This lecture deals with the strategies of reconstructing the suppressed memory of traumatic events in Kosova, Afghanistan, and Bosnia and Herzegovina at the end of the 20th century. In this period of transitions and changes, history has become a key conflict arena in which identity and memory are being waged. Milica Tomic's work addresses these issues in an unconventional way that challenges traditional ‘representation’ (or lack of thereof) of the past events. By combining three of her exhibited projects xy-üngelost, container and Srebrenica – this talk attempts to investigate the ways in which we can engage with the past to confront the drives to forget. Thus re-constructed material and social network of events critically investigate the politics of rights to narrate traumatic events from the past. Proceeding from the fact that what we cannot remember tells us about that which we cannot forget, Milica Tomic interprets the syntagm “politics of memory” as a demand for a renewal of politics. Stated in the negative form, it goes: There is no memory without politics!/There is no oblivion without politics!

Milica Tomic works and lives in Belgrade as a visual artist, primarily video, film, photography, performance, action, light and sound installation, web projects, discussions etc. Tomic's work centers on issues of political violence, nationality and identity, with particular attention to the tensions between personal experience and media constructed images. Milica Tomic's has exhibited globally since 1998 and participated in numerous exhibitions including Venice Biennale in 2001 and 2003, Sao Paulo Biennale in1998, Istanbul Biennale in 2003 and Sidney Biennale in 2006, Prague Biennale in 2007, Gyumri Biennale in 2008. Tomic's work was exhibited in a wide international context including the Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Arnhem, Holland, Kunsthalle Wien, Austria, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, MUMOK- Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna, Austria, Fundacio Joan Miro, Barcelona, Spain, Ludwig Museum Budapest, Hungary, Malmo Konsthall, Malmo, Sweden, Palazzo Della Triennale Milano, Milan, Italy, Museum of Contamporary Art Belgrade, Serbia, GfZK- Galerie fur Zeitgenussische Kunst, Leipzig, Germany, State Museum of Contemporary Art Thessaloniki, Greece, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, Copenhagen, Denmark, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, USA, Freud Museum, London, UK, KIASMA Nykytaiteen Museo, Helsinki, Finland, Nasjonalmuseet for Kunst, Arkitektur og Design, Oslo, Norway, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Holland etc.

A founder and member of the Monument Group, Tomic is a organizer of numerous international art projects and workshops, as well as lecturer at international institutions of contemporary art, such as: NIFCA (Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art), Kuvataideakatemia / Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, Finland, Piet Zwart Institut, Rotterdam, Holland, Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna, Austria and others.

Jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe, Archaeology Center, Department of Art and Art History, and Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

Antonis Balasopoulos, Assistant Professor in the Department of English Studies, University of Cyprus, is one of the most important younger scholars working in literary criticism and theory today. He has co-edited Comparative Literature and Global Studies: Histories and Trajectories; Conformism, Non-Conformism and Anti-Conformism in the Culture of the United States; and States of Theory: History and Geography of Critical Narratives.

He has held a Visiting Research Fellowship at Princeton University and has been appointed Institute Faculty at the Dartmouth Institute of American Studies, Dartmouth College. His research interests include Utopian fiction and nonfiction, 16th-19th centuries; Literature and Culture of US Empire, 1800-1900; literature, geography and the production of space; nationalism, colonialism and postcoloniality; critical theory, especially Marxism, genre theory, and theories of the political; visual culture, especially cinema.

Sponsored by the Division of Literatures, Cultures and Languages, the Department of Comparative Literature, the English Department, the Program in Modern Thought and Literature, German Studies, and the Forum on Contemporary Europe.

Japan has been hit unexpectedly hard by the global economic  recession.  Although Japanese financial institutions were not  seriously damaged by the initial financial crisis in the United  States, the economy has been staggered by an unprecedented drop in  exports.  With the economy likely to shrink by five to six percent  in 2009, Japan faces the worst economic downturn in over a half  century.  Policy responses to this situation have been complicated  by the uncertain political situation, with an unpopular prime  minister and a looming election for the lower house of the national  Diet.

What does all this mean for relations with the United States?   There are several important developments.  First, one impact of the  crisis is a shrinkage of Japan's current-account surplus, implying  that (at least in 2009) Japan will be a much smaller net supplier  of capital to the United States and the rest of the world.  Second,  the government appears to be willing to respond to the crisis with  strong fiscal stimulus, which should please the Obama  administration.  Third, even with stimulus in Japan, economic  recovery will lag behind that of the United States because real  recovery will depend on an upturn in exports.  Fourth, it is China,  not Japan, that will be the key among Asian countries.  China will  continue to grow, and is also applying fiscal stimulus, so it will  likely play a significant global role in enabling an end to the  recession.
All of these factors will play into bilateral relations,  complicated by the political uncertainty in Japan.  Bilateral  relations are close, and will remain so in the Obama  administration.  But the administration is likely to view Japan as  playing only a limited role in the global effort to cope with the  consequences of the financial and economic crisis.

