Past Events

	Title	Date	Type Sort ascending	Speakers
	The EU Periphery and Revisionist Powers	Wed, 23.09.2020	Seminars and Colloquia	Dimitar Bechev Ivan Vejvoda	The EU Periphery and Revisionist Powers Wed, 23.09.2020 Speakers: Dimitar Bechev Ivan Vejvoda Series: Seminars and Colloquia Starting with the annexation of Crimea in the spring of 2014, scholars and analysts have been debating the standoff between the West and competitors such as Russia, Erdogan’s Turkey, and lately China on Europe’s periphery. “The return of geopolitics” has become a standard phrase to describe the new moment in the international politics of Eastern and Southeast Europe. A contrast is drawn with the 2000s, the highmark of the European Union’s “transformative power” and NATO’s eastward expansion. But the top-down view highlighting the preferences and actions of big players, including core EU member states like Germany and France, Russia, Turkey etc. overlooks the critical role played by peripheral countries and their elites. Rather than being the object of great powers’ decisions, they manipulate rivalries in pursuit of political advantage. Though the domestic arena provides entry points for external actors’ influence it also empowers incumbent elites in the target countries. The talk drew on examples from Southeast Europe (the Western Balkans, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece) but drew parallels to the post-Soviet space. Read more
The EU Periphery and Revisionist Powers Wed, 23.09.2020 Speakers: Dimitar Bechev Ivan Vejvoda Series: Seminars and Colloquia Starting with the annexation of Crimea in the spring of 2014, scholars and analysts have been debating the standoff between the West and competitors such as Russia, Erdogan’s Turkey, and lately China on Europe’s periphery. “The return of geopolitics” has become a standard phrase to describe the new moment in the international politics of Eastern and Southeast Europe. A contrast is drawn with the 2000s, the highmark of the European Union’s “transformative power” and NATO’s eastward expansion. But the top-down view highlighting the preferences and actions of big players, including core EU member states like Germany and France, Russia, Turkey etc. overlooks the critical role played by peripheral countries and their elites. Rather than being the object of great powers’ decisions, they manipulate rivalries in pursuit of political advantage. Though the domestic arena provides entry points for external actors’ influence it also empowers incumbent elites in the target countries. The talk drew on examples from Southeast Europe (the Western Balkans, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece) but drew parallels to the post-Soviet space. Read more
	The Sociological Truth of Fiction	Mon, 01.03.2021	Seminars and Colloquia	Jan Vana Kapka Kassabova Ludger Hagedorn	The Sociological Truth of Fiction Mon, 01.03.2021 Speakers: Jan Vana Kapka Kassabova Ludger Hagedorn Series: Seminars and Colloquia Social scientists often refer to literary fiction as a source of inspiration, social understanding, and deep insights into the “Zeitgeist” or “episteme”. In passing, they often subsume literature into conceptual frameworks, approaching it as “fictional” data to be translated or converted into “factual” scholarly discourse. This presentation tried to develop an epistemological-theoretical model which treats novels as allies endowed with their own agency – not passive objects to be gutted by sociological theory. Read more
The Sociological Truth of Fiction Mon, 01.03.2021 Speakers: Jan Vana Kapka Kassabova Ludger Hagedorn Series: Seminars and Colloquia Social scientists often refer to literary fiction as a source of inspiration, social understanding, and deep insights into the “Zeitgeist” or “episteme”. In passing, they often subsume literature into conceptual frameworks, approaching it as “fictional” data to be translated or converted into “factual” scholarly discourse. This presentation tried to develop an epistemological-theoretical model which treats novels as allies endowed with their own agency – not passive objects to be gutted by sociological theory. Read more
