tag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:/newsNanovic Institute | News2024-03-28T09:00:00-04:00tag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1607572024-03-28T09:00:00-04:002024-03-25T13:59:31-04:00Master of St. Edmund’s College and former British diplomat Catherine Arnold visits Notre Dame as the Nanovic Forum Diplomat in Residence<p>Between March 18 and April 5, Catherine Arnold, master of St. Edmund’s College at the University of Cambridge, will join the University of Notre Dame as the Nanovic Forum Diplomat in Residence at the <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu">Nanovic Institute for European Studies</a>. While most of her stay…</p><p>Between March 18 and April 5, Catherine Arnold, master of St. Edmund’s College at the University of Cambridge, will join the University of Notre Dame as the Nanovic Forum Diplomat in Residence at the <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu">Nanovic Institute for European Studies</a>. While most of her stay in residence will be devoted to class visits, meetings, and similar private events, she will also offer a <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/events/2024/04/03/nanovic-forum-catherine-arnold/">public lunch lecture</a> on April 3, 2024, at 12:30 p.m. in 1050 Jenkins Nanovic Halls. Combining her unique perspective as a leader in higher education and diplomacy, Arnold will demonstrate how diplomatic thinking can help educate thinkers and leaders for the future.</p>
<p>Before being named head of St. Edmund’s College, Arnold served with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in the United Kingdom, with posts in Oman, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. In 2015, she was appointed as the British Ambassador to Mongolia, where she served until 2018. Following her ambassadorship, she led units within the FCO, including the Illegal Wildlife Trade Unit, and helped the UK secure its bid to chair the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26).</p>
<p>Because of her extensive diplomatic experience, the Nanovic Institute has invited her to teach and advise its Diplomacy Scholars students during her stay. The instructor of this course—Clemens Sedmak, director of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies and professor of social ethics at the <a href="https://keough.nd.edu">Keough School of Global Affairs</a>—shares that:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">“Ambassador Catherine Arnold has not only the experience of a world-class diplomat but the heart of an educator, researcher, and journalist, making her an excellent choice for both our Diplomacy Scholars program and as a speaker for the Nanovic Forum, which focuses on bringing leaders from Europe to Notre Dame to engage with our students, faculty, and community. Catherine also knows Notre Dame so well as the Master of St. Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge—the partnership between St. Edmund’s College and Notre Dame is important for our entire university. We are pleased to deepen this connection. Ambassador Arnold’s visit will be a boon to students within the Keough School and across campus who are interested in global affairs, diplomacy, and foreign policy.”</p>
<p>The April 3rd lecture, entitled <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/events/2024/04/03/nanovic-forum-catherine-arnold/">“Diplomatic Thinking: Lessons in forming thinkers and leaders”</a> is open to all Notre Dame students, faculty, and staff, as well as the general public. Participants will be offered lunch before the event, beginning at 12:00 p.m. and while supplies last. The event will be recorded and published afterward on the Nanovic Institute’s YouTube channel, as well as archived on its website.</p>
<p>Generously established by Robert and Elizabeth Nanovic, the Nanovic Forum’s mission is to bring Europe’s leaders from many fields to Notre Dame to explore, discuss, and debate the most pressing questions about Europe today.</p>
<p>Past Nanovic Forum visitors have included, among many others:</p>
<ul>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">
<p><a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/events/nanovic-forum/the-challenges-facing-both-shores-of-the-atlantic/">Mikuláš Dzurinda</a>, prime minister of Slovakia (1998-2006);</p>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">
<p><a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/events/nanovic-forum/russian-aggression-in-ukraine-and-eastern-europe-post-soviet-bloc-politics-and-consequences/">Giorgi Margvelashvili</a>, former president of Georgia;</p>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">
<p><a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/events/nanovic-forum/war-in-ukraine-peace-in-europe-geopolitics-economics-and-security-after-russias-invasion/">Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović</a>, former president of Croatia; and</p>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">
<p><a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/events/nanovic-forum/2022--a-conversation-with-anne-applebaum-the-war-in-ukraine-russia-and-the-twilight-of-democracy/">Anne Applebaum</a>, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Polish-American journalist.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Previous Nanovic Forum addresses may be watched on the <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/events/nanovic-forum/">Nanovic Institute’s website</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iybjdq4KFs&list=PLPWSLJ3CEEJq7FuGcEe2yWmyrr8EztRqq">YouTube channel</a>.</p>Keith Sayertag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1608072024-03-27T10:32:00-04:002024-03-27T13:13:04-04:00Leadership and resilience of Ukrainian universities during the war<p>I vividly recall the last week of February 2022. Our annual Integral Human Development conference was scheduled for February 23-25 that year. As with today’s event, we started the conference late afternoon on the 23rd, finished up that evening, and went home anticipating resuming the next morning.…</p><p>I vividly recall the last week of February 2022. Our annual Integral Human Development conference was scheduled for February 23-25 that year. As with today’s event, we started the conference late afternoon on the 23rd, finished up that evening, and went home anticipating resuming the next morning. But the morning exploded with air raid sirens, missile strikes, and a full-scale invasion.</p>
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<h2>Preparing for Death</h2>
<p>Fast forward two years to February 10, 2024, again on the UCU campus. This time for our winter commencement ceremony. We hold two commencements annually: a smaller winter one for around 100 graduates of certain graduate programs and a larger open-air summer celebration with hundreds participating.</p>
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<figcaption id="caption-attachment-112080" class="wp-caption-text"><em>Students of UCU.</em></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The winter commencement ceremony concludes with remarks from the valedictorian, a graduate who expresses gratitude and hope on behalf of the graduating class. This year, that honor went to Lubov Kurtiak, a graduate of UCU’s School of Journalism and Communication. Lubov is a married woman in her early thirties, a mother of three children, who works in UCU’s information and marketing office while pursuing her graduate degree in media communications.</p>
<p>Lubov Kurtiak’s brilliant, witty, and <a href="https://fss.ucu.edu.ua/feedbacks/uku-tse-energiya-yaka-nikudy-ne-znykaye-valedyktorska-promova-lyubovi-kurtyak/">inspiring speech</a> culminated in a profound and thought-provoking observation. In her own words:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">"As a communication officer working with the UCU cameraman, I used to ‘hunt’ for feedback from alumni. When asked ‘What makes UCU so special?’ they often said the university prepared them to face death. (…) UCU does teach you to confront death but in the context of living life honorably and in a dignified way so that when your time comes to meet God, you stand before Him without regret over squandering His gift."</p>