About the Speaker:

Edward J. Lincoln joined NYU in 2006 to be director of the Center for Japan-U.S. Business and Economic Studies and clinical professor of Economics at the Stern School of Business. Professor Lincoln teaches courses on the global economy.

Professor Lincoln’s research interests include contemporary structure and change in the Japanese economy, East Asian economic integration, and U.S. economic policy toward Japan and East Asia. His latest book, on the underappreciated importance of economic issues in international relations and American foreign policy, is Winners Without Losers: Why Americans Should Care More About Global Economic Policy, published in 2007. He is the author of eight other books and monographs, including East Asian Economic Regionalism (The Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution, 2004), Arthritic Japan: The Slow Pace of Economic Reform (Brookings, 2001), and Troubled Times: U.S.-Japan Economic Relations in the 1990s (Brookings, 1998). An earlier book, Japan Facing Economic Maturity (Brookings, 1988) received the Masayoshi Ohira Award for outstanding books on the Asia-Pacific region.

Before joining NYU, Professor Lincoln was a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and earlier a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. In the mid-1990s, he served as Special Economic Advisor to Ambassador Walter Mondale at the American Embassy in Tokyo. He has also been a professorial lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Professor Lincoln received his Bachelor’s degree from Amherst College, his M.A. in both economics and East Asian Studies at Yale University, and his Ph.D. in economics also at Yale University.

Europe is increasingly investing in research through its Framework Programme for Research. A European Research Council has been created to foster basic research of the highest quality. Business and industry are encouraged to take R&D initiatives. Attempts are also being made to coordinate research between EU Member Countries to achieve critical mass and avoid duplication of efforts. The new research program is also becoming more internationally oriented. Will Europe succeed in becoming the most knowledge intensive region in the world?

Kerstin Eliasson is an expert on national and international research and science policy. She is currently Director, Ministry of Education and Research, Sweden. From 2004-2006, she served as State Secretary, Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. Mrs. Eliasson has been the chief negotiator for Sweden's participation in two international research facilities in Germany. She serves as Member of the Board of the Joint Research Centre (European Union) and Member of High-level Strategic Forum for International S&T Cooperation (EU).

For more than three months now the French academic world has been shaken by an unprecedented crisis with many demonstrations, action days, alternative teaching and protest initiatives of all sorts. A very specific feature of this movement is that it encompasses the whole political spectrum. In almost daily demonstrations, law professors, traditional support of right wing governments, and social sciences scholars, the leftist part of the French academic scene, were marching hands in hands. What are the reasons for such upheaval? What is under threat? What is called for? Beyond the analysis of the causes and goals of these actions, the talk will focus on the deep transformations in culture and education that are affecting French modern society.

Synopsis

To Prof. Canto-Sperber, the recent protests to university reform in France represent an unprecedented crisis in the French academic world encompassing the whole political spectrum. She sees the two most immediate causes as the reforms President Sarkozy has tried to pass. The first one would give more autonomy to the universities to regulate their professors in terms of time management and promotion. However, Prof. Canto-Sperber reveals that this comes into conflict with the fact that French academics believe that only a national body has the legitimacy to decide on the best balance between research and teaching, as well as the promotion of professors. In addition, Prof. Canto-Sperber explains it is commonly assumed in the French academic world that only a body of professors of the same academic discipline is entitled to judge the performance of a particular professor. The second reform involves a shift in the training of professors by introducing professional exams and taking away from the current system of aggregation, an achievement that mainly exhibits intellectual status. Prof. Canto-Sperber focuses on the fact that the proposition of such professional exams was seen to strike at the pride and identity of professional teaching. Moreover, to Prof. Canto-Sperber, such exams were also seen as a threat to the quality of the professors and as lowering the knowledge requirements for becoming a professor. In addition to this, Prof. Canto-Sperber also focuses on changing social realities in the French education system where some of the students do not even speak French. Professors want to maintain high intellectual status without having to come to terms with the necessity for professional training, the system of aggregation is a way to hold on to their beliefs.