	Manufactured Alienation	Mon, 24.02.2020	Seminars and Colloquia	Adam Ramsay Ivan Krastev Ivan Vejvoda	Manufactured Alienation Mon, 24.02.2020 Speakers: Adam Ramsay Ivan Krastev Ivan Vejvoda Series: Seminars and Colloquia Boris Johnson turned the recent UK election into a referendum on the character of politics, and won by making democracy miserable. Based on years of investigating the dark money funded institutions which drove Brexit in the UK, undercover reporting across Europe, and street interviews with voters from Hungary to Spain and Scotland to Italy, openDemocracy’s Adam Ramsay detailed how elite networks of the super-rich and ultra-conservatives are sewing discontent with (neo)liberal democracy, and argued that progressives must embrace radical democracy. Read more
Manufactured Alienation Mon, 24.02.2020 Speakers: Adam Ramsay Ivan Krastev Ivan Vejvoda Series: Seminars and Colloquia Boris Johnson turned the recent UK election into a referendum on the character of politics, and won by making democracy miserable. Based on years of investigating the dark money funded institutions which drove Brexit in the UK, undercover reporting across Europe, and street interviews with voters from Hungary to Spain and Scotland to Italy, openDemocracy’s Adam Ramsay detailed how elite networks of the super-rich and ultra-conservatives are sewing discontent with (neo)liberal democracy, and argued that progressives must embrace radical democracy. Read more
	Europe’s Futures Colloquium IV	Mon, 30.09.2019	Seminars and Colloquia	Bernd Marin Leszek Jazdzewski	Europe’s Futures Colloquium IV Mon, 30.09.2019 Speakers: Bernd Marin Leszek Jazdzewski Series: Seminars and Colloquia In cooperation with leading European organisations and think tanks IWM and ERSTE Foundation have joined forces to tackle some of the most crucial topics: asylum and migration, rule of law and democracy, European enlargement and social inclusion. We are creating a network of important EU actors, in particular between Austria, the Visegrád 4 countries and South-Eastern Europe. Europe’s Futures has clear objectives: a European Union that protects its citizens and offers more sustainable livelihoods than before; where Member States defend the fundamental values of a democratic order and rule of law; and where countries such as Austria continue to protect the Union’s democratization and enlargement agenda. Read more
Europe’s Futures Colloquium IV Mon, 30.09.2019 Speakers: Bernd Marin Leszek Jazdzewski Series: Seminars and Colloquia In cooperation with leading European organisations and think tanks IWM and ERSTE Foundation have joined forces to tackle some of the most crucial topics: asylum and migration, rule of law and democracy, European enlargement and social inclusion. We are creating a network of important EU actors, in particular between Austria, the Visegrád 4 countries and South-Eastern Europe. Europe’s Futures has clear objectives: a European Union that protects its citizens and offers more sustainable livelihoods than before; where Member States defend the fundamental values of a democratic order and rule of law; and where countries such as Austria continue to protect the Union’s democratization and enlargement agenda. Read more
	Elections in Finland: Between Happiness and the Russo-Ukrainian War	Tue, 28.03.2023	Seminars and Colloquia	Ivan VejvodaVeera Luoma-aho, Iro Särkkä, Mirjana Tomic	Elections in Finland: Between Happiness and the Russo-Ukrainian War Tue, 28.03.2023 Speakers: Ivan VejvodaVeera Luoma-aho, Iro Särkkä, Mirjana Tomic Series: Seminars and Colloquia Finland holds elections on 2 April 2023. The campaign focuses on domestic issues, but the war in Ukraine cannot be ignored. The seminar addressed both domestic and security issues. Does Finland fear the spillover of the Russo-Ukrainian War? How does the war affect the elections? Read more
Elections in Finland: Between Happiness and the Russo-Ukrainian War Tue, 28.03.2023 Speakers: Ivan VejvodaVeera Luoma-aho, Iro Särkkä, Mirjana Tomic Series: Seminars and Colloquia Finland holds elections on 2 April 2023. The campaign focuses on domestic issues, but the war in Ukraine cannot be ignored. The seminar addressed both domestic and security issues. Does Finland fear the spillover of the Russo-Ukrainian War? How does the war affect the elections? Read more
