Stanford University

History

Art and Power: Patronage and Politics in Europe from the Old Regime to the Present

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This conference examines the history of state arts patronage in Europe and its ramifications in the present. Presentations on literature, music, theater, and the visual arts will provide an interdisciplinary examination of the origins and the tensions underlying the European model of state arts funding, along with a contemporary perspective on how and why European governments seek to support the arts today by the Cultural Counselor of the French Embassy in the United States. The panels will address questions such as: How have the arts been used to secure domestic political legitimacy or project power internationally at different times? What kinds of art are deemed worthy of support, and what artistic forms have been excluded from such patronage? What are the different historical genealogies of this state patronage, and what do they tell us about why European governments remain committed to funding the arts when such support is controversial in the United States?

RSVP to andreip@stanford.edu


Conference schedule

Breakfast served at 8:45am

Introduction: 9am (Dan Edelstein)

Panel 1: Representations of Power in the Old Regime (9:15-10:45am)

  • Sarah Grandin (Harvard), “’To Preserve and Augment’: Printing the Cabinet du Roi, c. 1670”
  • Chandra Mukerji (UCSD), “Meaning vs. Imagination in the Art of the Sun King: Sculpture, themes, and political possibility”
  • Gerardo Tocchini (Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice), “The Aristocratic Romance: Greuze’s ‘Bourgeois’ Scenes”

Coffee break (10:45-11am)

Panel 2: Patronage, Circulation, and Institutions (11am-12:30pm)

  • Rahul Markovits (École Normale Supérieure), “Actors of soft power: French theatre and the paradoxes of cultural grandeur in eighteenth-century Europe”
  • Audrey Calefas-Strebelle (Mills College), “Turkish and French delights: From Turkish origin to French manufacture, the circulation of artefacts and savoir faire in French-Ottoman cultural diplomacy”
  • Andrei Pesic (Stanford), “Patronage on the Cheap: Monopolies and Enlightenment Cultural Markets”

Lunch (12:30pm-2pm)

Art and Power Today: France’s Cultural Policy. Presentation and Discussion (2-3:00pm)

  • Bénédicte de Montlaur (French Embassy in the U.S.) and Matthew Tiews (Stanford Arts Initiative)

Coffee break (3-3:15pm)

Panel 3: After the Revolution: Rethinking Art and Power in the New Regime (3:15-4:45pm)

  • Robert Morrissey (U. of Chicago), “Enlightenment and Liminality: Mme de Staël, Victim as Arbiter of Taste and Glory”
  • Anne Higonnet (Barnard College of Columbia University), “Sumptuary law failure, fashion magazine success”
  • Heather Hadlock (Stanford), “Verdi’s Aida from Italian tourist to French resident: Paris, 1876-1880”

 

Conference Organizers: Dan Edelstein and Andrei Pesic

Sponsored by The Europe Center of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Stanford Department of French and Italian, and the Stanford Humanities Center.

 

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Levinthal Hall
Stanford Humanities Center
 

Conferences

The German-Hebrew Dialogue: Studies of Encounter and Exchange (Perspectives on Jewish Texts and Contexts)

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In the wake of World War II and the Holocaust, it seemed there was no place for German in Israel and no trace of Hebrew in Germany — the two languages and their cultures appeared as divergent as the directions of their scripts. Yet when placed side by side on opposing pages, German and Hebrew converge in the middle. Comprised of essays on literature, history, philosophy, and the visual and performing arts, this volume explores the mutual influence of two linguistic cultures long held as separate or even as diametrically opposed. From Moses Mendelssohn’s arrival in Berlin in 1748 to the recent wave of Israeli migration to Berlin, the essays gathered here shed new light on the painful yet productive relationship between modern German and Hebrew cultures. 　

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Book Event | The Mystery of the Kibbutz: Egalitarian Principles in a Capitalist World

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This event is now full. Please send an email to sj1874@stanford.edu if you would like to be added to the wait list.

 

Image of the book cover for The Mystery of the Kibbutz: Egalitarian Principles in a Capitalist World.

 

How the kibbutz movement thrived despite its inherent economic contradictions and why it eventually declined.

The kibbutz is a social experiment in collective living that challenges traditional economic theory. By sharing all income and resources equally among its members, the kibbutz system created strong incentives to free ride or—as in the case of the most educated and skilled—to depart for the city. Yet for much of the twentieth century kibbutzim thrived, and kibbutz life was perceived as idyllic both by members and the outside world. In The Mystery of the Kibbutz, Ran Abramitzky blends economic perspectives with personal insights to examine how kibbutzim successfully maintained equal sharing for so long despite their inherent incentive problems.

