Sandrine Kott was educated in France (Paris), Germany (Bielefeld and Berlin) and the USA (New York). She has been a Professor of European contemporary history at the University of Geneva since 2004. Her principal fields of expertise are the history of social welfare and labor law in France and Germany since the end of the nineteenth century and labor relations in those countries of real socialism, in particular in the German Democratic Republic. Since 2004, she has developed the transnational and global dimensions of each of her fields of expertise in utilizing the archives and resources of international organizations and particularly the International Labor Organization. She has published over 80 articles in French, German and Anglo-Saxon journals and collective volumes, edited 4 volumes and published 6 books.
CISAC Central Conference Room
Sandrine Kott
University of Geneva
Professor of European contemporary history
Abstract The trajectory of human rights in the contemporary world is one in which ideas and cultural practices constitute each other in ways that can bedevil theorists and empirical researchers alike. The conventional wisdom is that this dynamic interaction, or “vernacularization,” must be understood as the inevitable, if (to some) lamentable, result of the rapid expansion of international and transnational human rights after the end of the Cold War. This talk challenges the conventional wisdom by tracing the genealogy of one such idea—that of universality—from the work of a mysterious, though highly consequential, UNESCO committee in 1947 and 1948 to the practical human rights advocacy of a peasant intellectual living in a remote region of the Bolivian Andes. Doing so allows us to reframe a key moment in the history of the birth of the modern human rights movement after the Second World War; appreciate the extent to which the narrative of universal human dignity does important cultural work as a matter of practical ethics; and realize that a critical approach to both the promises and dilemmas of human rights does not stand apart from mainstream human rights advocacy, but is rather woven into the very fiber of its history.
Mark Goodale is currently Professor of Conflict Analysis and Anthropology at George Mason University and Series Editor of Stanford Studies in Human Rights. He is the author or editor of nine books, including Human Rights at the Crossroads (Oxford UP, 2013), Mirrors of Justice: Law and Power in the Post-Cold War Era (with Kamari Maxine Clarke, Cambridge UP, 2010), Human Rights: An Anthropological Reader (Blackwell, 2009), Surrendering to Utopia: An Anthropology of Human Rights (Stanford UP, 2009), Dilemmas of Modernity: Bolivian Encounters with Law and Liberalism (Stanford UP, 2008), and The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law Between the Global and the Local (with Sally Engle Merry, Cambridge UP, 2007). Forthcoming volumes include Human Rights Encounters Legal Pluralism (with Eva Brems and Giselle Corradi, Hart/Oñati International Series in Law and Society, 2014). His writings have appeared in Current Anthropology, American Anthropologist, American Ethnologist, Law & Society Review, Law & Social Inquiry, Social & Legal Studies, Current Legal Theory, and the Journal of Legal Pluralism, among others. He is at work on several new research projects, including an NSF-funded empirical study of the relationship between human rights and radical political and social change in Bolivia and a set of essays that examine the culture, contested politics, and phenomenology of human rights after the post-Cold War.
Encina Ground Floor Conference Room
Mark Goodale
Professor of Conflict Analysis and Anthropology
Speaker
George Mason University
This is part of the French Culture Workshop series.
Co-sponsored by the Stanford Humanities Center, the Division of Literatures, Cultures and Languages, The Europe Center, the France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, and the Consulate General of France in San Francisco
The Stanford Humanities Center Board Room
Michel Wievioka
Professor of Sociology
Speaker
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E209
Stanford, CA 94305-6165
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relman@stanford.edu
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor
Professor of Medicine
Professor of Microbiology and Immunology
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MD
David A. Relman, M.D., is the Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor in the Departments of Medicine, and of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University, and Chief of Infectious Diseases at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System in Palo Alto, California. He is also Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford, and served as science co-director at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford from 2013-2017. He is currently director of a new Biosecurity Initiative at FSI.
Relman was an early pioneer in the modern study of the human indigenous microbiota. Most recently, his work has focused on human microbial community assembly, and community stability and resilience in the face of disturbance. Ecological theory and predictions are tested in clinical studies with multiple approaches for characterizing the human microbiome. Previous work included the development of molecular methods for identifying novel microbial pathogens, and the subsequent identification of several historically important microbial disease agents. One of his papers was selected as “one of the 50 most important publications of the past century” by the American Society for Microbiology.
Dr. Relman received an S.B. (Biology) from MIT, M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and joined the faculty at Stanford in 1994. He served as vice-chair of the NAS Committee that reviewed the science performed as part of the FBI investigation of the 2001 Anthrax Letters, as a member of the National Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity, and as President of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He is currently a member of the Intelligence Community Studies Board and the Committee on Science, Technology and the Law, both at the National Academies of Science. He has received an NIH Pioneer Award, an NIH Transformative Research Award, and was elected a member of the National Academy of Medicine in 2011.
