Stanford University

Amir Eshel

Dept of German Studies
Building 260, Room 204
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-2030

(650) 723-0413 (650) 725-8421
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Edward Clark Crossett Professor of Humanistic Studies
Professor of Comparative Literature
Professor of German Studies
Eshel.jpg MA, PhD

Amir Eshel is Edward Clark Crossett Professor of Humanistic Studies. He is Professor of German Studies and Comparative Literature and as of 2019 Director of Comparative Literature and its graduate program. His Stanford affiliations include The Taube Center for Jewish Studies, Modern Thought & Literature, and The Europe Center at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is also the faculty director of Stanford’s research group on The Contemporary and of the Poetic Media Lab at Stanford’s Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA). His research focuses on contemporary literature and the arts as they touch on philosophy, specifically on memory, history, political thought, and ethics.

Amir Eshel is the author of Poetic Thinking Today (Stanford University Press, 2019); German translation at Suhrkamp Verlag, 2020). Previous books include Futurity: Contemporary Literature and the Quest for the Past (The University of Chicago Press in 2013). The German version of the book, Zukünftigkeit: Die zeitgenössische Literatur und die Vergangenheit, appeared in 2012 with Suhrkamp Verlag. Together with Rachel Seelig, he co-edited The German-Hebrew Dialogue: Studies of Encounter and Exchange (2018). In 2014, he co-edited with Ulrich Baer a book of essays on Hannah Arendt, Hannah Arendt: zwischen den Disziplinen; and also co-edited a book of essays on Barbara Honigmann with Yfaat Weiss, Kurz hinter der Wahrheit und dicht neben der Lüge (2013).

Earlier scholarship includes the books Zeit der Zäsur: Jüdische Lyriker im Angesicht der Shoah (1999), and Das Ungesagte Schreiben: Israelische Prosa und das Problem der Palästinensischen Flucht und Vertreibung (2006). Amir Eshel has also published essays on Franz Kafka, Hannah Arendt, Paul Celan, Dani Karavan, Gerhard Richter, W.G. Sebald, Günter Grass, Alexander Kluge, Barbara Honigmann, Durs Grünbein, Dan Pagis, S. Yizhar, and Yoram Kaniyuk.

Amir Eshel’s poetry includes a 2018 book with the artist Gerhard Richter, Zeichnungen/רישומים, a work which brings together 25 drawings by Richter from the clycle 40 Tage and Eshel’s bi-lingual poetry in Hebrew and German. In 2020, Mossad Bialik brings his Hebrew poetry collection בין מדבר למדבר, Between Deserts.

Amir Eshel is a recipient of fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt and the Friedrich Ebert foundations and received the Award for Distinguished Teaching from the School of Humanities and Sciences.

Affiliated faculty of The Europe Center
Affiliated faculty of The Taube Center for Jewish Studies
Faculty Director of The Contemporary Research Group
Faculty Director of the Poetic Media Lab
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Even though the Bush Administration backed down from its trade dispute over GM food, the effects have been palpable

Authors
David G. Victor
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs
Having backed down from its trade dispute with the EU over GM food, the Bush administration will find it hard to make the threat of going to the trade organization credible again and to continue the momentum toward removing Europe's ban.

STANFORD, California - The Bush administration wisely backed away this month from formally challenging Europe's ban on genetically modified foods. It made no sense to antagonize Europeans over the food they eat when they are pivotal to more weighty matters, such as a new resolution on Iraq.

Still, Washington's threat that it would file a case against the European Union at the World Trade Organization had palpable benefits. Even the countries with the most hostile policies on engineered food - France and Germany among them - took steps toward allowing the European Union to work on replacing the blanket ban with a new system for tracing and labeling engineered food.

But the decision to back off also means that American farmers are still denied access to the lucrative European market. European consumers still pay more for food than they should. And developing countries that could most benefit from engineered crops are still frightened that losing their "engineering-free" status will make it impossible to export food to Europe.

Yet the science on food safety is as certain as it ever gets: There is no known danger from eating engineered food.

Having backed down, the Bush administration will find it hard to make the threat of going to the trade organization credible again and to continue the momentum toward removing Europe's ban. But even harder for the administration will be keeping domestic politics at bay.

