Dear colleagues and friends of the CIS, I hope you have all had a good start into the new academic year! My CIS letter today comes from Germany, where I am in residency at the Institute for Advanced Study in Hamburg (HIAS) until June 2023. It is a trip down memory lane for me. My mother and her family are from Hamburg, and as a child I spent many summers here and on the beaches of the nearby North Sea. I thought I’d share [...]
Dear colleagues and friends, At last, summer is around the corner – after what felt like an unusually long and demanding academic year. We did get a lot done at the Center for Ideas and Society, with the revamping of our internal structure, two new event streams designed by Dylan and me with Katharine’s input, and a variety of activities on zoom and in person, most notably perhaps our two impromptu zoom events at the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, attended by a [...]
by Jeanette Kohl, Center for Ideas and Society Co-Director In the summer of 2011, I wrote an article on Vladimir Putin for the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. Dmitry Medvedev was still president of Russia, with Putin, then prime minister, eagerly waiting in the wings. His aspirations to take over power in the world’s largest country were unmistakable. In my article, I looked at the ways in which Putin made use of historical image types of military prowess, sexualized male power, and the Machiavellian [...]
Dear CHASS community, colleagues, friends: It would have been nice to start our “monthly musings” from the Center for Ideas and Society with a heartfelt “Welcome back to campus after the holiday break!” As things stand, we might have to wait a while before we can all meet, teach, and talk in person again. In the meantime, we all the Center for Ideas and Society do wish you a happy, healthy, and productive year 2022, looking forward to many new and stimulating collaborations! Dylan, [...]