Weaving the story of his own family’s experiences as kibbutz members with extensive economic and historical data, Abramitzky sheds light on the idealism and historic circumstances that helped kibbutzim overcome their economic contradictions. He illuminates how the design of kibbutzim met the challenges of thriving as enclaves in a capitalist world and evaluates kibbutzim’s success at sustaining economic equality. By drawing on extensive historical data and the stories of his pioneering grandmother who founded a kibbutz, his uncle who remained in a kibbutz his entire adult life, and his mother who was raised in and left the kibbutz, Abramitzky brings to life the rise and fall of the kibbutz movement.


Image of Ran Abramitzky

Ran Abramitzky is Associate Professor of Economics at Stanford University. His research is in economic history and applied microeconomics, with focus on immigration and income inequality. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He is the vice chair of the economics department, and the co-editor of Explorations in Economic History. He was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, as well as National Science Foundation grants for research on the causes and consequences of income inequality and on international migration. He has received the Economics Department’s and the Dean’s Awards for Distinguished Teaching. He holds a PhD in economics from Northwestern University.

 

Copies of the book will be available for sale at the event.

William J Perry Conference Room
Encina Hall Central, 2nd floor
616 Serra Street

Ran Abramitzky

579 Serra Mall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6072

(650) 723-9276
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Associate Professor of Economics
Abramitzky.image271.jpg

Ran Abramitzky is a Professor of Economics at Stanford University and incoming Senior Associate Dean for the Social Sciences. His research is in economic history and applied microeconomics, with focus on immigration and income inequality. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He is the vice chair of the economics department, and the co-editor of Explorations in Economic History. He was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, as well as National Science Foundation grants for research on the causes and consequences of income inequality and on international migration. His book, The Mystery of the Kibbutz: Egalitarian Principles in a Capitalist World (Princeton University Press, 2018) was awarded by the Economic History Association the Gyorgi Ranki Biennial Prize for an outstanding book on European Economic History. He has received the Economics Department’s and the Dean’s Awards for Distinguished Teaching. He holds a PhD in economics from Northwestern University. 

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Lectures

Geographies of Memory, Geographies of Loss: The First World War in Portuguese East Africa

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The Great War witnessed the most important military operation carried out by Portuguese troops outside the country’s borders during the first half of the 20th Century. Portugal was the only country involved in the conflict which, between 1914 and 1916, was able to preserve a position of undeclared neutrality in Europe and, simultaneously, wage war against Germany in Africa. The defense of the Portuguese colonial empire’s integrity has often been signaled by historians as one of the factors which justified the declaration of war against Germany, in March 1916, and Portugal’s participation in the European theatre of operations, alongside its ally, Great Britain, from early 1917 onwards. This article seeks to analyze the way in which the Great War was considered by the colonies, especially Mozambique, discussing the Portuguese military intervention and the way it was understood and witnessed by civilian and military figures alike.

Ana Paula Pires

Ana Paula Pires is a researcher and member of the directors’ board of the Institute for Contemporary History at NOVA University of Lisbon. At NOVA she currently coordinates the research group “Economy, Society, Innovation and Heritage”.

Among her most important published works: Portugal e a I Guerra Mundial. A República e a Economia de Guerra (2011); “Between war and Peace: the Portuguese Experience in the Great War” (2015); “War and Empire: Portugal and the Portuguese Colonies in Africa in a Global War”(2015); and “The First World War in Portuguese East Africa: Civilian and Military Encounters in the Indian Ocean” (2017).

Ana Paula Pires was recently appointed member of an inter-ministerial commission to the study of military tourism in Portugal.
 

Reuben Hills Conference Room
Encina Hall, East Wing (2nd Floor)
616 Serra Street

Ana Paula Pires Researcher and Board Member Speaker Institute for Contemporary History at NOVA University of Lisbon
Lectures

Beyond Engaged Literature: Samir El-Youssef's The Illusion of Return

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A feature of contemporary politics is the tendency to focus primarily onnarratives , as if the story lines were more important than the events. One often finds, for example, that news reports themselves become the news, rather than the conflicts, interests, or power struggles that purportedly make up the content. This sort of self-referentiality of the narrative producers may serve the media well, even if it impoverishes the reporting provided to the public. This narrative turn would be worthy of close scrutiny: is it part of the postmodern condition or is it symptomatic of somedeeper problem?
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Conference | The Communist Century: New Studies in Revolution, Resistance and Radicalism

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Conference Agenda:

Friday, February 9, 2018
9:00am - 5:30pm
Stanford Alumni Center, Fisher Conference Center, 326 Galvez St.

