IES Blog

by Sophia Kownatzki and Alison Spencer

On October 2, 2018, the Institute of European Studies and GHI-West welcomed Uwe Lübken (Professor of American History at Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich) for a presentation on his three-year project “Climates of Migration.” The project centers on the concept of environmental migration, which is defined as migration prompted by environmental change. As the term is relatively new, Lübken examined historical examples to try and gain perspective on environmental migration. His research was also inspired by the current debates about migration and displacement caused by natural disasters.

by Ani Hakobyan and Jianwen Xu

By Davit Gasparyan and Sophia Kownatzki

On September 13, the Institute was pleased to welcome Matt Beech (​IES Senior Fellow, Senior Lecturer and Director of the Centre for British Politics at the University of Hull) who delivered a lively lecture for an audience of 30 on what he called the current central issue for European and British Politics: Brexit. In a presentation entitled “A View From Britain: Towards Brexit?”, Beech not only discussed the background on the 2016 referendum, but also emphasized that the vote was motivated by the underlying question of who the English are and what kind of England they want to build.

by Jianwen Xu
On Friday, September 7, Kevin Scannell (Professor of Computer Science at Saint Louis University) gave a presentation for an audience of 20 on how the development of new technology furnishes speakers of minority languages with greater opportunities to use their language on various online platforms.