Stanford University

Amir Eshel’s new book on the concept of "Futurity"

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Europe Center Director Amir Eshel's new book Futurity: Contemporary Literature and the Quest for the Past, argues for the prospective rather than retrospective vision of literary works.  "Bringing to light how reflections on the past create tools for the future, Futurity reminds us of the numerous possibilities literature holds for grappling with the challenges of both today and tomorrow," says the University of Chicago Press.  Recently released in German (Suhrkamp Verlag, May 2012), the English version will be published by the University of Chicago Press in December 2012.

Amir Eshel is the Edward Clark Crossett Professor of Humanistic Studies, Professor of German Studies and Comparative Literature, and the Chair of Graduate Studies, German Studies.  His website is at http://aeshel.com/

 

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Nuclear Non-Proliferation: History and Current Issues

This presentation provided a history of efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons beginning with the discovery of nuclear fission continuing through the development of the bomb and the cold war and up to the present time. The current cases of Iran, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea were reviewed.

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Leonard Weiss

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Leonard Weiss is a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). He is also a national advisory board member of the Center for Arms control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, DC. He began his professional career as a PhD researcher in mathematical system theory at the Research Institute for Advanced Studies in Baltimore. This was followed by tenured professorships in applied mathematics and electrical engineering at Brown University and the University of Maryland. During this period he published widely in the applied mathematics literature. In 1976 he received a Congressional Science Fellowship that resulted in a career change. For more than two decades he worked for Senator John Glenn as the staff director of both the Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Nuclear Proliferation and the Committee on Governmental Affairs. He was the chief architect of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978 and legislation that created the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. In addition, he led notable investigations of the nuclear programs of India and Pakistan. Since retiring from the Senate staff in 1999, he has published numerous articles on nonproliferation issues for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Arms Control Today, and the Nonproliferation Review. His current research interests include an assessment of the impact on the nonproliferation regime of nuclear trade with non-signers of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and more generally the relationship of energy security concerns with nonproliferation.

For a comprehensive list of Dr. Weiss's publications, click here.

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Leonard Weiss Affiliate Speaker CISAC
Seminars

Chief Middle East Advisor To Three Presidents Reflects on Strategies To Peace

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Hillel at Stanford presents: Ambassador Dennis Ross,

 “Chief Middle East Advisor to Three Presidents Reflects on

Strategies to Peace”

Tuesday, May 22nd, 7pm

 CEMEX Auditorium at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford

Free and open to the public.

 More info at: http://hillel.stanford.edu/get-involved/calendar/

A scholar and a diplomat, Ambassador Ross has played a leading role in shaping Middle East policy in Washington DC. President Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service under Presidents Obama, Clinton and Bush, and Secretaries Baker and Albright presented him with the State Department's highest award. He worked to facilitate Israel-Palestinian peace, including helping to broker the 1995 Interim Agreement and the 1997 Hebron Accord.

 
 
 
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CEMEX Auditorium
CEMEX Auditorium at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford

Ambassador Dennis Ross Speaker Chief Middle East Advisor To Three Presidents
Conferences

Futurity: Contemporary Literature and the Quest for the Past

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Bringing together postwar German, Israeli, and Anglo-American literature, Eshel traces a shared trajectory of futurity in world literature. He begins by examining German works of fiction and the debates they spurred over the future character of Germany’s public sphere. Turning to literary works by Jewish-Israeli writers as they revisit Israel’s political birth, he shows how these stories inspired a powerful reconsideration of Israel’s identity. Eshel then discusses post-1989 literature—from Ian McEwan’s Black Dogs to J. M. Coetzee’s Diary of a Bad Year—revealing how these books turn to events like World War II and the Iraq War not simply to make sense of the past but to contemplate the political and intellectual horizon that emerged after 1989. Bringing to light how reflections on the past create tools for the future, Futurity reminds us of the numerous possibilities literature holds for grappling with the challenges of both today and tomorrow.

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Suhrkamp Verlag
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Amir Eshel
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978-3-633-54258-1

Conference on "History and Memory: Global and Local Dimensions"

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Propelled by the need to develop new and more productive avenues of communication among scholars and policy-makers based in Europe, North America, and the Middle East, in 2010 the Europe Center at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute agreed to launch the multi-year collaborative project titled "Debating History, Democracy, Development, and Education in Conflicted Societies." Our joint initiative aims to promote research and policy projects with partners in Europe, the U.S., and the Middle East.

Viewed in an international context, with a focus on Europe and the Middle East, this collaborative project investigates how societies debate internally and attempt to reconcile differences of historical interpretation and political positions.  The first conference took place at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, and was dedicated to “Democracy in Adversity and Diversity” (May 18-19, 2011). Topics for the conference included democracy in comparative perspective, political reform, the notion and strategies of democracy promotion, regime transition, negotiating religion and democracy, immigration challenges, minorities and East-West relations, emergence or recovery of civil society, the role of non-governmental organizations in democratic societies, and human rights. 

The next conference, at Stanford University May 17-18, 2012 aims to deepen our understanding of the interplay between history and memory. Given the extensive discussion of memory and history across a variety of disciplines in recent decades, we would like to take stock of our current understanding of the concepts of memory and history as they affect society, politics and culture.  At the same time we wish to examine in what ways insights gained in the course of this cross-disciplinary and global discussion may be effective when considering the circumstances of the Middle East, especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We are inviting new, innovative approaches to the study of memory and history as they affect different societies. We especially welcome contributions that engage the concepts of memory and history comparatively. Our goal is to advance beyond restating examples of conflicts between versions of history, and to seek new paths of research that may further the work in various cases, and also potentially offer guidance for engaging particular international and civil conflicts.

The questions that we seek to address at the conference include, among others:

  • How do we understand the historians’ role and engagement in political and cultural conflicts about the past and present?
  • What are the historians’ responsibilities in developing shared narratives about war, civil conflict, occupation, and genocide?
  • How do we understand the relation between the work of professional historians and that of civic society organizations?
  • How do we understand the roles and interplay of history and memory in efforts towards reconciliation?
  • How should one think about the relative importance of historical commissions and truth commissions in “coming to terms with the past.”
  • What is the relationship between the historian’s work on international and domestic conflict and that of judicial institutions?
  • How do efforts in post-conflict situations to reach accurate assessments (“truth”) of the events meet the needs of healing social, ethnic, and/or religious wounds (“reconciliation”)?
  • How do we understand the effectiveness, necessity, and/or legitimacy of remembering and forgetting in models of reconciliation?
  • What are the consequences and meaning of actions of forgiveness, including the formal granting of amnesty? Do these actions conflict with the writing of history?

The conference committee consists of Norman Naimark (Core faculty member of The Europe Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor in East European Studies at Stanford), Yfaat Weiss (Director, The Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center for German-Jewish Literature and Cultural History at Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Gabriel Motzkin (Director, The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute), and Amir Eshel (Director, The Europe Center and Edward Clark Crossett Professor of Humanistic Studies at Stanford).

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