Stanford University

Translating Cultures: Multilingualism and Identity in the Medieval and Early Modern World -- Stanford CMEMS Primary Source Symposium (Day 1 of 2)

Annual Stanford Primary Source Symposium

 

For further information, including the speakers and talk titles, please visit https://cmems.stanford.edu/primary-source-symposium

 

Co-sponsored by the Europe Center, the Department of Religious Studies, the Department of History, the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, the Department of Art & Art History, the Stanford Humanities Center, and Stanford University Libraries.

Stanford Humanities Center
424 Santa Teresa St.

Symposiums

Luca Scholz

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Former Lecturer in History
Former Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow of the Stanford Humanities Center
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I work on the history of early modern Europe, combining social, legal and intellectual history with spatial and digital methods. My research explores how old-regime societies negotiated freedom of movement and its restriction, how they justified and denounced phenomena like serfdom, and to what extent the spatial make-up of their world differed from ours.

My first book, Porous Order, retraces the history of the modern state’s grasp over flows of goods and people, particularly during the early modern period. After having dug through more than twenty archives between the Alps and the North Sea, I am able to show how travelers, jurists and officials negotiated passage and obstruction on the roads and rivers of the Old Reich, one of the pre-modern world’s most fragmented regions. I do this with particular reference to safe-conduct, that is, the quasi-sovereign right to escort travelers and to levy duties on passing goods and people. My book challenges conventional conceptions of pre-modern statehood, and offers a new account of how early modern polities claimed and disputed rights of passage.

My second project explores the history of the atmosphere in early modernity. With the rise of global history, historians have continuously expanded the spatial scope of their studies in a horizontal movement. In recent decades, however, a growing body of literature has begun to discuss the human exploration of the atmosphere and outer space in a distinctly vertical dynamic. A widespread assumption in this literature is that the history of airspace begins with the history of aviation. My project combines archival research, text mining, and GIS to show to that the human engagement with airspace has a longer history.

I use geospatial and distant reading approaches to explore phenomena that escape the grasp of conventional scholarship. I have completed statistical, GIS, and computational training at Heidelberg, Columbia, and Stanford. Within Stanford’s Spatial History Project, I lead a digital mapping project that uses GIS and other digital tools to create new maps of old-regime Europe. I also participate in a collaborative digital history project on mobility in the early modern world. My digital research uses advanced computing to gain a more adequate understanding of pre-modern political geography, to retrace the ways in which goods and people travelled through the physical landscape, and to uncover broad spatial and temporal trends in intellectual history. I am excited about how digital tools facilitate, complement and transform scholarship in the humanities.

I have designed and taught numerous lecture and seminar classes for undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students at Stanford, Berlin, and Florence, on different aspects of of early modern history, on spatial history and on the digital humanities. I also acted as co-director of Stanford’s Digital Humanities Graduate Fellowship Program.

I am a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and a lecturer at Stanford University. I earned a PhD in History from the European University Institute, a MA in History from the École des hautes études en sciences sociales and University of Heidelberg, as well as a BA in Economics from that same university. Before moving to California, I taught at the Free University of Berlin. I have also been a visiting scholar at the University of Saint Andrews and at Columbia University.

 

Affiliated Lecturer at The Europe Center

Three new center directors look to the future at FSI

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Like a lot of people, Colin Kahl long thought of Washington, D.C. as the place to be when it comes to matters of international security. Today, Kahl, who served as national security adviser to former Vice President Joseph Biden, has a different opinion.

"A lot of the most cutting-edge policy questions and international security challenges of this century are, in a strange way, west coast issues," said Kahl, who took over as co-director of social sciences for Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) in early September. He points to the role of technology in reshaping the global balance of power, the increasing importance of the Asia-Pacific region to the U.S. economy and security, and the country's changing demographics.

Kahl is one of three new directors at research centers run by The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). Also in September, Anna Grzymala-Busse took over as director of The Europe Center (TEC) and David Lobell became the Gloria and Richard Kushel Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment (FSE).

In separate interviews, the incoming directors outlined goals that differed in substance, but had similar objectives: to focus on issues that have historically been important to their centers while advancing work on new and emerging challenges. All three also talked about further leveraging Stanford's interdisciplinary approach to education and research.

