Comparative Histories of Earthquakes
Witness to Disaster: Comparative Histories of Earthquake Science and Response
Barnard College
October 29-30, 2009
This workshop brings together a critical mass of scholars studying the history of modern seismology and earthquake response in North and South America, Europe, China and Japan. The goal is to situate current questions about natural disaster investigation and management in comparative historical and cultural context. It takes the form of an intensive meeting with pre-circulated papers, open to the public through pre-registration.
A keynote address will be held Thursday evening, October 29. The speaker will be Leonardo Seeber, the Columbia University seismologist who recently posited a causal link between the Sichuan quake of 2008 and the building of a nearby dam two years earlier. Dr. Seeber will reflect on his career of socially engaged field research across three continents and vastly different cultures, and on the present-day relevance of the workshop’s themes. Andrew Revkin, the New York Times science journalist and author of the Dot-Earth blog, will lead a question and answer session following Dr. Seeber’s lecture.
Led by Deborah R. Coen, Assistant Professor of History, Barnard College
Agenda and papers may be requested by Professor Coen at dcoen@barnard.edu
Military Intervention
The Ethics of Military Intervention:
What Can We Learn From the Modern European Classics?
September 18-19, 2009
There has been a lively debate in recent years about the politics and ethics of cross-border military intervention by powerful states. Just war theory and international law have long admitted the use of force in self-defense by states facing actual or imminent attack. But beyond this, there has never been a scholarly consensus on the ethics of military intervention. The organizers of this conference believe that a careful re-examination of the normative arguments on the international use of force put forward by some of the most distinguished modern European political thinkers ─ ranging from natural-law theorists like Vitoria and Grotius to influential liberals such as Locke, Kant and J.S. Mill ─ could help us to consider the ethical implications of present-day military interventions in a refreshing new light. After all, those classical thinkers were grappling with several of the ethical dilemmas that we are facing today, be it with regard to humanitarian intervention, preventive or preemptive military action to neutralize looming dangers, or more ambitious imperial projects intended to “civilize” foreign peoples.
This conference will bring together a distinguished group of American and European scholars in international relations and political theory. Twelve individuals will present a paper each, seeking to illuminate and reconstruct the thought of some of the most influential modern European thinkers on questions of military intervention and empire. The papers will also crucially seek to relate the classical thinkers’ arguments to contemporary world affairs. The conference should be of great interest to faculty and graduate students in European Studies, political science, international affairs, history, law, and philosophy.
Led by Stefano Recchia, sr2334@columbia.edu and Nadia Urbinati, nu15@columbia.edu
Agenda and speakers' bios can be found here.
Paper abstracts can be found here.
Great Powers in the Mediterranean
Cold War in the Mediterranean: Connecting the Fronts
November 14-15, 2008
The Cold War was especially disruptive in the vast, diverse region encircling the Mediterranean Sea. The one-time European colonial powers withdrew or were expelled from the eastern and southern coasts, reorganizing themselves in the European Community with a North-Western and Trans-Atlantic orientation. American analysts remapped the area in terms of “security regions,” and Soviet experts, in terms of the USSR’s quest for strategic partners. The newly emancipated countries stretching across North African and eastern Mediterranean coasts were essentially prevented from forming cross-Mediterranean solidarities by Superpower interference and by local national, religious, and development conflicts aggravated by appealing to outside powers. To understand the Cold War’s impact in the region, we need a substantial effort to bridge areas of study—Southern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East—that have come to be analyzed separately. Our Workshop’s main purpose was to explore the imprint left on the region as the two Superpowers stepped into European imperial shoes in the course of World War II and struggled to mark out their areas of hegemony thereafter, playing on local national, religious, and political conflicts, mainly in the period from the Greek Civil War and Italian elections of 1948 to the 1970s proxy wars in the Middle East.
Led by Victoria de Grazia vd19@columbia.edu
Proceedings can be found here.
A video excerpt of the conference can be found here.
Agenda can be found here.
The Non-Aligned Movement in the Mediterranean
February 13, 2009
The Non-Aligned Movement was established to coordinate cooperation outside of the Cold War blocs. Born in the Mediterranean in the late 1950s, the movement sought to challenge superpower influence. Its inaugural conference was at Belgrade, and the leading figures, aside from Nehru, were Tito and Nasser. Here its development was shaped by the radicalization of politics in the Cold War Mediterranean, the superpower confrontation, decolonization, and the struggles in the Arab world set off by the founding of the State of Israel. Through the perspective of this area, we take a new look at the meaning of non-alignment, its protagonists, notably Yugoslavia, and its ramifications for a “third way” between the blocs. Our workshop’s main purpose is to bring together scholars with different disciplinary perspectives and expertise with respect to the Non-Aligned Movement in the region.
Book Presentation and Reception
Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Hegemony in the Middle East
Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies and Literature,
Columbia University
Led by Rinna Kullaa rk331@columbia.edu
Proceedings to be posted soon.
Agenda can be found here.
Poster can be found here.
Great Powers in the Holy Land: From Napoleon to the Balfour Declaration
April 3-4, 2009
This workshop brought together American and non-American researchers working on the Great Powers' presence in the Holy Land and the Levant in the 19th century. On the macro-level, we examined the Western perception of this space and the ideology of expansion, as well as the conflicts between the Great Powers in this area. On the micro-level, we examined the special cases of the relationships between the local – Arab and Jewish – population and the missionaries. We focused particularly on the study of pilgrimages to the Holy Land not only as a phenomenon of the interaction between different religious traditions (notably Christian and Muslim), but also as a political tool of the Great Powers, such as France and the Russian Empire.
Led by Elena Astafieva, ea2394@columbia.edu
Proceedings to be posted soon.
Agenda can be found here.
Poster can be found here.
