IES Blog

Former German Ambassador to the UK, the UN and India, Thomas Matussek, visited the Institute of European Studies on October 5th, 2017 to present his talk, “The World Out of Joint: The End of the West as We Know It.” Matussek began his lecture for the forty attendees with the overarching question of whether we were beginning to see systematic patterns that lead us to believe that the global community is shifting to a new world order.

On September 28, Suzanne Marchand, Boyd Professor of European Intellectual History at Louisiana State University, gave a lecture in the CGES lecture series at IES on the cultural and economic history of porcelain in Europe between the 18^th and 19^th century. Marchand began with an introduction to the historical conditions of the porcelain industry in Europe. She explained how in the 17^th century, the Netherlands were the largest importer of Chinese and Japanese porcelains, but that trade was cut with the fall of Ming Dynasty, which engendered an opportunity for domestic producers.

On Tuesday, September 19, 2017 the Institute of European Studies welcomed Professor Chunjie Zhang from UC Davis for a lecture titled “Transculturality and German Discourse in the Age of European Colonialism” based off her book on the same name. Fifteen students and members of the community attended the event. The lecture started with Zhang explaining the meaning behind a map of the Dutch presence in Nagasaki, Japan, taken from a German newspaper in 1726. This example illustrated Zhang’s theme that she coins “transculturality”. In her book, Zhang details how the German culture pursued transcontinental relations in a way that was different than other European countries.

IES is pleased to announce that this year three Berkeley students participated at the 10-week Practical Research Experience Program (PREP) at the Technical University in Munich (TUM), Germany. Aboubacar Komara, Bianca Filart and Shirley Li were part of a successful cohort of students who, under the supervision of TUM researchers, refined their research skills.