	The Remains of the Real	Mon, 08.06.2020	Seminars and Colloquia	Jan Sowa Ludger Hagedorn	The Remains of the Real Mon, 08.06.2020 Speakers: Jan Sowa Ludger Hagedorn Series: Seminars and Colloquia There was a moment in the 1990’s, in the era of high postmodernism, when it seemed that social reality has had no stable foundations and as such it can be freely and totally transformed by interventions in the registers of symbols and images. Various social, political and economic developments of the last two decades – from 9/11 terrorist attacks to the 2008 financial crisis to the recent populist uprisings on both sides of the Atlantic – blatantly contradict that over-optimist conviction. A lot has been said about what the populists get wrong, what is, however, more puzzling is that they seem to get some things right – as if people had a sort of political blindsight or – to put it in more philosophical terms – as if there was some kind of basic social and political unconcealedness/disclosure (alētheia) where the truth shines through the curtain of lies. Read more
The Remains of the Real Mon, 08.06.2020 Speakers: Jan Sowa Ludger Hagedorn Series: Seminars and Colloquia There was a moment in the 1990’s, in the era of high postmodernism, when it seemed that social reality has had no stable foundations and as such it can be freely and totally transformed by interventions in the registers of symbols and images. Various social, political and economic developments of the last two decades – from 9/11 terrorist attacks to the 2008 financial crisis to the recent populist uprisings on both sides of the Atlantic – blatantly contradict that over-optimist conviction. A lot has been said about what the populists get wrong, what is, however, more puzzling is that they seem to get some things right – as if people had a sort of political blindsight or – to put it in more philosophical terms – as if there was some kind of basic social and political unconcealedness/disclosure (alētheia) where the truth shines through the curtain of lies. Read more
	The Stage of Pre-solidarity	Mon, 16.11.2020	Seminars and Colloquia	Tomasz Rakowski Miloš Vec	The Stage of Pre-solidarity Mon, 16.11.2020 Speakers: Tomasz Rakowski Miloš Vec Series: Seminars and Colloquia Tomasz Rakowski's experimental study may reveal elements of recent Polish social history omitted in local knowledge-production. He will focus on enthusiastic building, social deeds, vernacular creativity, and various stages of pre-solidarity in Poland since late socialism. He will discuss the flipside of late socialist modernization in Poland, and its trajectory after 1989, considered as both intimate, unrecognized dimensions of bottom-up statehood practices, and processes of acquiring a kind of latent, almost invisible social and political subjectivity. An experimental, historical-ethnographic methodology may unearth elements of Polish social history kept secret for decades. The study is conducted in the context of the “people’s history”, yet more precise, and based on specially elaborated methodology. Read more
The Stage of Pre-solidarity Mon, 16.11.2020 Speakers: Tomasz Rakowski Miloš Vec Series: Seminars and Colloquia Tomasz Rakowski's experimental study may reveal elements of recent Polish social history omitted in local knowledge-production. He will focus on enthusiastic building, social deeds, vernacular creativity, and various stages of pre-solidarity in Poland since late socialism. He will discuss the flipside of late socialist modernization in Poland, and its trajectory after 1989, considered as both intimate, unrecognized dimensions of bottom-up statehood practices, and processes of acquiring a kind of latent, almost invisible social and political subjectivity. An experimental, historical-ethnographic methodology may unearth elements of Polish social history kept secret for decades. The study is conducted in the context of the “people’s history”, yet more precise, and based on specially elaborated methodology. Read more
	Europe’s Futures Colloquium II	Mon, 16.09.2019	Seminars and Colloquia	Alida Vracic Péter Krekó	Europe’s Futures Colloquium II Mon, 16.09.2019 Speakers: Alida Vracic Péter Krekó Series: Seminars and Colloquia How can record highs in the emigration of qualified people from the Western Balkans be beneficial for the region and its prosperity and future growth? Tapping into 6 million strong diaspora may offer some answers. Engaging with diaspora is critical not only to help consolidate the regional economic outlook, bring the latest cutting- edge technologies into the region and deepen know-how, but, even more importantly it can profoundly challenge current political narratives and help bring about much- needed energy and change. Questions like “What are the experiences of the emigrants?” “Under which conditions would they consider returning to the region?” and, ultimately, “What policies could bring a meaningful change in the medium term?” are just some to address. Read more
