eNews :: UC Berkeley Institute of European Studies


The Future of the Euro Conference Poster.

Cosponsored by IES, the EU Center of Excellence, the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation, and the Austrian National Bank, a Conference entitled The Future of the Euro: Lessons from History was held on April 16 at the University of California, Berkeley Faculty Club. Prominent economists and historians from Berkeley, the US, and abroad discussed this topical issue in front of a large, interested audience and press.

The Conference focused on the following questions: Will the Euro survive? Should it? Will the current crisis lead to the banking, fiscal, and political union ultimately required for monetary union and envisioned when the euro was created? Or will current efforts to stabilize the monetary union with only limited moves in the direction of banking, fiscal and political union suffice to save the Euro?


James Sheehan. (Stanford University)

Eminent historian of Germany and Europe, Professor Emeritus James Sheehan of Stanford University (who received his PhD at Cal) gave the first Gerald D. and Norma Feldman Annual Lecture on Thursday, November 29, 2013, at Berkeley's Faculty Club, to a packed audience of friends, colleagues, and students of former IES Director Gerald Feldman.

Introduced by current IES Director John Efron, Prof. Sheehan engaged in an analysis of means of fixing and quantifying the state, a practice which expanded to an unprecedented degree during the Enlightenment.


Cal Students at the Georgetown European Studies Information Session. (Eric Kotila)

IES is pleased to be able to offer both undergraduate and graduate students guidance in their academic and professional development. One part of that support is hosting scholars from other institutions who apprise students of degree, study abroad, and career choices open to them. Two such guests gave presentations to interested students this past year.

Jeffrey Anderson, Director of the BMW Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University and an expert on Germany, spoke on 'Reframing the Transatlantic Partnership' on November 30 in 201 Moses Hall.


New Museum of Immigration, Paris. (Nathalie Darbellay / CNHI)

In an ongoing series of discussions on the topic of “Moving Europe” dealing with European immigration and migration and the cultural changes which ensue, Prof. Deniz Göktürk of the German Department opened the April session in IES’s European Studies Conference Room focusing on cultural memory and historiography.

Two guests joined her in person, Soraya Tlatli, UC Berkeley, French Department, spoke on “Fragmented Memories in Postcolonial France,” Emina Musanovic UC German Department, on “Clean New Spaces in Cleansed Old Towns: Building a Europe without Ottomans in Bosnia,” and Alessandro Triulzi from Università di Napoli spoke on the immigrant experience on the island of Lampedusa, Italy, via Skype from Rome.


Fado Exhibit Poster.

PSP Exhibits Feature Fado & Fernando Pessoa
This past academic year the Portuguese Studies Program hosted two exhibits on Portuguese culture in the IES's European Studies Conference Room, in conjunction with symposia and performances.

The first, in the fall, showcased the history of Fado — this was a travelling exhibit organized by the Fado Museum in Lisbon with the cosponsorship of the Camões Instituto da Cooperação e da Língua and the Portuguese Consulate in San Francisco.

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