  • 9:00-9:30 am: Breakfast
  • 9:30-9:45 am: Introductory Remarks
  • 9:45-10:45 am: Steven Zipperstein (Stanford University): Engineering the Human Soul:  Reflections on Jews and Communism
  • 10:45-11:45 am: Norman Naimark (Stanford University): Stalin, Europe, and the Struggle for Sovereignty, 1944-1949
  • 11:45 am-1:00 pm: Lunch
  • 1:00-2:00 pm: David Holloway (Stanford University): Science, Technology, and Soviet Modernity
  • 2:00-3:00 pm: Benjamin Nathans (University of Pennsylvania): Formations of Dissent in the Late Soviet Era: Circle, Square, Network, Movement
  • 3:00-3:30 pm:  Coffee Break
  • 3:30-4:30 pm: Amir Weiner (Stanford University): The KGB: An Autobiography
  • 4:30-5:30 pm: Anna Grzymala-Busse (Stanford University): Post-Communist Populism
  • 5:30 pm:  Concluding Remarks

 

More Information:
https://creees.stanford.edu/events/communist-century-new-studies-revolution-resistance-and-radicalism


Sponsorships:
The Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, The Europe Center, Department of History, School of Humanities and Sciences, and the Taube Center for Jewish Studies

 

Fisher Conference Center
Stanford Alumni Center
326 Galvez Street

Conferences

Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush interviewed for the Mineta Legacy Project

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Secretary Norman Y. Mineta is a person of many firsts. He was the first Asian-American mayor of a major city, San Jose, California; the first Japanese American from the mainland to be elected to Congress; and the first Asian American to serve in a presidential cabinet. Mineta served as President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Commerce and President George W. Bush’s Secretary of Transportation. SPICE is honored to be collaborating with Mineta and Bridge Media, Inc., on making Mineta’s legacy more broadly known at the secondary and collegiate levels through the Mineta Legacy Project (MLP). The MLP will include a documentary and educational curriculum that are being developed with Mineta’s full involvement.

The documentary, titled An American Story: Norman Mineta and His Legacy, “delves into Mineta’s life, public service career, and unabashed love for his country… this, in spite of the fact that in 1942 his country betrayed him,” note producers Dianne Fukami and Debra Nakatomi.

Presidents Clinton and Bush were recently interviewed for the documentary and educational curriculum. “[Mineta’s] family was in a Japanese internment camp in World War II, and it could have made him bitter, angry,” commented President Clinton, “but instead he used that…to deepen his own commitment; to make sure that people weren’t discriminated against or held back or held down. In that sense, he represents the very best of America.”

This quote will be one of many presented to students in the educational curriculum, which pivots around the essential question, “What does it mean to be an American?” When asked this question, President Bush referred not only to key values such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion, but also to a sense of decency in the public square and to the nation’s communities of compassion. “It means that we care about each other. One of the real strengths of America [are] what I would call the ‘armies of compassion’…people in their communities who set up programs to feed the hungry or find shelter for the homeless, without the government telling them what to do.” He also referred to the United States’ long history of immigration, and said that being an American means recognizing that “although, on the one hand, we ought to enforce our laws, [on the other hand] we ought to welcome immigrants in a legal fashion, because immigrants reinvigorate our soul.”

Beyond Mineta’s groundbreaking achievements, Mineta epitomizes the dreams and aspirations of youth. He is the son of immigrants and his family was forcibly removed from his home to spend years in an internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II. And yet, he remains a patriot, has led with integrity to achieve a long and distinguished career as a public servant, and continues to champion the underserved and mentor students.

The educational curriculum is being developed by Rylan Sekiguchi of SPICE in consultation with Fukami and Nakatomi and is targeted to high school and college educators and students. The curriculum will be offered free on the MLP and SPICE websites and is being developed in coordination with the documentary. The standards-aligned lesson plans will highlight six key themes connected to the life of Secretary Mineta—immigration, civil liberties & equity, civic engagement, justice & reconciliation, leadership & decision-making, and U.S.–Japan relations—and ask students to examine them in both historical and current-day contexts. Mineta himself has underscored the enduring relevance of these themes in U.S. society, for example drawing parallels between the Japanese-American experience following the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 and the Arab-American and Muslim-American experience following 9/11. As our country debates contentious topics such as deportations, immigration bans and restrictions, surveillance, and registries, the lessons learned from Mineta’s life can help us.