David Relman
Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor, Departments of Medicine and of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford School of Medicine; CISAC Co-Director; FSI Senior Fellow; Stanford Health Policy Affiliate
Moderator
ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Gil-li Vardi joined CISAC as a visiting scholar in December 2011. She completed her PhD at the London School of Economics in 2008, and spent two years as a research fellow at the Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War at the University of Oxford, after which she joined Notre Dame university as a J. P. Moran Family Assistant Professor of Military History.
Her research examines the interplay between organizational culture, doctrine, and operational patterns in military organizations, and focuses on the incentives and dynamics of change in military thought and practice.
Driven by her interest in both the German and Israeli militaries and their organizational cultures, Vardi is currently revising her dissertation, "The Enigma of Wehrmacht Operational Doctrine: The Evolution of Military Thought in Germany, 1919-1941," alongside preparing a book manuscript on the sources of the Israeli Defence Forces’ (IDF) early strategic and operational perceptions and preferences.
Gil-li Vardi joined CISAC as a visiting scholar in December 2011. She completed her PhD at the London School of Economics in 2008, and spent two years as a research fellow at the Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War at the University of Oxford, after which she joined Notre Dame university as a J. P. Moran Family Assistant Professor of Military History.
Her research examines the interplay between organizational culture, doctrine, and operational patterns in military organizations, and focuses on the incentives and dynamics of change in military thought and practice.
Driven by her interest in both the German and Israeli militaries and their organizational cultures, Vardi is currently revising her dissertation, "The Enigma of Wehrmacht Operational Doctrine: The Evolution of Military Thought in Germany, 1919-1941," alongside preparing a book manuscript on the sources of the Israeli Defence Forces’ (IDF) early strategic and operational perceptions and preferences.
Gil-li Vardi
Visiting Scholar, CISAC; Lecturer, Department of History, Stanford; Research Fellow, Hoover Institution
Speaker
Joel Beinin
Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Stanford
Commentator
Public health is widely understood to be both inherently political and easily politicized, yet few studies have examined how global health interventions actively, if unintentionally, co-constitute local political systems and practices of governance in the developing world. Three examples from rural Malawi offer insight into how health promotion campaigns in the areas of sanitation, reproductive health, and immunization have helped to make and expand local structures of authority from village heads to police. The consequences of these intersections are explored with respect to key normative development constructs including community participation, human rights, and women’s empowerment. Ms. West’s talk draws on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork with community outreach workers and rural households in Malawi, as well as archival research on colonial public health and the development of the national health system in the early post-independence period.
Bio:
Anna West is a 2013-14 pre-doctoral fellow at CDDRL and a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford. Her dissertation research in Malawi examines how modular global health interventions engage local power structures, patronage systems, and political cultures. Anna combines ethnographic fieldwork and archival research on encounters between government outreach workers, village heads, and rural households to trace the salience of health promotion strategies for the formation and consolidation of ideas, values, and processes of governance and democracy in Malawi. Her work focuses in particular on traditional authorities' involvement in rural health promotion and the significance of chiefly governance for local and national discourse on community participation, human rights, and citizenship. Anna's research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, a U.S. State Department FLAS Fellowship, and Stanford's Center for African Studies.
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
0
annawest@stanford.edu
CDDRL Pre-doctoral Fellow, 2013-14
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Anna West is a 2013-14 pre-doctoral fellow at CDDRL and a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford. Her dissertation research in Malawi examines how modular global health interventions engage local power structures, patronage systems, and political cultures. Anna combines ethnographic fieldwork and archival research on encounters between government outreach workers, village heads, and rural households to trace the salience of health promotion strategies for the formation and consolidation of ideas, values, and processes of governance and democracy in Malawi. Her work focuses in particular on traditional authorities' involvement in rural health promotion and the significance of chiefly governance for local and national discourse on community participation, human rights, and citizenship. Anna's research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, a U.S. State Department FLAS Fellowship, and Stanford's Center for African Studies.
Anna West
2013-14 Pre-Doctoral Fellow
Speaker
CDDRL
Michelle Obama promoted study abroad programs during a speech at the Stanford Center at Peking University in Beijing on Saturday, then encouraged Stanford and local high school students sitting in Palo Alto to be "citizen diplomats" during a high-tech videoconference.
In her remarks before the conversation with students, the first lady said that study abroad is a "vital part of our foreign policy."
