History
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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
Seminars
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Sandrine Kott has been educated in France (Paris), Germany (Bielefeld and Berlin) and the USA (New York). Since 2004 she is professor of European contemporary history at the University of Geneva. 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 Conference Room

Sandrine Kott Professor Speaker University of Geneva
Seminars
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About the Speaker: Richard English is the Wardlaw Professor of Politics in the School of International Relations, and Director of the Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV), at the University of St Andrews. His research focuses on political violence and terrorism, Irish and British politics and history, and the history and politics of nationalism and the state. His books include Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (which won the 2003 UK Political Studies Association Politics Book of the Year Award),Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland (which won the 2007 Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, and the 2007 Political Studies Association of Ireland Book Prize), and Terrorism: How to Respond (OUP, 2009). His latest book, Modern War: A Very Short Introduction, is published by Oxford University Press. Professor English's current research project is for another OUP book, Does Terrorism Work? A History. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. Richard English is in residence as an International Visitor at the Stanford Humanities Center this April and was nominated by the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI)

 

 

About the Topic: Debates on the effectiveness of terrorism have become prominent in recent years, across a spectrum running from declarations that terrorism represents a deeply ineffective means of pursuing political change, to equally assertive arguments that terrorism works all too frequently. In this talk, Richard English reflects on why the question is important, why it has so far proved extremely difficult to answer in persuasive fashion, how we might better frame our reflections on the subject in future, and on what might be gleaned from deep consideration of the emergence, armed struggle, and eventual departure from the stage of one of the world's most sustainedly serious terrorist organizations - the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

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Richard English Wardlaw Professor of Politics in the School of International Relations Speaker University of St Andrews
Seminars
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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.

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Lecturer
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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
Seminars
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About the Speaker: Hew Strachan has been Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College since 2002, and was Director of the Oxford Programme on the Changing Character of War between 2003 and 2012. He also serves on the Strategic Advisory Panel of the Chief of the Defence Staff and on the UK Defence Academy Advisory Board, as well as being a Trustee of the Imperial War Museum, a Commonwealth War Graves Commissioner, and member of both the National Committee for the Centenary of the First World War and the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He is also a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and Visiting Professor at the University of Glasgow. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2003 and awarded an Hon. D. Univ. by the University of Paisley in 2005. In 2010 he chaired a task force on the implementation of the Armed Forces Covenant for the Prime Minister. In 2011 he was the inaugural Humanitas Visiting Professor in War Studies at the University of Cambridge and became a specialist adviser to the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy. He is a Deputy Lieutenant for Tweeddale, and a Brigadier in the Queen's Bodyguard for Scotland (Royal Company of Archers). InDecember 2012, Foreign Policy magazine included him in its list of top global thinkers for the year. He was knighted in the 2013 New Year’s Honours.

CISAC Conference Room

Sir Hew Strachan Chichele Professor of History Speaker University of Oxford
Seminars
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About the Speaker: Hew Strachan has been Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College since 2002, and was Director of the Oxford Program on the Changing Character of War between 2003 and 2012. He also serves on the Strategic Advisory Panel of the Chief of the Defence Staff and on the UK Defence Academy Advisory Board, as well as being a Trustee of the Imperial War Museum, a Commonwealth War Graves Commissioner, and member of both the National Committee for the Centenary of the First World War and the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

He is also a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and Visiting Professor at the University of Glasgow. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2003 and awarded an Hon. D. Univ. by the University of Paisley in 2005. In 2010 he chaired a task force on the implementation of the Armed Forces Covenant for the Prime Minister. In 2011 he was the inaugural Humanitas Visiting Professor in War Studies at the University of Cambridge and became a specialist adviser to the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy. He is a Deputy Lieutenant for Tweeddale, and a Brigadier in the Queen's Bodyguard for Scotland (Royal Company of Archers).

In December 2012, Foreign Policy magazine included him in its list of top global thinkers for the year. He was knighted in the 2013 New Year’s Honors ceremony.

CISAC Conference Room

Sir Hew Strachan Chichele Professor of History of War Speaker University of Oxford
Seminars
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ABOUT THE TOPIC: The Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 is known as the first nuclear arms control agreement. One of its declared aims, however, is environmental, namely "to put an end to the contamination of man's environment by radioactive substances." At the beginning of the atomic age, however, few voiced concerns about the worldwide dispersion of radioactive fallout. How did we come to reappraise that contamination as a global problem requiring a global solution? I will argue that the problem of fallout was not only born global as a material fact, but also globalized as a social-epistemic process thanks to the Cold War, which transformed scientific knowledge, ethical outlooks, technological conditions, and political incentives by the time when the PTBT was concluded.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Toshihiro Higuchi (Ph.D. in History, Georgetown) is an ACLS New Faculty Fellow and Associate Lecturer at the History of Science Department, University of Wisconsin—Madison. Higuchi held a postdoctoral fellowship at CISAC in 2011-12. He will move to the University of Kyoto in June 2014 as a research assistant professor. His current book project traces the science and politics of worldwide contamination by radioactive fallout from atmospheric nuclear-weapons testing as one of the first truly global environmental problems.

CISAC Conference Room

Toshihiro Higuchi ACLS New Faculty Fellow and Associate Lecturer, History of Science Department, University of Wisconsin - Madison Speaker
Seminars
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