The biggest threat to the success of the U.S. strategy on engineered foods is in the American heartland, which is angling for a fight with Europe over the ban as the 2004 elections approach. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa called the decision to defer a trade dispute "the usual snobbery" of a State Department "more concerned about international sensitivities than the American farmer." Two tactics should guide the effort to open Europe's markets. One is to let the Europeans lead their own reform.

The engineered foods available to consumers today mainly benefit farmers who can grow them at lower cost. These foods look and taste the same as their traditional counterparts. For rich consumers in Europe willing to pay a bit more, it is easy to focus on hypothetical risks and shun these products. But the next generation of engineered foods, already nearing the marketplace, will have healthful benefits for consumers - fruits that contain cancer-fighting lycopene, for instance - and this will make it harder for European countries to bar all these foods.

During the furor last summer over Zambia's rejection of genetically modified corn, prominent European politicians were forced to declare that these foods were safe - a blatant contradiction of Europe's own policies.

The other tactic is outreach to the developing world. In the poorest nations, agriculture provides the livelihood of most of the population, and agricultural research proves that genetic engineering can make crops that poor farmers grow both healthier and more productive.

Yet research on engineered crops and support for farmers who grow them lack money, not only in U.S. agricultural development and extension programs but also at the international agricultural research centers that were the engine of the first green revolution. In the last decade American support for international agricultural research has declined considerably.

An American program that would finance agricultural research on novel uses for genetically modified crops in developing countries would help those countries and could eventually help open European markets.

An American-led effort to pry open those markets would backfire. But one led by a developing country could succeed, as Europe considers the moral issues posed by barring food from a country which needs to sell its crops to survive. So far, few developing countries (South Africa is one exception) allow commercial planting of engineered crops. The United States needs to overcome the fears of the developing nations by growing such crops there and demonstrating how they could transform agriculture.

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Stephen D. Krasner

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 723-0676 (650) 724-2996
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Emeritus
Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations
Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Emeritus
krasner.jpg MA, PhD

Stephen Krasner is the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations. A former director of CDDRL, Krasner is also an FSI senior fellow, and a fellow of the Hoover Institution.

From February 2005 to April 2007 he served as the Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department. While at the State Department, Krasner was a driving force behind foreign assistance reform designed to more effectively target American foreign aid. He was also involved in activities related to the promotion of good governance and democratic institutions around the world.

At CDDRL, Krasner was the coordinator of the Program on Sovereignty. His work has dealt primarily with sovereignty, American foreign policy, and the political determinants of international economic relations. Before coming to Stanford in 1981 he taught at Harvard University and UCLA. At Stanford, he was chair of the political science department from 1984 to 1991, and he served as the editor of International Organization from 1986 to 1992.

He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (1987-88) and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2000-2001). In 2002 he served as director for governance and development at the National Security Council. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

His major publications include Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investment and American Foreign Policy (1978), Structural Conflict: The Third World Against Global Liberalism (1985), Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (1999), and How to Make Love to a Despot (2020). Publications he has edited include International Regimes (1983), Exploration and Contestation in the Study of World Politics (co-editor, 1999),  Problematic Sovereignty: Contested Rules and Political Possibilities (2001), and Power, the State, and Sovereignty: Essays on International Relations (2009). He received a BA in history from Cornell University, an MA in international affairs from Columbia University and a PhD in political science from Harvard.

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James J. Sheehan

Building 200, Room 209
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-2024

(650) 723-9569 (650) 725-0597
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Dickason Professor in the Humanities, Emeritus
Professor of History, Emeritus
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, by courtesy
sheehan.jpg MA, PhD

James Sheehan is the Dickason Professor in the Humanities at Stanford, a professor of history, and an FSI senior fellow by courtesy. He is an expert on the history of modern Europe. He has written widely on the history of Germany, including four books and many articles. His most recent book on Germany is Museums in the German Art World: From the End of the Old Regime to the Rise of Modernism (Oxford Press, 2000). He has recently written a new book about war and the European state in the 20th century, Where Have All the Soldiers Gone? addressing the transformation of Europe's states from military to cilivian actors, interested primarily in economic growth, prosperity, and security. His other recent publications are chapters on "Democracy" and "Political History," which appear in the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (2002), and a chapter on "Germany," which appears in The Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment (Oxford University Press, 2002).

Sheehan is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He has many won many grants and awards, including the Officer's Cross of the German Order of Merit. In 2004 he was elected president of the American Historical Association. He received a BA from Stanford (1958) and an MA and PhD from the University of California at Berkeley (1959, 1964).

Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
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Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan

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Ian Buruma was born in the Netherlands, where he studied Chinese at Leyden University. From 1975 to 1978 he was a research fellow in Japanese cinema at Nihon University College of Arts. He lived in Tokyo until 1980, and worked as a translator, actor, photographer, documentary filmmaker and journalist.

From 1982 to 1986, he was cultural editor for the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong. During that time he traveled to most parts of Asia. He moved to London in 1990, where he worked for one year as foreign editor for the Spectator. In 1991, he was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. In 1990 he spent a year in Washington, D.C. at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, and in 1991 he was the Alistair Horne Fellow at St. Anthony's College, Oxford.

Buruma is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, the New York Times Magazine, the New Republic, and other publications in the United States and Europe. He writes a weekly column for The Guardian in London.

Buruma's book The Wages of Guilt analyzes the collective memory of Germany and Japan in the post-war years. Delving into their emotions, thoughts and anger, Buruma tries to uncover how people in both countries dealt with, and are still dealing with, the stigma of being the war aggressors in very different ways.

Join us for a panel discussion of the issues raised in Buruma's book. The panel discussants are Professor's Daniel Okimoto, Shorenstein APARC and Political Science and James Sheehan, History. Professor Thomas Rohlen of Shorenstein APARC will be the moderator.

Bechtel Conference Center

Ian Buruma Author, Journalist Speaker
Thomas P. Rohlen Professor Emeritus Moderator Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center

Daniel I. Okimoto

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Professor of Political Science, Emeritus
D_Okimoto_ALT_headshot.jpg PhD

A specialist on the political economy of Japan, Daniel Okimoto is a senior fellow emeritus of FSI, director emeritus of Shorenstein APARC, and a professor of political science emeritus at Stanford University. His fields of research include comparative political economy, Japanese politics, U.S.-Japan relations, high technology, economic interdependence in Asia, and international security.

During his 25-year tenure at Stanford, Okimoto served as a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Northeast Asia-United States Forum on International Policy, the predecessor organization to Shorenstein APARC, within CISAC. He also taught at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, the Stockholm School of Economics, and the Stanford Center in Berlin.

Okimoto co-founded Shorenstein APARC. He was the vice chairman of the Japan Committee of the National Research Council at the National Academy of Sciences, and of the Advisory Council of the Department of Politics at Princeton University. He received his BA in history from Princeton University, MA in East Asian studies from Harvard University, and PhD in political science from the University of Michigan.

He is the author of numerous books and articles, including Between MITI and the Market: Japanese Industrial Policy for High Technology; co-editor, with Takashi Inoguchi, of The Political Economy of Japan: International Context; and co-author, with Thomas P. Rohlen, of A United States Policy for the Changing Realities of East Asia: Toward a New Consensus.

Director Emeritus, Shorenstein APARC
FSI Senior Fellow, Emeritus
Daniel I. Okimoto Professor Panelist Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
James Sheehan Professor Panelist Department of History, Stanford University
Lectures

The Future of Asian-European Relations: A New Dynamic, or Business as Usual?

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While Asia and Europe's bilateral links with the United States are deep, ties between Europe and Asia need to be strengthened. In the aftermath of the Asian economic crisis and Europe's focus on issues closer to home (European single currency and the enlargement process), is the building of a new Asia-Europe partnership a priority for the European Union? Can the Asian economic crisis serve as a window of opportunity for closer and lasting economic cooperation between Asia and Europe? How can Europe assist in the implementation of economic reform programs and the process of market liberalization? What is the future of enhanced EU-Asia political cooperation in the areas of the environment, crime and drugs, terrorism, and human rights? How can Europe and Asia best pursue their common interests in arms control, disarmament, and non-proliferation? Professor Rinsche has had a distinguished career in German and European politics spanning more than three decades: as a member of the German Parliament (1965-1972) and a member of the European Parliament for twenty years (1979-1999). He was president of the EP-Delegation for ASEAN, South-East Asia, and South Korea (1979-1999), and chairman of the CDU/CSU-Group from 1989-1999. He is currently president of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a German political foundation promoting civic education in Germany and democracy and development abroad. Professor Rinsche will have just returned from an extended trip to South-East Asia and China and will share his recent insights in the current situation in that region.

AP Scholars conference room, Encina Hall, third floor, south wing

Gunter Rinsche President Speaker Konrad Adenauer Foundation
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