In order to properly understand to significance of recent events, Prof. Canto-Sperber sets out to put them in historical context. She explains the history of the university system in France, as well as the rise and domination of the Grandes Ecoles over the universities. She argues that as French universities have all been state dependent and equal in status, they have had no incentive to attract students and have gradually become isolated from French society. They have not had to deal with the necessities of most social organizations such as efficiency, responsibility, and self-regulation. To Prof. Canto-Sperber, that is why at this stage it is difficult for universities to fathom organizing and regulating themselves. Prof. Canto-Sperber reinforces this by making the point that from the 15th century through to the 19th century, French universities repeatedly ignored the development of new knowledge such as the Cartesian revolution or the Enlightenment. This led to a habit in France of creating parallel institutions to deal with the necessity of having platforms to discuss these new intellectual approaches. Prof. Canto-Sperber puts forward the view that the reason the renewal of universities in France has been so difficult is that it means reintegration with a society that has moved on culturally and scientifically.

What Prof. Canto-Sperber therefore expresses is that there is no longer a choice but to put universities back into society and give them autonomy. Professors must be allowed to maintain their ‘republican’ ideals but in a more modest way. Prof. Canto-Sperber argues that the program of rational emancipation has led to segregation and must be abandoned. Finally and most importantly, universities must be given financial autonomy to define and regulate themselves. However, Prof. Canto-Sperber concludes by arguing that due to intellectual and philosophical barriers, the “awkward” situation will most probably continue.

In a spirited and lengthy discussion session, one of the points raised was that of bringing together research and teaching. Discussion of this also led to the point of the problem of donations in French universities and these universities' dependence on the state.

About the Speaker

Monique Canto-Sperber is the director of the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Paris, rue d'Ulm), she is a university professor and a fellow of National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS, Center Raymond Aron), she was the former vice president of the French National Ethics Committee.

Alumnus of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, with an aggregation and a doctorate in philosophy, she was professor at several universities (University of Rouen and Amiens). She chaired a research center (at University of Caen) and in 1993 was appointed director of research at the CNRS. She was the scientific director of many international scientific conferences. She taught at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and at many other universities abroad. She was a visiting professor at Stanford University.

Monique Canto-Sperber sat on numerous boards and committees. She was a member of the board of trustees of the French National Library, and she chaired the Philosophy Committee of the National Center of Letters. She is the editor of two series edited at the Presses Universitaires de France. She takes part in a television program on essays and debates in the Senate channel, Public Sénat, and runs a radio weekly program on France Culture.

Monique Canto-Sperber was trained as a classicist and first worked in the field of ancient philosophy. She published four translations and commentaries of Plato's dialogues and several books on Greek philosophy: Les Paradoxes de la connaissance (1991), Philosophie grecque (1997) et Ethiques Grecques (2002).

For more than fifteen years, most of her books have been devoted to contemporary moral and political philosophy and to practical ethical questions. She published numerous books on these issues, translated into several languages, among them La Philosophie morale britannique (1994), le Dictionnaire d'Ethique et de philosophie morale (1996, 4ème édition : 2004), L'Inquiétude morale et la vie humaine (2001, Englis trans, 2008)), Les Règles de la liberté (2003), Le Bien, la guerre et la terreur (2005), Faut-il sauver le libéralisme? (2006), Naissance et liberté (2008). She was the editor of several books as Le Style de la pensée (2002), and Ethiques d'aujourd'hui (2004).

Monique Canto-Sperber is Chevalier des arts et des lettres, Chevalier de la légion d'honneur and Officier de l'ordre national du mérite.

Jennifer Pitts is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. She is the author of A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France (Princeton, 2005) and editor and translator of Alexis de Tocqueville: Writings on Empire and Slavery (Johns Hopkins, 2001). She is currently writing a book, tentatively entitled Boundaries of the International, which explores European debates about legal relations with extra-European societies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The republican tradition continues to frame French debates on empire, as it has done since the Revolution. French republicanism and Anglophone liberalism have shared numerous features in relation to empire: both are egalitarian traditions of moral universalism, and both uphold an ideal of political emancipation that has tended to entail assimilation to a European political model. This paper explores the course of French debates over empire from the period of Napoleon through the July Monarchy — the broader context for the thought of the iconic liberal republicans Constant and Tocqueville — with particular attention to the ways in which liberal and republican registers were deployed in both support and critique of empire, and to how the articulation of liberal and republican agendas in France was affected by the Algeria conquest. It also discusses the first Algerian contribution to French public deliberation about the conquest, Hamdan Khodja’s 1833 text Le Miroir, a work that self-consciously inhabited both a liberal cosmopolitan and a Muslim perspective and that was nearly alone in French debates in making a principled argument for Algerian