<p><img class="wp-image-112081 size-full" src="https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/427142971_774927338000771_8575869103614847913_n-1709x1140-1.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 1709px) 100vw, 1709px" srcset="https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/427142971_774927338000771_8575869103614847913_n-1709x1140-1.jpeg 1709w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/427142971_774927338000771_8575869103614847913_n-1709x1140-1-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/427142971_774927338000771_8575869103614847913_n-1709x1140-1-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/427142971_774927338000771_8575869103614847913_n-1709x1140-1-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/427142971_774927338000771_8575869103614847913_n-1709x1140-1-1536x1025.jpeg 1536w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/427142971_774927338000771_8575869103614847913_n-1709x1140-1-600x400.jpeg 600w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/427142971_774927338000771_8575869103614847913_n-1709x1140-1-180x120.jpeg 180w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/427142971_774927338000771_8575869103614847913_n-1709x1140-1-940x627.jpeg 940w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/427142971_774927338000771_8575869103614847913_n-1709x1140-1-1229x820.jpeg 1229w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/427142971_774927338000771_8575869103614847913_n-1709x1140-1-615x410.jpeg 615w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/427142971_774927338000771_8575869103614847913_n-1709x1140-1-750x500.jpeg 750w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/427142971_774927338000771_8575869103614847913_n-1709x1140-1-1319x880.jpeg 1319w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/427142971_774927338000771_8575869103614847913_n-1709x1140-1-390x260.jpeg 390w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/427142971_774927338000771_8575869103614847913_n-1709x1140-1-554x370.jpeg 554w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/427142971_774927338000771_8575869103614847913_n-1709x1140-1-642x428.jpeg 642w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/427142971_774927338000771_8575869103614847913_n-1709x1140-1-614x410.jpeg 614w" alt="Веледиктор УКУ, випускники УКУ, випускні урочистості УКУ" width="1709" height="1140" loading="lazy"><br><em>Lubov Kurtiak, a graduate of UCU’s School of Journalism and Communication, and Taras Dobko, rector of UCU.</em></p>
<p>To speak of preparing for death while celebrating life and accomplishments, as a young person full of hope, vitality, and gratitude, is truly striking and remarkable. Wouldn’t you agree?</p>
<p>In my memories, I switch back again to the first few months of Russian raging escalation of brutality and genocide. In April of 2022, I was asked by one of the foreign journalists whether and how Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) as a university was preparing itself for the war. It never occurred to me to think of our university life as a preparation for the war. After February 24's full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was an emotionally difficult question to cope with. These were times when daily air raid alarms became a new normal for us. What possibly can it mean to be prepared for a war like this? Everything we were doing at the university was aimed at cultivating and promoting the culture of life and life itself. Well, maybe this was our preparation for the war indeed – I thought then. Perhaps the culture of life was indeed the source of our resilience amidst the raging war.</p>
<p>Lubov and her fellow 2024 graduates, who began their studies in the summer of 2022, helped connect the dots for me: education for life is about contextualizing and "framing" death through the nobility, meaningfulness, and sometimes the ultimacy of self-sacrifice.</p>
<h2>A Gift of Time</h2>
<p>Time cannot be taken for granted anymore by the Ukrainian people. In no time it can be abruptly over for someone or many. Time isn’t anymore for consumption, it fulfills itself through sacrifice. Eventually, it is a gift we are given to win the just peace. It is a gift from the fearless defenders of Ukraine who fight at the frontlines of the largest war in Europe since the Second World War. It is a gift born by the solidarity of the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians leveraged and multiplied by the international supporters of Ukraine, people like you who firmly stand for the just, the true, and the good.</p>
<figure id="attachment_112082" class="wp-caption aligncenter" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-112082"><img class="wp-image-112082 size-full" src="https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Dmytro-Slyvka.jpeg" sizes="(max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px" srcset="https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Dmytro-Slyvka.jpeg 1080w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Dmytro-Slyvka-300x300.jpeg 300w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Dmytro-Slyvka-1024x1024.jpeg 1024w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Dmytro-Slyvka-150x150.jpeg 150w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Dmytro-Slyvka-768x768.jpeg 768w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Dmytro-Slyvka-400x400.jpeg 400w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Dmytro-Slyvka-450x450.jpeg 450w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Dmytro-Slyvka-160x160.jpeg 160w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Dmytro-Slyvka-630x630.jpeg 630w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Dmytro-Slyvka-820x820.jpeg 820w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Dmytro-Slyvka-410x410.jpeg 410w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Dmytro-Slyvka-500x500.jpeg 500w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Dmytro-Slyvka-880x880.jpeg 880w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Dmytro-Slyvka-260x260.jpeg 260w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Dmytro-Slyvka-488x488.jpeg 488w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Dmytro-Slyvka-428x428.jpeg 428w" alt="" width="1080" height="1080" loading="lazy">
<figcaption id="caption-attachment-112082" class="wp-caption-text"><em>Dmytro Slyvka was a graduate of the UCU. He lost his life in the war against Russian occupiers.</em></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was last Wednesday evening, February 21, at about 10 pm, I was browsing through the news when my smartphone notified me about a new email. It was a UCU mailing. Didn’t look good to me. We do not practice late-night corporate mailing. Here’s what it reads:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">"On behalf of the community, with sorrow, we announce that Dmytro Slyvka has lost his life in the war against Russian occupiers on the Avdiivka front. Dmytro was a graduate of the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU), from the first cohort of the master’s program in Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy. He worked as an occupational therapist at the Rehabilitation and Social Services Center‚ Dzherelo.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">Dmytro volunteered for the war in April 2022 and served in the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">The funeral service for the Hero will take place on February 22 at 11:00 in the Garrison Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Lviv."</p>
<p>Dmytro became the 28th member of our UCU community who was killed at the frontlines. It is <a href="https://ucu.edu.ua/en/news/geroyi-vijny/">their ultimate sacrifice</a> which is carried further on by 108 UCU community military servicemen who volunteered or were drafted to the army which gives us a gift of time and hope for the future.</p>
<p><img src="https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/IMG_2706.jpg" alt="" width="1684" height="1190"></p>
<h2>Ukrainian Formula</h2>