"Study abroad is about shaping the future of your countries and the world we all share," she said.
Studying in a different country gives students the chance to immerse themselves in another culture, she said.
"That's how you realize that we all have a stake in each other's success – that cures discovered here in Beijing could save lives in America," she said. "That clean energy technologies from Silicon Valley in California could improve the environment here in China; that the architecture of an ancient temple in Xi'an could inspire the design of new buildings in Dallas or Detroit."
Obama spoke before an audience of 170 students, scholars, and alumni at the Stanford Center at Peking University (SCPKU) in Beijing – her only scheduled public appearance during a trip to China with her daughters.
"Two great universities, two great countries. The symbolism behind this event is truly remarkable," said Xinkai Mao, MBA '14. "My wife went to PKU and I go to Stanford. What a connection!"
Mao attended the event with Stanford Graduate School of Business classmate Paul Chen, MBA '14. Both lead a China study trip for fellow students starting Sunday.
Max Baucus, Washington's ambassador to Beijing, and a graduate of Stanford and the university's law school, reinforced Obama's message of personal learning and diplomacy, recounting his own exchange studies in France.
"I am standing here because of my experience at a study abroad program," he said.
Thirty-five years after the normalization of relations with China, the U.S. is supporting more American students in China than in any other country in the world.
"We're sending high school, college and graduate students here to study Chinese," Obama said. "We're inviting teachers from China to teach Mandarin in American schools. We're providing free online advising for students in China who want to study in the U.S. and the U.S. China Fulbright program is still going strong with more than 3,000 alumni."
The largest group of foreign students enrolled at Stanford today are Chinese – 860 students, up from about 600 two years ago.
"You can't learn what the First Lady is talking about only through books," said Chien Lee, BSMS '75, MBA '79, a former Stanford trustee and SCPKU's lead donor. "You have to have an in-person experience. That's what helps you appreciate the subtleties and differences. The center provides a place for people to have that exchange."
Milestone for SCPKU
The first lady's visit came the day after the second anniversary of SCPKU's opening. The center made Stanford the first American university to construct a building for its own use on a major Chinese university campus.
Obama's conversation with students sitting at Stanford's campus showcased the "highly immersive classrooms" at SCPKU and the Graduate School of Business. The rooms are identical, and use high-definition video technology to give participants in both locations the feeling that they are in the same room. The rooms will be used to conduct seminars between scholars at Stanford and PKU, and will also be used by the business school to expand the reach of its faculty.
Michelle Obama with Stanford students at the Stanford Center at Peking University in Beijing.
Michelle Obama with Stanford students at the Stanford Center at Peking University in Beijing. Photo Credit: Stanford University
The classroom features a curved wall of video screens and allows seamless conversation and real-time data sharing with participants on different continents.
"Through the wonders of modern technology, our world is more connected than ever before," Obama said. "Ideas can cross oceans with the click of a button. You don't need to get on a plane to be a citizen diplomat. If you have an Internet connection in your home, school or library, within seconds you can be transported anywhere in the world and meet people on every continent."
Sitting in the immersive classroom at SCPKU, Obama encouraged students to use all the resources at their disposal to become well-informed global citizens and decision makers, and to enrich the relationship between the U.S. and China.
"The creation of a global citizen is a critical mission of the great universities in modern times," said alumnus David Chao, MBA '93, who manages a global venture capital firm and attended Obama's speech. "When you have a global citizen with empathy, someone pushing the nuclear button is highly unlikely. It's especially relevant, when you see what's going on in Ukraine right now with people refusing to talk."
From neurology to energy and art
Stanford and Peking University have a long and growing collaboration that began with scholarly exchanges in the 1970s and student exchanges thereafter.
In remarks welcoming the first lady, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and Director of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, spoke of SCPKU's mission and its relationship to China's elite Peking University, also known as Beida.
"Stanford scholars – like their counterparts at Beida – are constantly seeking a deeper appreciation of different societies and their histories," Cuéllar said. "That leads to stronger relationships –geographically, politically and culturally. We are striving for a world that is ever more capable of transcending its differences. Stanford's special relationship with Beida is a shining example of these ideals."
Nine Stanford teaching and research programs, including the School of Medicine's Asian Liver Center, the Bing Overseas Studies Program, and the Graduate School of Business, have located operations at SCPKU. Seventeen faculty fellows from departments as diverse as neurology, art, bioengineering and music, have conducted research at the center. SCPKU has also hosted 32 workshops or seminars on topics as varied as "Leveraging PCs to Advance Learning in China's Rural Schools," "Energy in China," and "New Urban Formations: Comparative Urbanization."