Europe’s Futures Colloquium II Mon, 16.09.2019 Speakers: Alida Vracic Péter Krekó Series: Seminars and Colloquia How can record highs in the emigration of qualified people from the Western Balkans be beneficial for the region and its prosperity and future growth? Tapping into 6 million strong diaspora may offer some answers. Engaging with diaspora is critical not only to help consolidate the regional economic outlook, bring the latest cutting- edge technologies into the region and deepen know-how, but, even more importantly it can profoundly challenge current political narratives and help bring about much- needed energy and change. Questions like “What are the experiences of the emigrants?” “Under which conditions would they consider returning to the region?” and, ultimately, “What policies could bring a meaningful change in the medium term?” are just some to address. Read more
	Irony in Politics	Mon, 05.06.2023	Seminars and Colloquia	Gergely Tóth Misha Glenny	Irony in Politics Mon, 05.06.2023 Speakers: Gergely Tóth Misha Glenny Series: Seminars and Colloquia Irony has always fascinated thinkers, artists and frankly, everyone reflecting on the smaller and bigger paradoxes of life. Since the Romantic movement, irony is understood to be more than an “average” trope; it has been framed, variously, as an attitude, a discursive strategy or even the source of freedom. According to Søren Kierkegaard, “[j]ust as philosophy begins with doubt, so also a life that may be called human begins with irony. […] no genuinely human life is possible without irony.” Read more
Irony in Politics Mon, 05.06.2023 Speakers: Gergely Tóth Misha Glenny Series: Seminars and Colloquia Irony has always fascinated thinkers, artists and frankly, everyone reflecting on the smaller and bigger paradoxes of life. Since the Romantic movement, irony is understood to be more than an “average” trope; it has been framed, variously, as an attitude, a discursive strategy or even the source of freedom. According to Søren Kierkegaard, “[j]ust as philosophy begins with doubt, so also a life that may be called human begins with irony. […] no genuinely human life is possible without irony.” Read more
	Hagia Sophia as Symbol and Hostage of Actual Politics	Mon, 12.10.2020	Seminars and Colloquia	Alexey Lidov Ayşe Çağlar Clemena Antonova	Hagia Sophia as Symbol and Hostage of Actual Politics Mon, 12.10.2020 Speakers: Alexey Lidov Ayşe Çağlar Clemena Antonova Series: Seminars and Colloquia On 10 July 2020, by a decree of the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the basilica of Hagia Sophia – the central monument of the Byzantine Empire and the entire Orthodox world – was turned from a museum into a mosque. The conversion attracted worldwide attention and the leaders of the US, the EU and Russia, as well as most international institutions, appealed to Erdoğan not to go ahead with the plan. However, all the warnings were ignored and the first festive Muslim service was held on 24 July, with the country’s leadership in attendance. In this talk, various aspects of the conversion of Hagia Sophia, including political, religious, cultural and art-historical issues of this most significant event, were discussed. Read more
Hagia Sophia as Symbol and Hostage of Actual Politics Mon, 12.10.2020 Speakers: Alexey Lidov Ayşe Çağlar Clemena Antonova Series: Seminars and Colloquia On 10 July 2020, by a decree of the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the basilica of Hagia Sophia – the central monument of the Byzantine Empire and the entire Orthodox world – was turned from a museum into a mosque. The conversion attracted worldwide attention and the leaders of the US, the EU and Russia, as well as most international institutions, appealed to Erdoğan not to go ahead with the plan. However, all the warnings were ignored and the first festive Muslim service was held on 24 July, with the country’s leadership in attendance. In this talk, various aspects of the conversion of Hagia Sophia, including political, religious, cultural and art-historical issues of this most significant event, were discussed. Read more