To stay informed of SPICE-related news, follow SPICE on Facebook and Twitter.

 

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President George W. Bush with Producers Dianne Fukami (fourth from left) and Debra Nakatomi (third from right) and Rylan Sekiguchi (far right)
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The Mystery of the Kibbutz: Egalitarian Principles in a Capitalist World

Paragraphs

How the kibbutz movement thrived despite its inherent economic contradictions and why it eventually declined

The kibbutz is a social experiment in collective living that challenges traditional economic theory. By sharing all income and resources equally among its members, the kibbutz system created strong incentives to free ride or—as in the case of the most educated and skilled—to depart for the city. Yet for much of the twentieth century kibbutzim thrived, and kibbutz life was perceived as idyllic both by members and the outside world. In The Mystery of the Kibbutz, Ran Abramitzky blends economic perspectives with personal insights to examine how kibbutzim successfully maintained equal sharing for so long despite their inherent incentive problems.

Weaving the story of his own family’s experiences as kibbutz members with extensive economic and historical data, Abramitzky sheds light on the idealism and historic circumstances that helped kibbutzim overcome their economic contradictions. He illuminates how the design of kibbutzim met the challenges of thriving as enclaves in a capitalist world and evaluates kibbutzim’s success at sustaining economic equality. By drawing on extensive historical data and the stories of his pioneering grandmother who founded a kibbutz, his uncle who remained in a kibbutz his entire adult life, and his mother who was raised in and left the kibbutz, Abramitzky brings to life the rise and fall of the kibbutz movement.

The lessons that The Mystery of the Kibbutz draws from this unique social experiment extend far beyond the kibbutz gates, serving as a guide to societies that strive to foster economic and social equality.

 

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Red Leviathan: Authority and Violence in Revolutionary Political Culture

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As Mao euphemistically remarked, revolutions are not dinner parties. Violence is to be expected when political regimes are overturned. But the violence that accompanied modern revolutions is remarkable for the fact that it targeted fellow revolutionaries almost as often as declared opponents. Why is this? In this essay, I suggest that the reason has to do with a specific feature of revolutions that abandon constitutional forms of political legitimacy. These revolutions, following the precedent of the French “revolutionary government” (1793–94) and Marx's model of a “revolution in permanence,” tend to base the authority of their governments on the fulfillment of revolutionary expectations. This creates a political culture in which authority derives from the power to define what these expectations are, and what “revolution” means (much like Hobbes's sovereign had the power to set the meaning of words). But revolutionary culture does not leave room for Rawlsian pluralism. “There can be no solution to the social problem but mine,” proclaims the revolutionary ideologue in Dostoyevsky's The Possessed, expressing the law of the Red Leviathan. Such a system does not allow for loyal opposition. Accordingly, the specter of counterrevolution always hovers above disagreements between fellow revolutionaries. The purge thus becomes the necessary method for settling ideological differences.

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History & Theory: Studies in the Philosophy of History
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Saumitra Jha

Graduate School of Business 655 Knight Way Stanford, CA 94305
(650) 721 1298
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Associate Professor of Political Economy, GSB
Associate Professor, by courtesy, of Economics and of Political Science
saumitra_jha.jpg

Along with being a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Saumitra Jha is an associate professor of political economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and convenes the Stanford Conflict and Polarization Lab. 

Jha’s research has been published in leading journals in economics and political science, including Econometrica, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Political Science Review and the Journal of Development Economics, and he serves on a number of editorial boards. His research on ethnic tolerance has been recognized with the Michael Wallerstein Award for best published article in Political Economy from the American Political Science Association in 2014 and his co-authored research on heroes with the Oliver Williamson Award for best paper by the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics in 2020. Jha was honored to receive the Teacher of the Year Award, voted by the students of the Stanford MSx Program in 2020.

Saum holds a BA from Williams College, master’s degrees in economics and mathematics from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD in economics from Stanford University. Prior to rejoining Stanford as a faculty member, he was an Academy Scholar at Harvard University. He has been a fellow of the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance and the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University, and at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. Jha has consulted on economic and political risk issues for the United Nations/WTO, the World Bank, government agencies, and for private firms.

 

Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Dan C. Chung Faculty Scholar at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
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