The first cohort of 20 Stanford undergraduates to study at the center will arrive for their 10-week program March 31. The center already has been home to a meeting of U.S.-China officials discussing North Korea's nuclear program and a conference of electrical engineers reviewing Technology Standardization. China 2.0, a forum on venture capital and entrepreneurship organized by the Graduate School of Business, will be held at the center April 11.
The future
Looking ahead, SCPKU aspires to tackle intellectual questions that address not just the political economy and culture of China, but also the challenges that arise as China engages other parts of the world in trade. China's geopolitical interests and actions in Latin America, Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia are all important questions that Stanford faculty want to address. "The center can and should be a research destination for Stanford faculty whose work touches on China but is not necessarily solely focused on the country or region," said Jean Oi, professor of political science, director of SCPKU, and a driving force behind the center's creation.
As SCPKU activity and scholarship continues to evolve, technology also will allow its intellectual content to reach a wider audience beyond the Beijing campus.
Barbara Buell is the communications director for Stanford's Graduate School of Business.
Professor Schuck's new book first identifies the endemic ineffectiveness of much federal domestic policy as a major cause of public disaffection with Washington. This disaffection has grown along with the size and ambition of federal programs and now threatens the very legitimacy of our polity. Synthesizing a vast amount of social science evidence and analysis, he argues that this widespread policy failure has little to do with which party dominates Congress and the White house but instead reflects the systemic, structural, institutional obstacles to effective policy. These deep obstacles to coherent policymaking include our political culture, political actors' perverse incentives, voters' collective irrationality, policymakers' poor information, the government's inherent inflexibility and lack of credibility, the effect of dynamic markets on policy coherence, the inherent limits of law as a policy instrument, a deviant implementation process, and a deteriorating bureaucracy. Those policies that have succeeded help to explain why most policies fail. Professor Schuck proposes a variety of remedies to reduce government's failure rate.
Speaker Bio:
Peter H. Schuck is the Simeon E. Baldwin Professor of Law Emeritus at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. He has held the Baldwin professorship since 1984, and also served as Deputy Dean of the Law School. Prior to joining the Yale faculty in 1979, he was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1977-79), Director of the Washington Office of Consumers Union (1972-77), and consultant to the Center for Study of Responsive Law (1971-72). He also practiced law in New York City (1965-68) and holds degrees from Cornell (B.A. 1962), Harvard Law School (J.D. 1965), N.Y.U. Law School (Ll.M. in International Law 1966), and Harvard University (M.A. in Government 1969).
His major fields of teaching and research are tort law; immigration, citizenship, and refugee law; groups, diversity, and law; and administrative law. He has published hundreds of articles on these and a broad range of other public policy topics in a wide variety of scholarly and popular journals. His newest book is Why Government Fails So Often, and How It Can Do Better (April 2014). Earlier books include Understanding America: The Anatomy of An Exceptional Nation (2008) (co-editor with James Q. Wilson; Targeting in Social Programs: Avoiding Bad Bets, Removing Bad Apples (2006)(with Richard J. Zeckhauser); Meditations of a Militant Moderate: Cool Views on Hot Topics (2006); Immigration Stories (co-editor with David A. Martin, 2005); Foundations of Administrative Law (editor, 2d ed., 2004) Diversity in America: Keeping Government at a Safe Distance (Harvard/Belknap, 2003); The Limits of Law: Essays on Democratic Governance (2000); Citizens, Strangers, and In-Betweens: Essays on Immigration and Citizenship (1998); and Paths to Inclusion: The Integration of Migrants in the United States and Germany (co-editor with Rainer Munz, 1998); Tort Law and the Public Interest: Competition, Innovation, and Consumer Welfare (editor, 1991); Agent Orange on Trial: Mass Toxic Disasters in the Courts (1987); Citizenship Without Consent: Illegal Aliens in the American Policy (with Rogers M. Smith, 1985); Suing Government: Citizen Remedies for Official Wrongs (1983); and The Judiciary Committees (1974). He is a contributing editor of The American Lawyer.
Encina Ground Floor Conference Room
Peter Schuck
Simeon E. Baldwin Professor of Law Emeritus
Speaker
Yale University
SCPKU held its first graduate seminar in Summer 2013. Taught by Professor Richard Vinograd in Stanford’s Department of Art and Art History, the seminar was entitled “Site-Based Art Historical Research in China: Issues and Opportunities.” Professor Vinograd recently shared his perspectives on the course and his research on Chinese art history.