"The centers within FSI all address research and policy challenges that are constantly changing," said Lobell, a professor of earth system science who joined FSE in 2008, three years after it was formed. "As part of FSI, we have unique opportunities to better understand the interplay of our specific area within the broader context of international security."

Michael McFaul, FSI's director, said the new leaders take over at an exciting time for their respective centers — and for FSI.

"Coming into a new academic year, I am excited about the tremendous momentum within FSI and its six research centers," said McFaul, who is also the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies. "Our ability to generate interdisciplinary, policy-oriented research, to teach and train tomorrow's leaders, and to engage policymakers has never been stronger."

Big Data & Food

As FSE's director and a researcher himself, Lobell says he's excited about the potential for technology to solve longstanding questions surrounding food security and world hunger. Satellite imagery of small-scale farming around the globe, for instance, is rapidly advancing efforts to improve crop productivity. "Historically it's been really hard to get good data," said Lobell, whose recent projects include using machine learning to identify poverty zones in rural Africa and map yields of smallholder farms in Kenya. 

"The measurement possibilities from new and different data technologies are going to be really important going forward," said Lobell, who is also looking to add expertise in water management and micronutrients, either by funding new graduate fellowships or hiring new faculty.

Europe and Beyond

For her part, Grzymala-Busse's primary goals at The Europe Center are to develop its international intellectual networks and strengthen its long-term institutional footing. "I am excited to build on our existing strengths and bring together even more historians, anthropologists, economists, and sociologists," said Grzymala-Busse, who joined Stanford faculty in 2016 and teaches political science and international studies. "Europe is ground zero for a lot of what's happening in the world, whether the rise of populism or the economic crises, and you can’t understand these developments without understanding the history, cultures, and economics of the region."

A Third Nuclear Revolution

For CISAC, international security is no longer just about nuclear security, says Kahl, who is one of two co-directors at the center; Rodney Ewing serves as the center's co-director of science and engineering, while Kahl oversees the social sciences.

Kahl says that nuclear weapons will remain a key focus for the center as North Korea, Iran, Russia, and China move to build or modernize arsenals. But, the center will also look at emerging technologies that are becoming serious threats. He cites as examples the rapid rise of cyberattacks, pandemics and biological weapons, and artificial intelligence and machine learning.

"My plan is to ensure that Stanford continues to play a profound leadership role in the most critical security issues facing the world today," said Kahl, who came to Stanford last year as the inaugural Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow, an endowed faculty chair at FSI.

Said McFaul, "We welcome three remarkable individuals with the skills and vision to guide their respective centers into the future."

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Reports of the Demise of Carbon Pricing are Greatly Exaggerated

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Politicians in a number of jurisdictions with cap-and-trade markets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or carbon taxes have argued that the evidence is in and the conclusion is clear: Carbon pricing doesn’t work. A number of journalists and environmental groups have jumped on the bandwagon, amplifying a misguided message.

A better understanding of how markets and price mechanisms work might change their minds — and the conversation — on the benefits of carbon pricing.

 

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Frank Wolak
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National identity crisis makes the US more like the Middle East

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"If there is a single lesson to be learned from the contemporary Middle East, it is that national identity is critical to the success of any political system. That identity needs to be liberal and inclusive, encompassing a country’s de facto diversity. But it also needs to be substantive," writes CDDRL Mosbacher Director Francis Fukuyama. Read here.

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CASBS Symposium: Populist Challenges to Democracy

How do populism and nationalism challenge democracy? Can they instead help to sustain it? This panel explores the causes of the global populist upsurge, from popular discontent to economic shocks. Nationalism and populism are powerful, compatible, and resonant ideologies. As a result, they can legitimate leaders and mobilize citizens – and pose dramatic challenges to liberal democracy.

Panel discussion featuring 2018-19 CASBS fellows Eva Anduiza, Bart Bonikowski, and Maya Tudor.


Guest moderator: Anna Grzymala-Busse, Director, Global Populisms Project, The Europe Center, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University

 
Learn More About the Panel:
Eva Anduiza
Bart Bonikowski
Maya Tudor
 
For more information, and to register for the event, please visit the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS)
 
Co-sponsored by the Global Populisms Project at The Europe Center.
 

