeth L. Garver for a tour of The World at War, 1914-1918.

 

For more information about the exhibition and events, please visit the HRC website.

 

American Shakespeare Center Performances 
March 3, 2014 
Texas Union Theater
  

The American Shakespeare Center will return to Austin for its fifth annual visit to the University of Texas campus. Direct from the stage of the American Shakespeare Center's celebrated Blackfriars Playhouse, the world's only re-creation of Shakespeare's indoor theatre, the ASC touring troupe brings Renaissance drama to life in exciting and accessible performances. On March 3 and 4, at 7:00 pm in the Texas Union Theater, the ASC's touring troupe will perform Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV, Part 1, two plays with very different perspectives on one of Shakespeare's greatest comedic characters, the unsinkable Sir John Falstaff.

 

Performances will take place on the UT campus at the Texas Union Theater. Parking is available on the street and at UT's San Antonio Garage.

 

Tickets are $15 and $10 for students, as well as UT faculty and staff. They can be purchased online in advance through the Shakespeare at Winedale web site, www.shakespeare-winedale.org

 

The theatre will open for seating at 7:00 pm. At this time, live pre-show music will also begin. The performance will begin at 7:30 pm.

 

Seats for the performances are available on a first-come, first-served basis, so audience members are encouraged to arrive early, take their seats, and enjoy the music.

 

This visit is made possible by the University of Texas at Austin's English Department, Shakespeare at Winedale, the Mary Lu Joynes Endowment in the Plan II Honors Program,the Department of Theatre and Dance, the Center for European Studies, and the Louann and Larry Temple Centennial Professorship.

 

For more information or to purchase tickets: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/progs/winedale/ 

Comparing European & North American
Approaches to Human Rights
A Six-Part Speaker Series

 

The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at The University of Texas School of Law announces the start to its Spring 2014 colloquium on "Comparing European and North American Approaches to Human Rights." The six-part speaker series begins Monday, Feb. 3, with talks on counter-terrorism by law professors Fionnuala N� Aol�in, from the University of Minnesota Law School and University of Ulster, and Aziz Rana, from Cornell Law School.
 

poster for Comparing European and North American Approaches to Human Rights

 

Each of the six events this spring will feature two speakers, one from Europe and one from North America. They will examine the way in which both regions engage with some of today's most pressing human rights issues.

 

March 3: "Approaches to Religious Freedom and Secularism"

  • Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun, Professor Emeritus of Social Sciences, University Paris Diderot-Paris 7
  • Hilal Elver, Research Professor in Global Studies and Co-director of the Project on Climate Change, Human Security and Democracy, University of California, Santa Barbara
  • Richard Falk, Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice, Emeritus, Princeton University, and Research Professor, Global and International Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

Takes place in the UT Law Eidman Courtroom (CCJ 2.306)

March 24: "Approaches to Employment Discrimination"

  • Laura Carlson, Associate Professor of Law, Stockholm University School of Law
  • Samuel Bagenstos, Professor, University of Michigan School of Law

April 7: "Approaches to Universal Jurisdiction"

  • Juan Garc�s, Spanish Attorney, Lead Counsel in criminal case against Augusto Pinochet in Spain
  • Michael Tigar, Emeritus Professor of the Practice of Law, Duke Law School, and Professor Emeritus of Law, Washington College of Law, American University

April 21: "Approaches to Labor Rights"

  • Mitchel Lasser, Jack G. Clarke Professor of Law and Director of Graduate Studies, Cornell Law School
  • Kerry Rittich, Professor, Faculty of Law and the Women's and Gender Studies Institute, University of Toronto

The colloquium is organized by the Rapoport Center with the support of the Center for European Studies and other co-sponsors, and is funded in part by a grant from the European Union. All talks are free and open to the public and light refreshments will be served. Details can be found on the Rapoprt Center's website. Presentations take place at 3:45 p.m. in the law school's Sheffield Room (TNH 2.111) unless noted otherwise.

 

For more information contact, William Chandler, Rapoport Center, at 512-232-4857 or humanrights@law.utexas.edu.

 

 

 "Headscarf Controversies Go Global"
With Hilal Elver
 
Tuesday, March 4, 2014 * 2:00 P.M. * SAC 2.302 (Legislative Assembly Room)
  
The Turkish Ottoman Lecture Series presents Hilal Elver Ph.D.