Question: Why did you decide to apply for SCPKU's Graduate Seminar Program? What did you hope to bring and learn in China as part of the program?
Vinograd: I applied to the SCPKU Graduate Seminar program for some of the unique advantages it offers. These include the opportunities for students to encounter works of art in their full physical and spatial environments. There is also the opportunity to interact with Chinese counterpart students and faculty, to better understand their approaches to research and historical scholarship, and to build useful relationships for the future. In turn, my students and I offered our own perspectives and approaches to Chinese art historical studies.
Question: Can you tell us a little about your research and its connection to China?
Vinograd: I am primarily an historian of Chinese art, focusing on Chinese painting and prints from the last millennium, up to the present. I have written focused studies of Chinese portraiture, landscape painting, and about a number of individual artists and themes. Most of my own research is based on objects in museums or other collections, but I've also written more generally about art in particular locations -- mural paintings in temples, architectural monuments and sculptural programs in cave shrines So I was particularly happy that during the summer program I was able to visit some sites that I hadn't directly experienced before.
Question: What did you learn during your stay in China? What were the most surprising/interesting things that you encountered?
Vinograd: I learn something new almost every time I encounter an original monument or work of art, no matter how familiar, and I try to impress upon my students the value of continued close examination and questioning of original monuments every chance they get. One of the most striking aspects of several of the ancient temples we visited was the discovery of calligraphic inscriptions on the undersides of roof cross beams, that documented episodes of repair and renovation to the buildings that were sometimes centuries old.
Question: Was this your first time taking students on an overseas course/field trip? Please share some of the challenges you may have encountered on your other trips (and/or this trip) and how you resolved them.
Vinograd: I've taken students on overseas field trips several times, to Japan, Taiwan, and China. Usually these have been to study especially rare and important exhibitions and attend associated scholarly conferences, sometimes with visits to archaeological, historical, or architectural sites included. Usually the challenges of such events are logistical and linguistic, including absorbing the content of lectures and discussions carried on in many different Chinese accents. Since the SCPKU seminar focused so heavily on site visits, we frequently had to negotiate access to normally restricted areas, or permission to illuminate and photograph murals in dimly-lit temple halls. Our colleagues from Peking University were especially helpful on those occasions.
Question: How was your experience at SCPKU, and how is it different from other Stanford Centers you may have visited before?
Vinograd: Our experience at SCPKU was very positive -- the facilities were great and the resident staff was very helpful. I haven't taught at any other Stanford Overseas Programs, so I don't have that basis for comparison, but I can confidently say that SCPKU serves a very useful purpose in providing a platform and gateway for study and research in China.
Question: What are your plans in China, if any, for the future?
Vinograd: I visit China regularly for research, exhibitions, and conferences and I expect to continue those activities in the future.
Mr. Rudd served as Australia’s 26th Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010, then as Foreign Minister from 2010 to 2012, before returning to the Prime Ministership in 2013. As Prime Minister, Mr. Rudd led Australia’s response during the Global Financial Crisis. Australia's fiscal response to the crisis was reviewed by the IMF as the most effective stimulus strategy of all member states. Australia was the only major advanced economy not to go into recession. Mr. Rudd is also internationally recognized as one of the founders of the G20 which drove the global response to the crisis, and which in 2009 helped prevent the crisis from spiraling into a second global depression.
As Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Mr. Rudd was active in global and regional foreign policy leadership. He was a driving force in expanding the East Asia Summit to include both the US and Russia in 2010. He also initiated the concept of transforming the EAS into a wider Asia Pacific Community to help manage deep-routed tensions in Asia by building over time the institutions and culture of common security in Asia. On climate change, Mr. Rudd ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 2007 and legislated in 2008 for a 20% mandatory renewable energy target for Australia. Mr. Rudd launched Australia's challenge in the International Court of Justice with the object of stopping Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean. Mr Rudd drove Australia’s successful bid for its current non-permanent seat on the United Nation’s Security Council and the near doubling of Australia's foreign aid budget.
Mr. Rudd remains engaged in a range of international challenges including global economic management, the rise of China, climate change and sustainable development. He is on the International Advisory Panel of Chatham House. He is a proficient speaker of Mandarin Chinese, a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University and funded the establishment of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University. He was a co-author of the recent report of the UN Secretary General's High Level Panel on Global Sustainability – “Resilient People, Resilient Planet" and chairs the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Fragile States. He also remains actively engaged in indigenous reconciliation.
Bechtel Conference Center
Kevin Rudd
26th Prime Minister of Australia
Speaker
Michelle Obama with Stanford students at the Stanford Center at Peking University in Beijing.