<p>I can’t think of a better way to describe Ukraine’s fight for freedom other than George Weigel’s (a renowned Catholic intellectual in the USA) <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/05/what-ukraine-means" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revised version</a> of the famous Pericles’ funeral oration (according to Thucydides) in which he says that "the secret of happiness is liberty and the secret of liberty is courage." George Weigel argues that the people of Ukraine have not only "given twenty-first-century expression to Pericles’s formula for happiness" but they have added some fundamentally important component to it. Here is Weigel’s upgraded reading of Pericles’ formula: "For if the secret of happiness is liberty and the secret of liberty is courage, the secret of courage is faith."</p>
<p>One can have the courage to counter one’s death as a free person in standing for the liberty of others only if one’s courage is nourished by one’s faith. I believe this is a core message we heard from Lubov in her valedictorian talk two weeks ago.</p>
<h2>UCU 2030</h2>
<p>If this is indeed so, then how is this message relevant or applicable to UCU? Could it be that faith we discover and live through in the most adverse circumstances of the bloodiest war is also a source of hope, resilience, and vision for the future we desire for ourselves and the next generations?</p>
<p>The ability of an institution to adhere to its institutional mission in times of adverse circumstances is a sign of resilience. UCU as well as other Ukrainian universities managed to stay faithful to its academic mission. We managed to preserve our community life, we kept our teaching and research activities running and, most importantly we were fulfilling ourselves in serving others.</p>
<p>We invested a year of 2023 in designing UCU Strategy 2030. In times clouded with uncertainties, overwhelmed with air raid alarms, amidst devastation, destruction, and deaths inflicted by the war we embarked on designing the future UCU for the future Ukraine.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter wp-image-112086 size-full" src="https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/wpuAWEPtsJ3o5dUqbzRMUccWVIam3JjvP2_gJ3xZEYp4EzBjjMoRH8vdaqHPJ9AjaedRdoQX5xifkIuZK2m-Es7svmjvHFNR90a3BryNs_xR1hhOrtUfjTHcZqb0.png" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" srcset="https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/wpuAWEPtsJ3o5dUqbzRMUccWVIam3JjvP2_gJ3xZEYp4EzBjjMoRH8vdaqHPJ9AjaedRdoQX5xifkIuZK2m-Es7svmjvHFNR90a3BryNs_xR1hhOrtUfjTHcZqb0.png 1600w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/wpuAWEPtsJ3o5dUqbzRMUccWVIam3JjvP2_gJ3xZEYp4EzBjjMoRH8vdaqHPJ9AjaedRdoQX5xifkIuZK2m-Es7svmjvHFNR90a3BryNs_xR1hhOrtUfjTHcZqb0-300x214.png 300w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/wpuAWEPtsJ3o5dUqbzRMUccWVIam3JjvP2_gJ3xZEYp4EzBjjMoRH8vdaqHPJ9AjaedRdoQX5xifkIuZK2m-Es7svmjvHFNR90a3BryNs_xR1hhOrtUfjTHcZqb0-1024x731.png 1024w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/wpuAWEPtsJ3o5dUqbzRMUccWVIam3JjvP2_gJ3xZEYp4EzBjjMoRH8vdaqHPJ9AjaedRdoQX5xifkIuZK2m-Es7svmjvHFNR90a3BryNs_xR1hhOrtUfjTHcZqb0-768x548.png 768w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/wpuAWEPtsJ3o5dUqbzRMUccWVIam3JjvP2_gJ3xZEYp4EzBjjMoRH8vdaqHPJ9AjaedRdoQX5xifkIuZK2m-Es7svmjvHFNR90a3BryNs_xR1hhOrtUfjTHcZqb0-1536x1096.png 1536w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/wpuAWEPtsJ3o5dUqbzRMUccWVIam3JjvP2_gJ3xZEYp4EzBjjMoRH8vdaqHPJ9AjaedRdoQX5xifkIuZK2m-Es7svmjvHFNR90a3BryNs_xR1hhOrtUfjTHcZqb0-560x400.png 560w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/wpuAWEPtsJ3o5dUqbzRMUccWVIam3JjvP2_gJ3xZEYp4EzBjjMoRH8vdaqHPJ9AjaedRdoQX5xifkIuZK2m-Es7svmjvHFNR90a3BryNs_xR1hhOrtUfjTHcZqb0-600x428.png 600w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/wpuAWEPtsJ3o5dUqbzRMUccWVIam3JjvP2_gJ3xZEYp4EzBjjMoRH8vdaqHPJ9AjaedRdoQX5xifkIuZK2m-Es7svmjvHFNR90a3BryNs_xR1hhOrtUfjTHcZqb0-180x128.png 180w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/wpuAWEPtsJ3o5dUqbzRMUccWVIam3JjvP2_gJ3xZEYp4EzBjjMoRH8vdaqHPJ9AjaedRdoQX5xifkIuZK2m-Es7svmjvHFNR90a3BryNs_xR1hhOrtUfjTHcZqb0-883x630.png 883w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/wpuAWEPtsJ3o5dUqbzRMUccWVIam3JjvP2_gJ3xZEYp4EzBjjMoRH8vdaqHPJ9AjaedRdoQX5xifkIuZK2m-Es7svmjvHFNR90a3BryNs_xR1hhOrtUfjTHcZqb0-1597x1140.png 1597w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/wpuAWEPtsJ3o5dUqbzRMUccWVIam3JjvP2_gJ3xZEYp4EzBjjMoRH8vdaqHPJ9AjaedRdoQX5xifkIuZK2m-Es7svmjvHFNR90a3BryNs_xR1hhOrtUfjTHcZqb0-1149x820.png 1149w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/wpuAWEPtsJ3o5dUqbzRMUccWVIam3JjvP2_gJ3xZEYp4EzBjjMoRH8vdaqHPJ9AjaedRdoQX5xifkIuZK2m-Es7svmjvHFNR90a3BryNs_xR1hhOrtUfjTHcZqb0-574x410.png 574w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/wpuAWEPtsJ3o5dUqbzRMUccWVIam3JjvP2_gJ3xZEYp4EzBjjMoRH8vdaqHPJ9AjaedRdoQX5xifkIuZK2m-Es7svmjvHFNR90a3BryNs_xR1hhOrtUfjTHcZqb0-701x500.png 701w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/wpuAWEPtsJ3o5dUqbzRMUccWVIam3JjvP2_gJ3xZEYp4EzBjjMoRH8vdaqHPJ9AjaedRdoQX5xifkIuZK2m-Es7svmjvHFNR90a3BryNs_xR1hhOrtUfjTHcZqb0-1233x880.png 1233w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/wpuAWEPtsJ3o5dUqbzRMUccWVIam3JjvP2_gJ3xZEYp4EzBjjMoRH8vdaqHPJ9AjaedRdoQX5xifkIuZK2m-Es7svmjvHFNR90a3BryNs_xR1hhOrtUfjTHcZqb0-364x260.png 364w, https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ucu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/wpuAWEPtsJ3o5dUqbzRMUccWVIam3JjvP2_gJ3xZEYp4EzBjjMoRH8vdaqHPJ9AjaedRdoQX5xifkIuZK2m-Es7svmjvHFNR90a3BryNs_xR1hhOrtUfjTHcZqb0-554x395.png 554w" alt="Стратегія УКУ 2030" width="1600" height="1142" loading="lazy"></p>
<blockquote class="pull">
<p>Hope isn’t about strategies, roadmaps, and deadlines. It’s about the understanding that we’re all cared for, remembered, and loved in the shared quest for the greater common good. Hope rests in the belief that no one will be left behind, abandoned, or betrayed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We believe that our student should play a role in developing their university strategy. These days it cannot be done without tackling a much broader issue of the future of Ukraine in the global context. This is why we designed a new course <a href="https://ucu.edu.ua/en/news/shlyah-do-vidnovlennya-uku-zapuskaye-mizhnarodnyj-navchalnyj-kurs/">"Road to Recovery"</a> in which four of our UCU faculty members, along with seven international experts from world-class universities offered their expertise, experience, networks, and inspiration to a cohort of UCU students. 45 students worked in seven groups aiming at producing research analytics, interviews, policy documents, and startup initiatives under the supervision of international experts and with the Ukrainian stakeholders. The results were presented by the groups in December during the final sessions of the course. Next week these projects will be presented and discussed at a special public event during our annual Integral Human Development Forum at UCU. This is our 2030 UCU Strategy in making.</p>
<p>I’d like to conclude by mentioning hope and by sharing our hope with you.</p>
<p>"Optimism in Ukraine has waned, but hope still abounds," my American colleague, a professor, recently told me after returning from a trip to Kyiv and Lviv in December. It had been six months since his last visit, so he could make a real comparison. Back in the early summer of 2023, Ukraine was filled with counteroffensive optimism and the prospect of returning to its borders. That optimism has faded significantly, giving way again to the steadfastness of hope.</p>
<p>Hope isn’t about strategies, roadmaps, and deadlines. It’s about the understanding that we’re all cared for, remembered, and loved in the shared quest for the greater common good. Hope rests in the belief that no one will be left behind, abandoned, or betrayed.</p>
<p>This is what we are learning in these times of immense trial. This is where we stand. This is how our serving leadership is sustained by faith and hope. This is how we find resilience in our battle for the freedom and wholeness of Europe to win a just peace and the future we hope for.</p>
