IES Director Jeroen Dewulf and EU Fellow Lukas Repa
On February 13th, IES EU Fellow Lukas Repa gave lecture entitled, “Initial Coin Offerings” for a crowd of 30 students and community members. Repa is an Austrian native who holds a Ph.D in Law. He worked as an attorney in corporate banking before managing teams in antitrust investigations as a member of the European Commission. Now, Repa explores the use of block-chain technology and its impact on retail banking.
Max Gruenig, President of the United States Ecologic Institute, and IES Director Jeroen Dewulf
Max Gruenig visited the Institute on February 12, 2018 to give a talk titled “EU Climate Leadership Post Paris” to an audience of 16 students and community members. As President of the United States Ecologic Institute, Gruenig briefly presented on the Ecologic Institute’s functions and its current major project: Energy Future Exchange (EFEX), which seeks to create transatlantic dialogue for civil society on climate change, and to foster connections between the United States and the European Union in regards to climate action.
IES Director Jeroen Dewulf and speaker Hélène Yèche (Univ. of Poitiers)
On February 1st, IES Visiting Scholar from the Université de Poitiers in France, Professor Hélène Yèche, gave a compelling lecture to fifteen community members and students. The lecture focused on cultural revival in an age of globalization that has been apparent among the Sorbian people of Lusatia, Germany. The Sorbian people are a small, Slavic group who are indigenous to Lusatia. In lower Lusatia, the people are known as Lower Sorbs or Wends and have a strong affiliation with the Protestant Church. In upper Lusatia, people are known as Upper Sorbs or Sorbs and have a strong affiliation with the Catholic Church.
IES Associate Director Akasemi Newsome and speaker Celine Teney (Univ. of Bremen)
On January 25th, the Institute of European Studies, along with GHI West—the Pacific Regional Office of the German Historical Institute in Washington D.C.—hosted Professor Céline Teney of the University of Bremen, Germany. Teney presented her research on non-German European Union workers in Germany in a lecture titled “Immigration of European Highly Skilled Workers to Germany: Intra-EU Brain Circulation or Brain Drain/Gain?” The presentation focused on guest worker immigrants (specifically physicians) to Germany between 1960 and 1990, a period followed by the diversification of immigrants coming to Europe. Teney emphasized that the EU is an “unique migration space” for three reasons.
Speaker Edith Sheffer (Stanford University)
On December 7th, Edith Sheffer, Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University and Senior Fellow at IES, gave the lecture, “How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain” to thirty attendees in Moses Hall. Her talk investigates the role of perception, where thought meets reality and created something ‘concrete’ in the Iron Curtain. Sheffer began by announcing that the parameters of our thought create the parameters of our actions. She asserted that the role of government, politics, and armies are all extremely important, but the everyday, routine actions of individuals cannot be understated in their self-creation of the “other” in both East and West Germany.
Translator Stina Katchadourian and Sirpa Tuomainen, Assistant Director to the Nordic Studies Program
On December 5, 2017 the Institute of European Studies welcomed Stina Katchadourian, a Finnish prize-winning translator, author and journalist, who lives in California. Katchadourian gave the talk “Singing the North: The Life and Work of Edith Södergran”. Her work on Edith Södergran includes four editions of translations, many articles, and a play. The latest edition, entitled “Love, Solitude, and the Face of Death”, was published by Fithian Press in 2017.
Viviana Padelli (Haas Business School) and Prof. Gerard Roland
On December 1, 2017, Viviana Padelli organized at the Haas School of Business a panel entitled, ‘‘Europe and the Euro: The Way Ahead’’ together with the Institute of European Studies’ affiliated professors Gérard Roland and Barry Eichengreen and Gabriele Giudice, representing the European Commission. 80 students attended the panel. According to Roland and Eichengreen, ten years after the economic crisis struck Europe and the Eurozone, we can finally observe improvements in the European economy- unemployment is down, investment is recovering, and public finances are improving.
Participants of the "Intelligent Tools" conference
Professor John Zysman, in partnership with the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), hosted a two-day conference co-sponsored by IES/CGES on November 30 and December 1, 2017. This interdisciplinary and international event united a group of nearly 80 researchers across the fields of engineering, data science, economics, sociology, and political science, to explore current challenges in the age of intelligent tools and increasing automation of manufacturing and services, and to address strategies for working, earning, and learning in order to support healthy socioeconomic and human development in the future.
Speaker Kathleen Canning (University of Michigan)
On November 30th, Professor Kathleen Canning, Sonya O. Rose Collegiate Professor of History and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of History, Women’s Studies and German at the University of Michigan, gave a lecture entitled, “States of Exception and Sudden Democracies in 20th Century Germany”, for 20 participants in Moses Hall. Canning began by discussing how populism is often misconstrued as a strengthening of democracy, when in her opinion it delegitimizes institutions and representation in favor of direct, popular rule. Canning then presented a question that guided the rest of the lecture: how are affinities for democracies dismantled?
IES director Jeroen Dewulf and speaker Spero Paravantes (Univ. Luxembourg)
On November 29, IES Director Jeroen Dewulf welcomed Spero Simeon Z. Paravantes from Luxembourg University to the IES lecture series. Paravantes presented a lecture entitled, “‘To Pay or Not to Pay’”: WWI and WWII Reparations and their Impact on European (Dis)Integration”. The focus of the lecture was Germany’s relationship with Greece and Poland, who have demanded reparations from Germany in compensation of their time under German occupation during World War II. The recent financial and political crises in Europe have once again sparked the topic of German reparations to its formerly-occupied territories.
Institute of European Studies
207 Moses Hall, #2316
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-2316
ies@berkeley.edu
