In This Issue: March 2016
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"From Southern Sinner to Rehabilitated Partner:
Greece and the Discursive Politics or the Eurozone"
With Dr. Aaron Boesenecker
School of International Studies, American University
March 7, 2016
12:15-1:45 PM
The LBJ School of Public Affairs
SRH 3.122
Free Brown Bag Lunch! (First Come, First Served)
As the Eurozone debt crisis took on its full proportions in 2009 and 2010, a narrative of "Northern Saints and Southern Sinners" became the predominant characterization deployed by the German government and the European Union (EU) to differentiate solvent states and (supposedly) responsible societies from profligate spenders, rule breakers and free-riders. Yet in 2015, with Greece seemingly on the ropes, the discourse shifted to that of a "rehabilitated partner" and, nearly overnight, talk of a "Grexit" or other dramatic consequences faded away. Thus the manner in which the Eurozone debt crisis unfolded cannot be reduced to a story of rational responses to economic stimuli. It was, and remains, a highly political story grounded not in objective interests but rather in the deep-seated identities that shape actors' understandings of the meaning of the crisis and, in turn, understandings of what constitutes an appropriate response. The Northern Saints/Southern Sinners crisis narrative was by no means the only, or even the obvious, interpretation of a well-known set of economic facts. Therefore, the Eurozone debt crisis offers one of the clearest windows onto the EU's understanding of itself. In analyzing the multiplicity of identities at play, and the dissonance among them, we arrive at a better understanding of both the crisis and the EU's responses to it.
Dr. Aaron Boesenecker is Assistant Professor at the School of International Studies at American University. His research interests include European politics, comparative political economy, religion and politics, research methods & methodology, and pedagogy. His current research focuses on social policy development and reform in Europe and the United States. He is also engaged in an ongoing collaborative research project concerning the role of religion in post-conflict societies. Dr. Boesenecker has received funding for his research from the American Consortium for European Union Studies, the Max-Planck Society (Germany), and Georgetown University. His latest publication is: Aaron P. Boesenecker and Leslie Vinjamuri, "Charting the Path of Justice in Peacebuilding," in Restorative Justice, Reconciliation, and Peacebuilding, ed. Jennifer J. Llewellyn and Daniel Philpott, 37-76, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Sponsored by International Relations and Global Studies (IRG), Center for European Studies, and the LBJ School of Public Affairs.
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"Athletes as Activists: Lessons from Black Lives Matter and Beyond"
Friday, March 11, 2016 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM Glickman Conference Center. CLA 1.302B
Featuring Etan Thomas: Retired NBA player, radio host and motivational speaker Shireen Ahmed: Writer, public speaker and sports activist Michael Johnson: Former Premier League footballer Keme Nzerem: British journalist with Channel 4 News
The event is co-sponsored by the Center for European Studies, the Texas Program in Sports and Media, Center for Women's and Gender Studies, the John L. Warfield Center for African & African American Studies, and the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement at The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Sociology, Rapoport Centennial Professorship, and Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE Network).
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Understanding Borders, Security & Identity
Undergraduate Summer Course Opportunity
Where? European University Viadrina (Frankfurt/Oder, Germany)
When?
June 1 - July 15, 2016
Who?
Undergraduate Students in European Studies,Global Studies, History, Social Studies, Cultural Studies, Business Administration & Economics
The course is taught by a team of Viadrina faculty and our own Dr. Michael Mosser!
* Tuition waived for students from partner institutions (AND UT AUSTIN IS A PARTNER INSTITUTION!!!)
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Call for Applications
Viadrina International Program for Graduates
In close cooperation with the Department of International Affairs, the Viadrina Center for
The program aims to support the international networking of doctoral candidates and their stronger involvement in international research contexts and discourses. The program runs till October 2017 at the European University Viadrina and offers also in 2016 doctoral candidates a long-term perspective to create an international research and career profile.
International doctoral candidates may apply for research and acquaintance stays at the European University Viadrina to get familiarize with the research environment at the Viadrina. These fellowships allow international doctoral candidates to get in touch with Viadrina professors for research co-operations or potential doctoral opportunities (e.g. joint degrees and cotutelle agreements). International doctoral candidates may apply for the following fundings:
The application deadline is March 20, 2016.