<p><em>This text originally appeared on Ukrainian Catholic University's site, published on March 22, 2024. It is republished with permission here by the Nanovic Institute on March 26, 2024, with minor modifications by Keith Sayer, communications program director.</em></p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Volodymyr Turchynovskyy</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://crossingthesquare.nd.edu/articles/leadership-and-resilience-of-ukrainian-universities-during-the-war/">crossingthesquare.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">March 27, 2024</span>.</p>Volodymyr Turchynovskyytag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1607662024-03-26T08:00:00-04:002024-03-25T16:48:59-04:00Inaugural Nanovic Institute Undergraduate Research Conference in European Studies award winners announced<p>On March 1, 2024, the Nanovic Institute hosted its first <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/events/2024/03/01/nanovic-institute-undergraduate-research-conference/">Undergraduate Research Conference in European Studies</a>, co-sponsored by the <a href="https://architecture.nd.edu">Notre Dame School of Architecture</a>. This…</p><p>On March 1, 2024, the Nanovic Institute hosted its first <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/events/2024/03/01/nanovic-institute-undergraduate-research-conference/">Undergraduate Research Conference in European Studies</a>, co-sponsored by the <a href="https://architecture.nd.edu">Notre Dame School of Architecture</a>. This full-day event brought together students from across the disciplines studying Europe to share the results of their research with their peers and the Notre Dame community. The institute is already planning next year's conference and plans to make this an annual event.</p>
<p>Today, the institute announces the prize winners from the conference. Student presentations from across the day were evaluated and three accolades were given—a gold and silver prize, as well as an honorable mention.</p>
<h2>Gold award: Audra Pesko</h2>
<p><strong>Audra Pesko</strong> received the gold award for her presentation "Can Tourism Be Created? Investigating Marseille as the 2013 European Capital of Culture."</p>
<p>Audra is a senior studying economics and statistics with a minor in Medieval Studies. She is from Youngstown, Ohio, and is interested in strategies for urban renewal, rebranding, and tourism. She traveled to Marseille, France, in January 2024 to study the effects and public responses of a year-long urban revitalization project. She thanks the ND Scholars’ Program and the Suzanne and Walter Scott Scholarship for funding this research.</p>
<h2>Silver award: Chioma Oparaji</h2>
<p><span style="color: #333333;"><strong>Chioma Oparaji</strong> received a silver award for her presentation "</span>Practice and Reason: Understanding the Relationship between Byzantine Mosaics and Architectural Designs." Her research was also featured in a previous <a href="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/articles/practice-and-reason-understanding-the-relationship-between-byzantine-mosaics-and-architectural-designs/"><em>Nanovic Navigator</em> blog</a>.</p>
<p>Chioma Oparaji is a 4th-year architecture student with a minor in Italian and a concentration in furniture design. She is from Houston, Texas, and has always been interested in sacred architecture. She was first drawn to mosaics after studying the churches of the Byzantine Empire in a high school art history course. Following her interests, in the summer of 2023, after spending a year abroad in Rome, she studied the relationship between ancient Byzantine mosaic craftsmanship and the architecture of early Christian basilicas in Ravenna, Italy. In Ravenna, she participated in a five-day mosaic workshop and visited the city’s earliest Christian monuments. She is grateful to the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, and the Diana M. Sciola Endowment for Excellence for their generosity in supporting her research project. </p>
<h2>Honorable mention: Ashley Straub</h2>
<p><span style="color: #333333;"><strong>Ashley Straub</strong> received an honorable mention for her presentation "</span>Lessons for Senior Living: community design from medieval Flanders." <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/features/lessons-for-effective-senior-living-community-design-from-medieval-flanders/">A version of this presentation is also accessible on the Nanovic Institute website</a>.</p>
<p>Ashley Straub, class of 2024, is majoring in architecture with a concentration in historic preservation and a minor in Italian. She is from Omaha, Nebraska. During the 2023 fall break, she traveled to three cities in Belgium with support from the <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/grants/undergraduate/">Nanovic Institute</a>. She studied the béguinages, hospitals, and god houses of Bruges, Leuven, and Brussels to inform the design of her senior architectural thesis project in the spring semester.</p>Keith Sayertag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1608262024-03-25T13:44:00-04:002024-03-27T13:44:26-04:00Notre Dame Magazine: Britain and the Global Game<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://london.nd.edu/assets/563000/350x/cb7c7197_cff6_414b_8e7a_ee72147776a7_1_1_.jpg" alt="Two students and a professor outside Emirates Stadium." width="350" height="467"> <figcaption>Lee '24, McCabe, Casey '24</figcaption> </figure> <p>"'What are the English…</p><figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://london.nd.edu/assets/563000/350x/cb7c7197_cff6_414b_8e7a_ee72147776a7_1_1_.jpg" alt="Two students and a professor outside Emirates Stadium." width="350" height="467">
<figcaption>Lee '24, McCabe, Casey '24</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>"'What are the English known for nowadays?' muses Professor Thomas McCabe, historian, soccer enthusiast and Notre Dame London faculty member. 'The Royal Family and the English Premier League.'</p>
<p>While the United Kingdom is a diverse, culturally complex country, McCabe has put his finger on a key part of its reputation in the wider world. Britain and the Global Game (HIST 34949) is McCabe’s Notre Dame London course examining British history, society and culture through the lens of the nation’s favorite sport — football, better-known to Americans as soccer..."</p>
<p><a class="btn" href="https://magazine.nd.edu/stories/cool-classes-britain-and-the-global-game/">Read the story at Notre Dame Magazine</a><br><br></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="314" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/viwQlFf2ZCc?si=Y02gTRhDIgUmRFSb" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><sub>Originally published by Notre Dame Magazine at <a href="https://magazine.nd.edu/stories/cool-classes-britain-and-the-global-game/">magazine.nd.edu</a> on March 25, 2024.</sub></p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Caroline Lezny</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://london.nd.edu/news-stories/news/cool-classes-britain-and-the-global-game/">london.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">March 25, 2024</span>.</p>Caroline Leznytag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1607552024-03-25T13:41:00-04:002024-03-25T16:49:48-04:00Independent research in Montenegro: Focused on Post-war Recovery and Religion, National Identity, Sports, and Economics<p><em><strong>Julia Warden is a senior from Ambler, PA studying Business Analytics and Film at the University of Notre Dame. <a href="https://ansari.nd.edu">The Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion</a> is pleased to have been able to provide a grant to support her research in Montenegro.</strong></em>…</p><p><em><strong>Julia Warden is a senior from Ambler, PA studying Business Analytics and Film at the University of Notre Dame. <a href="https://ansari.nd.edu">The Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion</a> is pleased to have been able to provide a grant to support her research in Montenegro.</strong></em></p>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://ansari.nd.edu/assets/563016/julia_warden_budva.jpg" alt="Julia Warden in Budva, Montenegro" width="450" height="285"></figure>