In early 1990s, Turkey was the only Muslim country where a headscarf ban in schools, universities and public institutions took place. In the aftermath of 9/11, in Western countries pious Muslim women experienced a troubling exclusion from the public sphere in the name of secularism, democracy, liberalism, and women's rights. Meanwhile, domestic courts and international courts such as the European Court of Human Rights, are increasingly influenced by social pressures concerning immigration, rejection of multiculturalism, and by attitudes expressed via Islamophobia, the 'war on terror,' and 'homeland security.'


As a result, many Western governments have failed to recognize and protect essential individual freedoms in relation to Muslim women and public discussion is still going on. While exclusion of pious women from public spaces is spreading in many countries where Muslims are a minority, the Turkish headscarf case continued a politico-legal battle among lawyers, judges, and politicians in Turkey. Recently, Turkish government's long awaited reforms on human rights gave a relative comfort to headscarf use in universities and public offices, current political turmoil makes future of the debate unpredictable. Elver argues that law can be used to change underlying social conditions shaping the social contract, role of religion, and the position of women in modern society. 


http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/mes/events/30744

 "A Conversation on Palestine-Israel"
With Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun and Richard Falk
Tuesday, March 4, 2014 5:00 P.M. * MEZ 1.306
  

This meeting brings together two of the world's foremost scholars and activists in a conversation to reflect upon the past, present and future of Palestine and Israel. They will discuss questions ranging from the one-state solution, the BDS campaign, and geopolitical shifts, to colonialism and anti-Semitism.

 

Sponsored by: The Center for European Studies/European Union Center for Excellence, the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, the Institute for Historical Studies, the South Asia Institute and the Center for Middle eastern Studies.

 

Free and Open to the Public


https://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/european_studies/events/30928

"Similarities and Discrepancies in 
Hegemonic Sports in Europe and America"
With Andrei Markovits
March 6, 2014 12:00 Noon * Batts 5.108  

 

Andrei S. Markovits is an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and the Karl W. Duutsch Collegiate Professor of Comparative Politics and German Studies at the University of Michigan. Born in Romania, and e

ducated here and there, he earned his PhD from Columbia University. His 19 books include Uncouth Nation: Why Europe Dislikes America, Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism (with Steven L. Hellerman), Gaming the World: How Sports are Reshaping Global Politics and Culture (with Lars Rensmann), The German Left: Red, Green, and Beyond.

 
Sponsored by: Center for European Studies and the Department of Government
 
"Scenes of Remediation in German Literature 'around 2000'"
 March 28, 2014 * 12:00 p.m. * BUR 214
 

 

The talk addresses the ways in which contemporary German prose (by Thomas Meinecke, Rainald Goetz, among others) re-negotiates literature's traditional dispositifs of print culture in light of 'new' digital media. The focus will be on the narratives' inherent "scenes of writing" (Ruediger Campe), in which a "remediation" (Bolter/Grusin) of the Gutenberg Galaxy is at work, delineating literature's place in contemporary media cultures.

Uwe Wirth is professor for German literature and cultural studies at the Department for Germanic Studies, JLU Giessen (Germany).
 
Pizza will be served.

https://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/european_studies/events/30962
Workshop: "Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: A Cold War Story," by Francine Hirsch, University of Wisconsin, Madison
 March 31, 2014 * 12:00 p.m. * GAR 4.100
 

Francine Hirsch (Ph.D., Princeton, 1998) is Associate Professor of History and H. I. Romnes Faculty Fellow, 2009-2014, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. A specialist in Russian and Soviet history, her book Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union (Cornell University Press, 2005) won several prestigious awards including the 2006 Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize (American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies) and the the 2007 Herbert Baxter Adams Prize (American Historical Association). She also contributed a chapter entitled "National Types," in Picturing Russia: Essays on Visual Evidence, edited by Valerie Kivelson and Joan Neuberger (Yale University Press, 2008).

Professor Hirsch's faculty web page:
http://history.wisc.edu/people/faculty/hirsch.htm

Responder:
Charters Wynn, Associate Professor of History; Director, Normandy Scholar Program on World War II, UT Austin. Professor Wynn's profile: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/history/faculty/wynncs

Free and open to the public. RSVP required. To RSVP and receive a copy of the pre-circulated please email Courtney Meador by 9 a.m., Friday, Mar. 28.

Sponsored by: Institute for Historical Studies in the Department of History, the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies, and CES 

For more information: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/european_studies/events/28848

 

EU disclaimer