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Popular Music in Postwar German Culture
2016 UT Germanic Studies Workshop
March 4-6, 2016 Multiple Locations
A musical undercurrent has long permeated German culture. Classical music has been essential to the making of the German nation state, definitions of national identity and cultural heritage, and theories of mass culture and modernity. Music was an integral part of the historical avant-gardes and its reconfiguration of the discourses and practices of classical music, folk music, and popular music. Meanwhile musical styles such as jazz, rock 'n' roll, and hip hop have not only played a key role in the emergence of new social movements and alternative sensibilities and made possible the process of postwar Americanization and its affinities with youth and consumer culture; they also have allowed the culture industry to expand its global reach in close dialogue with new technological developments and forms of producing and consuming music. Not surprisingly, Germany since the 1950s has been continually shaped and reshaped by the sounds emanating from within and without that have further exploded the parameters of such interrogations. Writers and filmmakers have turned their attention to popular musical movements, the communities that engage in them, and the political and cultural forces that such movements challenge and call forth. As part of contemporary event culture, music (popular and classical) continues to redefine the artistic, social, cultural, and institutional frameworks that situate popular music at the intersection of the local and the global, the national and the transnational.
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"Offending Liberties:
American Controversies about Islam" A talk by Nadia Marzouki Centre National de Recherche Scientifique-Paris
Thursday, March 10, 2016 Avaya Auditorium, POB 2.302
Nadia Marzouki is a Research Fellow at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris. She received her Ph.D. in political science from Sciences-Po, Paris in 2008. Her work examines public contrvoersies about Islam in Europe and the United State, and about Evangelical Christianity and religious freedom in North Africa. She is the author of L'Islam, une reliion americaine? (Paris, Le Seuil, 2013). She co-edited with Olivier Roy, Religious conversions in the Mediterranean World (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2013), which will be issued soon in an English edition by Columbia University Press.
Sponsored by: Department of History, Center for European Studies, Institute for Historical Studies.
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Cultural and Musical Connections Between Turkey and Austria A Symposium
March 31-April 3, 2016 Multiple Locations
The Ottoman army twice reached the gates of Vienna. Though they did not succeed in capturing the city, "Turkish" fashions penetrated the eighteenth-century Viennese imagination and famously found expression in several works of Mozart. In the early 20th century, Turkish composers traveled to Austria to study the Western classical musical techniques deemed necessary to bring about a national musical revolution in the newly founded Turkish Republic. More recently, waves of migration have brought the Turkish population in Austria to around 250,000, including musicians from Turkey seeking to establish their own voices within the historically revered "music city" of Vienna. Nor has the exchange of artists been unidirectional. Composers, artists, architects, and academics fled Austria during Nazi occupation for Turkey, where they found employment in the construction of an aesthetic, architectural, and intellectual infrastructure for the Turkish national ideal. The goal of our symposium "Cultural and musical connections between Turkey and Austria" is to explore the range of artistic and cultural exchanges between these two states throughout their long imperial and national histories. How have Turkish musicians drawn on Austrian cultural capital to lend prestige to their art, or vice versa? How have Turks been represented on Austrian stages? What role have the two societies played in each other's construction of national identity? How does cross-cultural music education in Austria and Turkey negotiate these discourses of identity and musical legitimacy while providing a meaningful experience for students? These are among the questions that visiting scholars and musicians including Mansur Bildik, Michael H�ttler, Pelin Kadercan, and Hande Sağlam as well as UT professors and graduate students will address in paper presentations, film screenings, and concerts.
For more information, please contact organizer Erol Koymen |
Shakespeare in Print and Performance
Harry Ransom Center
The Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas is currently exhibiting Shakespeare in Print and Performance, "presenting a selection of rare and unique materials relating to his plays. These materials, primarily drawn from the Ransom Center's collections, demonstrate how much we can learn about his historical context, sources, texts, and productions of the plays from early printed books and theatrical archives."
The exhibit runs through May 29, 2016.
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Header Photo: Muro Lucano, Italy. Home of St. Gerard.
Hint, Hint
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