<p>Over winter break, I conducted independent research in Montenegro focusing on the trajectory of the country’s post-war recovery and use of soft power to shape religion, national identity, sports, and the economy, all of which contribute to broader narratives and geopolitical alignment. I am particularly interested in the influence on identity at the individual level from the post-war relationship between Montenegro and Serbia. My research pays attention to the competing influences of Russia, the former Soviet Union, and the European Union to contextualize how Montenegro is developing over time. My goal is to understand the intricate details of these influences and to extract lessons to apply to similar challenges faced by Ukraine, particularly as related to their shared cultural, religious, and linguistic roots and amidst Russia’s pursuit of each of them as allies.</p>
<p>In Montenegro, I interviewed a wide range of individuals such as professors, students, government officials, activists, and others with unique insights. These personal experiences not only provided historical depth but demonstrated the resilience of Montenegrins in defending their cultural heritage, and has been the most memorable part of my project. Through conversation, the theme of religion emerged as one of the most influential factors over Montenegro’s identity today. The Eastern Orthodox Church, a powerful force in Eastern European countries like Montenegro and Ukraine, has tremendous influence in shaping identity, not just “religious life” narrowly defined. In particular, <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/88828">the Serbian Orthodox Church and Russian Orthodox Church share goals as allies in protecting “Slavic brotherhood”</a>, a phrase used to justify various endeavors encompassing post-communist Eastern Europe.</p>
<figure class="image image-left"><img src="https://ansari.nd.edu/assets/563017/julia_warden_kotor.jpg" alt="View of Kotor, Montenegro with the church and mountains behind." width="450" height="338"></figure>
<p>The question of the Serbian Orthodox Church’s role in Montenegro's political affairs has been a point of contention; while the church is seen by some as a cultural and religious link to Serbia by reinforcing a sense of shared identity, others view the church's involvement in political matters, especially during debates surrounding Montenegro's independence, as a threat. Due to the Serbian Orthodox Church’s prominence in Montenegro, the mere existence of a separate Montenegrin Orthodox Church, of which there are few followers today, has become <a href="https://dspace.cuni.cz/handle/20.500.11956/176641">one of the most contentious issues in the Orthodox community</a>. As detailed by Morrison in his book Nationalism, Identity and Statehood in Post-Yugoslav Montenegro, in response to the Serbian Orthodox Church’s power, the Montenegrin Orthodox Church became more active during the 1990s through <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2017049691/">initiatives to recognize Montenegrin religious figures, and “by extension, aid their wider objective of establishing an independent state, with the church acting as the central pillar of a distinct Montenegrin national identity.”</a></p>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://ansari.nd.edu/assets/563018/julia_warden_our_lady_of_the_rocks.jpg" alt="Blue Church on the Water -- Called Our Lady of the Rocks; this is located in the Bay of Kotor, Montenegro near Perast." width="338" height="450"></figure>
<p>The Russian Orthodox Church and Ukrainian Orthodox Church share a similar relationship to that of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Montenegrin Orthodox Church. The Russian government has carefully fused religious and nationalist narratives to justify its invasion of Ukraine, from the introduction of the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-crimea-peninsula-dff3484da824e11afc92c83ecf19f71b">concept of the "Russian world" to the recovery of Crimea as a "sacred place.”</a> Moscow justifies its aggression toward Ukraine in large part by claiming that expanding the Russian state means protecting Orthodox Christians in Ukraine from harmful outside influences, especially the West. According to this article in the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/05/11/orthodox-christians-in-central-and-eastern-europe-favor-strong-role-for-russia-in-geopolitics-religion/">Pew Research Center</a>, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014, 38% of Ukrainians, 72% of Russians, and 74% of Serbs agreed with the statement “Russia has an obligation to protect Orthodox Christians outside its borders.” The conflict has led to a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-moscow-religion-orthodox-church-9bea8791e5eda36a0b01cb3b6da86bd5">significant split within the Ukrainian Orthodox Church</a>, with some leaders maintaining sympathy for Russia and others openly condemning the Russian invasion, positioning the church as a symbol of Ukrainian independence and statehood; this has exacerbated divisions within Ukraine, triggering church seizures, property disputes, and acts of violence among rival Orthodox factions. The Ukrainian parliament has even attempted to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from Ukraine to keep out undue influence from Moscow, as the law calls <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2023/october/ukraine-law-ban-russian-ukrainian-orthodox-church-uoc.html">“to ban [religious groups] whose leadership is outside of Ukraine.”</a></p>
<p>On the individual level, these conflicts have caused a plethora of identity conflicts, prompting questions over what it means to belong to a particular ethnic group. By publishing my research, I hope to shine a light on these topics that are often overlooked. What stands out to me most is the resilience shared by these two groups, despite opposition, in preserving their cultures and traditions.</p>
<figure class="image image-left"><img src="https://ansari.nd.edu/assets/563019/julia_warden_nanovic_conference.jpg" alt="Julia Warden presenting her research at the Nanovic Institute's Undergraduate Student Research Conference." width="450" height="340"></figure>
<p>Thank you to the Ansari Institute for all the support! I am grateful for the opportunity to travel to Montenegro and learn so much along the journey.</p>
<p><em><strong>Julia Warden's research was also supported by the <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/">Nanovic Institute for European Studies</a>, a sister institute within the <a href="https://keough.nd.edu/">Keough School of Global Affairs</a>.</strong></em></p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Julia Warden</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://ansari.nd.edu/news-events/news/independent-research-in-montenegro-focused-on-post-war-recovery-and-religion-national-identity-sports-and-economics/">ansari.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">March 25, 2024</span>. Minor modifications by Keith Sayer, Nanovic Institute, March 25, 2024.</p>Julia Wardentag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1608272024-03-22T13:46:00-04:002024-03-27T13:46:44-04:00‘You’ve got power; use it’: Nobel laureate Maria Ressa speaks on democracy at Notre Dame Forum event<p>As part of the 2023-24 Notre Dame Forum on “The Future of Democracy,” Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa, an acclaimed journalist and renowned defender of democracy, spoke to more than 300 attendees on campus Wednesday (March 20) about the key challenges facing international information ecosystems and global democracy.</p><p>As part of the 2023-24 Notre Dame Forum on “<a href="https://forum2023.nd.edu/">The Future of Democracy</a>,” Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa, an acclaimed journalist and renowned defender of democracy, spoke to more than 300 attendees on campus Wednesday (March 20) about the key challenges facing international information ecosystems and global democracy.</p>