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 Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS)75 Alta Road
Stanford CA
Eva Anduiza Panelist Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Bart Bonikowski Panelist Harvard University
Maya Tudor Panelist Oxford University

Anna Grzymała-Busse

Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA  94305

 

(650) 723-4270
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies
Professor of Political Science
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
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Anna Grzymała-Busse is a professor in the Department of Political Science, the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the director of The Europe Center. Her research interests include political parties, state development and transformation, informal political institutions, religion and politics, and post-communist politics.

In her first book, Redeeming the Communist Past, she examined the paradox of the communist successor parties in East Central Europe: incompetent as authoritarian rulers of the communist party-state, several then succeeded as democratic competitors after the collapse of these communist regimes in 1989.

Rebuilding Leviathan, her second book project, investigated the role of political parties and party competition in the reconstruction of the post-communist state. Unless checked by a robust competition, democratic governing parties simultaneously rebuilt the state and ensured their own survival by building in enormous discretion into new state institutions.

Anna's third book, Nations Under God, examines why some churches have been able to wield enormous policy influence. Others have failed to do so, even in very religious countries. Where religious and national identities have historically fused, churches gained great moral authority, and subsequently covert and direct access to state institutions. It was this institutional access, rather than either partisan coalitions or electoral mobilization, that allowed some churches to become so powerful.

Anna's most recent book, Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State argues that the medieval church was a fundamental force in European state formation.

Other areas of interest include informal institutions, the impact of European Union membership on politics in newer member countries, and the role of temporality and causal mechanisms in social science explanations.

Global Populisms

A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.
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Diane Bolet

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Visiting Student Researcher at The Europe Center, 2018-2019
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Diane Bolet is a Visiting Student Researcher in comparative politics and European studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is researching local factors behind voting behaviour and on far-right votes in particular. She investigates the effects of local immigration, voluntary associations and social networks on far-right electoral support in Europe. Her research interests include voting behavior, electoral geography and quantitative methods.

 

Diane holds a dual master degree in European Studies from Sciences Po and LSE (with Distinction). Prior to that, she completed a first-class honors Bachelor of Arts in International Politics at King's College, London.

 

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Populism and the People

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This event is full. Please email sj1874@stanford.edu to be placed on the Wait List.

To what extent do European citizens have a populist view of politics? Under what conditions are these populist attitudes more prevalent? What are their political consequences in terms of individual behavior? This talk will present an overview of the causes and consequences of populist attitudes in Europe using comparative and longitudinal survey data. The effect of economic conditions (both objective and perceived), emotional reactions of anger and fear, and internal political efficacy are explored. From our evidence populism is more related to sociotropic perceptions than to objective economic hardship, and to anger than to fear. Populist attitudes seem to be also powerful mobilisatory motivations for political engagement, particularly for people with low levels of income and education.

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Eva Anduiza is professor of political science at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona where she is also ICREA Academia research fellow. She directs the research group on Democracy, Elections and Citizenship, and until recently she directed the Master in Political Science. She is currently 2018-19 Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences at Stanford University.

Anduiza' s main areas of research deal with different aspects of citizens’ involvement in politics in advanced democracies. This includes an interest in the causes and consequences of electoral turnout, political protest, digital media and political attitudes. She is also interested in attitudes towards corruption and in survey and experimental methodology. Recently her research has focused on the attitudinal consequences of the economic crisis, with a special focus on populist attitudes. Her next project explores how individuals’ attitudes towards gender equality and feminism change over time.

Sponsored by the Global Populisms Project at The Europe Center

Sign up for The Europe Center's mailing list to hear about our upcoming events.

 

Eva Anduiza Speaker Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Lectures

NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART: Lessons in Courage, Power, & Persistence

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2018 S.T. Lee Lectureship

Few people have sat across from the Iranians and the North Koreans at the negotiating table. WENDY SHERMAN has done both. During her time as the lead US negotiator of the historic Iran nuclear deal and throughout her distinguished career, Ambassador Sherman has amassed tremendous expertise in the most pressing foreign policy issues of our time. Throughout her life—from growing up in civil-rights-era Baltimore, to stints as a social worker, campaign manager, and business owner, to advising multiple presidents—she has relied on values that have shaped her approach to work and leadership: authenticity, effective use of power and persistence, acceptance of change, and commitment to the team. 

In NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART, Ambassador Sherman takes readers inside the world of international diplomacy and into the mind of one of our most effective negotiators—often the only woman in the room. She shows why good work in her field is so hard to do, and how we can apply core skills of diplomacy to the challenges in our own lives. 