<p>In welcoming those gathered, University President <a href="https://president.nd.edu/about/">Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.</a>, said that Ressa’s work in combating disinformation and exposing human rights abuses exemplifies Notre Dame’s commitment to being a force for good. Father Jenkins noted that her visit coincides with the launch of the University’s new <a href="https://strategicframework.nd.edu/initiatives/democracy-initiative/">Democracy Initiative</a>, aimed at enhancing Notre Dame’s research and teaching on democracy and translating this knowledge for policymakers and public officials in the United States and abroad.</p>
<figure class="image image-left"><img src="https://news.nd.edu/assets/562722/bj_3.20.24_maria_ressa_1559.1200x675.jpg" alt="University of Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., stands at the podium on stage offering opening remarks" width="600" height="338">
<figcaption>University President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. (Photo Credit: Barbara Johnston/University of Notre Dame)</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He referred to Ressa as a “person who exudes compassion, joy and hope” and whose life exemplifies the “triumph of the human spirit.”</p>
<p>Ressa opened her presentation by asking, “What are you willing to sacrifice for the truth?” She stated that democracies across the globe are in trouble, and it is up to each of us to defend democracy. But to do so, Ressa said, we have to know what our values are.</p>
<p>“The first step is to draw the line — these are your values — and then you have to hold the line,” Ressa explained, “because you don’t really know who you are until you’re forced to defend it.” And, Ressa admitted, such action takes courage.</p>
<p>Sharing examples from her own life and work as co-founder of Rappler, the top digital-only news site leading the fight for press freedom in the Philippines, Ressa discussed the ways tech and social media companies are manipulating users. Observing that social media is designed to be addictive, she described how its use ultimately changes users’ behavior by spreading misinformation, influencing feelings, shortening attention spans and promoting “tribalism.” The result, she said, is widespread disbelief, distrust, bullying and dehumanization.</p>
<p>“Essentially, what the tech companies did was to hack our biology by shifting the way we think through how we feel,” she said. “There is no law against making you addicted. There is no law against manipulating you and there is no law against the impact that it has had.”</p>
<p>Ressa also emphasized the positive potential of technology, which can be used to cultivate connections and form communities. “The power of information distribution is now person to person,” she stated. “If you organize, you can be far more powerful than a large news organization.”</p>
<p>Ressa shared that it is possible to rebuild trust in journalism, in democracy and in each other by capitalizing on the innovative and beneficial uses of technology in fields such as medicine, journalism, crisis communications and community building. She also emphasized the need to support responsible, independent and truthful journalism.</p>
<p>In concluding, Ressa noted that Notre Dame, with its strong campus community, location in the Midwest and Catholic mission, is uniquely positioned to make a positive impact, and she encouraged attendees to find ways to act.</p>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://news.nd.edu/assets/562724/bj_3.20.24_maria_ressa_1596.1200x675_use.jpg" alt="A large crowd of attendees fills the Smith Ballroom for a lecture by Maria Ressa, who stands on stage in the background" width="600" height="338">
<figcaption>Maria Ressa (Photo Credit: Barbara Johnston/University of Notre Dame)</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“I feel like what we are seeing online is the growth of cults versus the leadership of religions,” she said. “But you are unique because you are not captured, because you have values, and you live the faith. And faith is incredibly important. The time is now. Please act. Notre Dame, you’ve got power; use it.”</p>
<p>Following the lecture, <a href="https://keough.nd.edu/people/andres-mejia-acosta/">Andrés Mejía Acosta</a>, the Kuster Family Associate Dean for Policy and Practice at the <a href="https://keough.nd.edu/">Keough School of Global Affairs</a>, moderated a discussion between Ressa and audience members.</p>
<p>This event was co-sponsored by the Office of the President and the Keough School. Ressa’s lecture was the fifth and final keynote event for the 2023-24 Notre Dame Forum, a series of discussions designed to foster respectful and informed dialogue on national and global issues. In February, Ressa was appointed as a distinguished policy fellow at the Keough School, and she delivered a <a href="https://keough.nd.edu/maria-ressa-defending-democracy/">keynote address on digital democracy</a> at the school’s Washington Office on March 14.</p>
<p><strong id="docs-internal-guid-9fc1856b-7fff-d177-4987-b2984774aa55"><a href="https://youtu.be/JyEMsOTCeRQ">You can watch a recording of the March 20 event here</a>.</strong></p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Notre Dame News</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://news.nd.edu/news/youve-got-power-use-it-nobel-laureate-maria-ressa-speaks-on-democracy-at-notre-dame-forum-event/">news.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">March 22, 2024</span>.</p>Notre Dame Newstag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1607582024-03-08T12:00:00-05:002024-03-25T14:03:00-04:00Training Transhumanists at Oxford University<p>Those who know Oxford University for its literary luminaries might be surprised to learn that some of the most important reflections on emerging technologies come from its hallowed halls. While the leading tech innovators in Silicon Valley capture imaginations with their bold visions of future singularities,…</p><p>Those who know Oxford University for its literary luminaries might be surprised to learn that some of the most important reflections on emerging technologies come from its hallowed halls. While the leading tech innovators in Silicon Valley capture imaginations with their bold visions of future singularities, mind-machine melding, and digital immortality by 2045, they rarely engage as deeply with the philosophical issues surrounding such developments as their like-minded scholars over the pond. This essay will briefly highlight some of the key contributions of Oxford University’s professors Nick Bostrom, Anders Sandberg, and Julian Savulescu to the transhumanist movement. It will also show how this movement’s focus on radical autonomy in biotechnical enhancements shapes the wider global bioethical conversation.</p>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/561333/nick_bostrom7.jpg" alt="Nick Bostrom" width="600" height="338">
<figcaption>Nick Bostrom</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the lead author of the <a href="https://nickbostrom.com/views/transhumanist.pdf">Transhumanist FAQ</a>, Bostrom provides the closest the movement has to an institutional catechism. He is, in a sense, the Ratzinger of Transhumanism. The first paragraph of the seminal text emphasizes the evolutionary vision of his school. Transhumanism’s incessant pursuit of radical technological transformation is “based on the premise that the human species in its current form does not represent the end of our development but rather a comparatively early phase.” Current humans are but one intriguing yet greatly improvable iteration of human existence. Think of the first iPhone and how unattractive 2007’s most cutting-edge technology is in 2024.</p>
<p>In particular, transhumanists encourage radical physical, cognitive, mood, moral, and lifespan enhancements. The movement seeks to defeat humanity’s perennial enemies of aging, sickness, suffering, and death. Bostrom recognizes that he is facing the same foes as Christianity and other traditional religions. Yet he is confident that Transhumanism, through science and technology, will be far more successful than outdated superstitions. Biotechnological advances are more reliable for this worldly benefit than religion’s promises of some mysterious next life. Transhumanists claim no need for “supernatural powers or divine intervention” in their avowedly “naturalistic outlook” since they rely instead on “rational thinking and empiricism” and “continued scientific, technological, economic, and human development.” Nonetheless, Bostrom and his companions recognize that not all technology is created equal. Each novel development should be subjected to critical scrutiny to see how well it can contribute to enhancing humans beyond the limits of their all-too-short and wearisome sojourn on Earth (or other planets through space colonization).</p>
<p>Anders Sandberg, one of Bostrom’s frequent collaborators from Oxford University, centers such ethical evaluation of new biotechnological use on <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118555927.ch5#:~:text=Morphological%20freedom%20is%20the%20right,and%20exploiting%20its%20inherent%20potential.">morphological freedom</a>. He pithily describes the principle as the fundamental right to “modify oneself according to one’s desires.” Sandberg worries that governments or other authorities might rob individuals of the chance to realize their value system through biotechnological developments. While I share his resistance to totalitarian dominance, it was not clear to me which value system he considered best equipped to direct such transformative technology to the right ends.</p>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/561332/anders_sandberg_in_tedxtallinn.jpg" alt="Anders Sandberg" width="600" height="338">
<figcaption>Anders Sandberg</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I had the chance to ask Sandberg publicly about this value system problem after his keynote address at a 2021 conference on Transhumanism in Madrid, Spain. My studies gave me the impression that the philosophers of the Oxford School of Transhumanism were brilliant thinkers capable of nuanced ethical assessments of technological developments but unable to give reliable guidance due to their fundamental moral subjectivism. His response confirmed my suspicions. He quite causally and jovially insisted that there were many ways of being a transhumanist. One could be a Kantian transhumanist, a utilitarian transhumanist (quite a popular option in Oxford and beyond), a Nietzschean transhumanist, a conservative transhumanist, or even, he added in light of the personal research I shared with him, a Thomist transhumanist. Yet there was no sense of any standard of human nature, natural law, or principles that could arbitrate between these rival schools of Transhumanism. I do not think this sort of moral subjectivism and ideological relativism bodes well for the success of the many national and international commissions charged with deciding how to best use gene editing, AI, brain-computer interface, and other emerging technologies for the good of humanity. The weak, frail, and vulnerable seem to be the most likely to suffer in the quest to build a healthier, stronger, faster, more beautiful generation.</p>
<p>When autonomy (morphological or otherwise) is presented as the chief value—as it has been the case for decades in bioethical discourse—it is worth asking how far this privilege extends throughout the human species. For instance, for all the excitement surrounding potential enhancements through CRISPR-Cas9 and other gene editing techniques, I am not aware of any leading lights from Oxford Transhumanism eager to protect their autonomous decision to be altered, destroyed, or abandoned in the quest for more preferable offspring.</p>
<p>Speaking of embryos, long-time Oxford University Professor Julian Savulescu is famous for encouraging reproducers to harness IVF and preimplantation genetic testing to choose those embryos with the best chance of the best life. While Savulescu has since moved to the National University of Singapore, the notion of <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19076124/">procreative beneficence</a> he developed at Oxford remains an alluring justification for technologically enhancing the next generations beyond current limits. Although high-precision designer babies are still out of the reach of current gene editing technologies, mainstream medically assisted reproduction technology can at least reduce the number of children born with diseases and increase the number born with superior characteristics. Leaving childbearing to the wiles of chance seems irresponsible when more reliable technological means are available to increase the likelihood that their offspring will enjoy the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2598126/">general-purpose traits</a> like intelligence, memory, humor, impulse control, empathy, and fairness that contribute positively to a wide range of lifestyle choices. The philosopher is well aware of the contentious debates that surround the meaning of a good life but claims neutrality about metaphysical questions. Unfortunately, his tolerance for embryonic destruction and abandonment in practice presupposes a firm commitment to the non-personhood of early-stage humans.</p>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/561334/julian_savulescu.jpg" alt="Julian Savulescu" width="600" height="338">
<figcaption>Julian Savulescu</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In addition to the figures featured in this essay, the Bostrom-led <a href="https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/">Future of Humanity Institute</a> (FHI) or the Savulescu-led <a href="https://www.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/">Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics</a> (Uehiro Centre) have influenced important thinkers like Ingmar Persson, Brian D. Earp, Andres Sandberg, James Hughes, Thomas Douglas, Jonathan Glover, Rebecca Roache, Guy Kahane, to promote different forms of radical human enhancements. The FHI and Uehiro Center were wrestling with questions of biotechnical enhancement when Transhumanism was too quickly dismissed as mere science fiction. Today, the two institutions continue to shape critical discussions about how society will invest time and funding in bettering future generations.</p>
<p>The Oxford thinkers I introduced deserve more engagement than I could offer in a brief blog post. That is why I recently sat down with Matt Fradd from Pints with Aquinas <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7g2RPIkLBI">to chat about the subject for nearly three hours</a>. On a more scholarly level, I look at some of the admirable aspirations and lamentable limitations of contemporary Transhumanism in my chapter on the postmodern, secular, and liberal roots of the movement in the <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Enhancement-Fit-for-Humanity-Perspectives-on-Emerging-Technologies/Baggot-Gomez-Carrara-Tham/p/book/9781032115856">Enhancement Fit for Humanity: Perspectives on Emerging Technologies</a> book I edited. I am also finishing a new book on the subject that I hope arrives before the coming singularity.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<h2>Suggested further reading:<strong><br></strong>
</h2>
<p>Baggot, Michael, Alberto García Gómez, Alberto Carrara, and Joseph Tham, eds. <em>Enhancement Fit for Humanity: Perspectives on Emerging Technologies</em>. New York: Routledge, 2022.</p>
<p>Bostrom, Nick. <em>Superintelligence: Paths, Danger, Strategies</em>. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.</p>
<p>Clarke, Steve, Julian Savulescu, C. A. J. Coady, Alberto Giubilini, and Sagar Sanyal, eds. <em>The Ethics of Human Enhancement: Understanding the Debate</em>. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.</p>
<p>Corby, Paschal M. <em>The Hope and Despair of Human Bioenhancement: A Virtual Dialogue between the Oxford Transhumanists and Joseph Ratzinger</em>. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2019.</p>
<h2><strong><br>About the author</strong></h2>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/561327/fr._michael_baggot_headshot.jpg" alt="Fr. Michael Baggot" width="600" height="575"></figure>