But it’s important to remember that deals can be undone. Following Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, Ambassador Sherman updated NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART to better articulate how our governmental structures are failing our diplomatic ones. 

In the dark political era we’ve entered since Ambassador Sherman first put pen to paper, she’s come to realize how increasingly important it is to understand the deeper nature of negotiation. Leaders talk about the art of the deal and discredit the art of diplomacy—while achieving neither and misunderstanding both. The fact is, whether you’re in politics or business, the world has become so increasingly complex that the diplomatic perspective has become indispensable to deal making. 

In utilizing her first-hand knowledge, Ambassador Sherman distinguishes between the diplomat and the autocrat. The former is inclusive and expansive, understanding that every decision is grounded in present and past history, with an obligation to the future; the latter is impulsive and reckless, and sees only what’s in front of him and what’s at stake right now. 

We need leaders who are tough, blunt, and realistic, it’s true—but those same leaders must understand the nature of power if they hope to use it effectively. They have to learn from loss and let go of the things they can’t control; learn how to build a team and recognize adversaries as partners in making real change; and, above all, they have to bring their authentic selves to the negotiation table. As Ambassador Sherman writes in the introduction to NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART: “When we are ourselves, even if that means letting our tears flow, we can be our most powerful.” 

Through personal stories drawn from a lifetime of public service, Ambassador Sherman has written a necessary text for today’s leaders. But NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART is so much more than a behind-the-curtain political memoir: it is a nuanced, revealing, and practical guide for any woman or man who wants to improve their negotiation game. 

 

 “A powerful, deeply personal, and absorbing book written by one of America’s smartest and most dedicated diplomats.”—MADELEINE K. ALBRIGHT, 64th U.S. Secretary of State 

“Wendy doesn’t just write about the value of courage, power, and persistence, she lives it. She’s an example that a strong negotiator can also be a humane mentor.”—JOHN KERRY, 68th U.S. Secretary of State 

“An indispensable insider’s account of America’s negotiations with Iran and North Korea and a timely reminder of the importance of diplomacy… This book is also the personal saga of a woman navigating a generation of change in American politics. At an inflection point in our national conversations about diplomacy and gender, this book is illuminating on both fronts.” —RONAN FARROW, contributing writer, New Yorker, and author of The War on Peace 

“A compelling narrative, never needed more than today.”—ANDREA MITCHELL, chief foreign affairs correspondent, NBC, and news anchor, MSNBC 

Books will be available for sale 

Wendy R. Sherman is Senior Counselor at Albright Stonebridge Group and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.  In January 2019, Ambassador Sherman will join Harvard Kennedy School as a professor of the practice in public leadership and director of the School’s Center for Public Leadership.  She serves on the boards of the International Crisis Group and the Atlantic Council, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Strategy Group.  Ambassador Sherman led the U.S. negotiating team that reached agreement on a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between the P5+1, the European Union, and Iran for which, among other diplomatic accomplishments, she was awarded the National Security Medal by President Barack Obama.  Prior to her service at the Department of State, she was Vice Chair and founding partner of the Albright Stonebridge Group, Counselor of the Department of State under Secretary Madeleine Albright and Special Advisor to President Clinton and Policy Coordinator on North Korea, and Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs under Secretary Warren Christopher.   Early in her career, she managed Senator Barbara Mikulski’s successful campaign for the U.S Senate and served as Director of EMILY’S list.  She served on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, was Chair of the Board of Directors of Oxfam America and served on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Policy Board and Congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation and Terrorism.  Ambassador Sherman is the author of Not for the Faint of Heart: Lessons in Courage, Power and Persistence published by PublicAffairs, September 2018.

 

The S.T. Lee Lectureship is named for Seng Tee Lee, a business executive and noted philanthropist. Dr. Lee is director of the Lee group of companies in Singapore and of the Lee Foundation.

Dr. Lee endowed the annual lectureship at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies in order to raise public understanding of the complex policy issues facing the global community today and to increase support for informed international cooperation.

The S.T. Lee Distinguished Lecturer is chosen for his or her international reputation as a leader in international political, economic, social, and health issues and strategic policy-making concerns.

Ambassador Wendy R. Sherman <i>Senior Counselor at Albright Stonebridge Group and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs</i>
Seminars
S.T. Lee Lectureship
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