<p>Fr. Michael Baggot is a Professor Aggregato of Bioethics at the <a href="https://www.upra.org/docente/baggot-michael/">Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum</a> and an Adjunct Professor of Theology at the <a href="https://angelicum.it/">Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas</a> (the Angelicum) and the <a href="https://catholic.tech/">Catholic Institute of Technology</a>. He also serves as a professor for the Joint Diploma in <a href="https://www.upra.org/offerta-formativa/facolta/teologia/joint-diploma-in-leadership-service-through-virtues/">Leadership: Service through Virtues</a> and the <a href="https://catholicworldview.com/">Catholic Worldview Fellowship</a> summer program. He was an Adjunct Professor of Theology at the Christendom College Rome program from 2018-2022. In addition, Baggot is a Research Scholar at the <a href="https://www.unescobiochair.org/">UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and Human Rights</a> and a member of the Scholarly Advisory Board for Magisterium AI. His writings have appeared in <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/author/br-michael-baggot">First Things</a>, Studia Bioethica, The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, and Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy. Baggot is the chief editor of and a contributor to the book <em><a href="https://www.routledge.com/Enhancement-Fit-for-Humanity-Perspectives-on-Emerging-Technologies/Baggot-Gomez-Carrara-Tham/p/book/9781032115856">Enhancement Fit for Humanity: Perspectives on Emerging Technologies</a></em> (Routledge, 2022).</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Michael Baggot</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://eitw.nd.edu/articles/training-transhumanists-at-oxford-university/">eitw.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">March 08, 2024</span>.</p>Michael Baggottag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1603832024-03-06T09:12:00-05:002024-03-06T09:12:50-05:00Unveiling Zagreb's cultural history through Architecture<figure class="image image-right"><em><img src="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/560223/sketching.jpg" alt="Anselma Panic sketching in a crowded square." width="600" height="600"></em> <figcaption>Anselma documents Trg Bana Jelčića through sketching.</figcaption> </figure> <p><em>Anselma Panic</em>…</p><figure class="image image-right"><em><img src="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/560223/sketching.jpg" alt="Anselma Panic sketching in a crowded square." width="600" height="600"></em>
<figcaption>Anselma documents Trg Bana Jelčića through sketching.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Anselma Panic ’24 is an undergraduate architecture student at the <a href="https://architecture.nd.edu">Notre Dame School of Architecture</a>. During the winter break of the 2023-24 academic year, she traveled to Zagreb, Croatia, with support from the <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu">Nanovic Institute for European Studies</a>. During this time, she completed essential research for her thesis project, a Cultural Arts Center in Zagreb.</em></p>
<p>This winter break, I traveled to Zagreb, Croatia to conduct research for my final thesis project within the Notre Dame School of Architecture. At the heart of my project lies the aspiration to revitalize Croatia's sociocultural traditions by designing a Cultural Arts Center. This envisioned center, positioned prominently in the city, aims to showcase the nation's heritage by housing an ethnographic museum and a performance theater dedicated to Croatian folk dance. The primary objectives of my trip were to understand the intricate history of the nation and city and to gather site-specific data crucial for my final project.</p>
<p>The invaluable experiences I had varied from delving into the architectural landscape through site documentation to visiting an ethnographic museum and the Croatian National Theatre. A crucial portion of my trip involved on-site documentation of Trg Bana Jelačića—the main square of the city and the site of my project. Sketching and taking critical measurements of the square helped me establish a strong foundation for my project.</p>
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<p>This experience not only deepened my understanding but also cultivated a lasting appreciation for the profound role of history in shaping our built environment.</p>
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<p>The ethnographic museum allowed me to closely examine and document the intricate details of its array of traditional costumes. Each costume told a unique story of its region, offering a nuanced understanding of the nation’s heritage. Furthermore, studying the museum's organizational structure provided insights into effective ways of showcasing and preserving cultural artifacts, influencing my design for an ethnographic museum. The Croatian National Theatre tour enriched my understanding of essential theater spaces, offering practical insights into an efficient and functional production environment. Witnessing the integration of acoustic design within the theater's performance space informed my approach to creating a harmonious relationship between architecture and the experiences of performers and the audience.</p>
<figure class="image image-default"><img src="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/560225/fullsize/lado.jpg" alt="LADO performance from the crowd." width="1200" height="572">
<figcaption>Anselma attended a performance of the renowned group LADO.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My exploration extended beyond the study of architectural typologies to embrace the city's history and cherished traditions. I had the opportunity to attend a Christmas concert by the renowned Croatian folk dance group LADO. The vibrant costumes and resonant folk songs provided a captivating experience that richly illustrated Croatia's cultural heritage. However, the venue struggled to accommodate the number of attendees, indicating a clear demand for a dedicated space. This highlighted the community's collective enthusiasm for cultural performances and emphasized the need for a Cultural Arts Center to serve as a hub for sharing, celebrating, and preserving these cultural traditions.</p>
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<figure class="image-default"><a href="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/560742/1864map.jpg"><img src="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/560742/1864map.jpg" alt="1864 Map of Zagreb." width="600" height="600"></a></figure>
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<figure class="image-default"><a href="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/560739/square.jpg"><img src="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/560739/square.jpg" alt="1895 photo of Trg Bana Jelačića." width="600" height="600"></a></figure>
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<p><em>LEFT: 1864 map of Zagreb; RIGHT: 1895 photo of Trg Bana Jelačića.</em></p>
<figure class="image image-left"><a href="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/560744/original/theatre.jpg"><img src="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/560744/theatre.jpg" alt="Anselma at the Croatian National Theatre" width="600" height="800"></a>
<figcaption>Anselma at the Croatian National Theatre.</figcaption>
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<p>The tour of the Croatian State Archives was another pivotal event of this trip, offering a historical perspective through old maps that traced Croatia's geographical evolution. The exploration of the Zagreb City Museum, another building deeply rooted in preserving and showcasing the city's history, was also enlightening. Navigating the comprehensive exhibitions allowed me to form a nuanced understanding of Zagreb's vibrant past. Particularly impactful was the exhibit on Trg Bana Jelačića itself, which allowed me to witness my research site’s transformative journey over the years through historic photographs and documents. These experiences at the Archives and the City Museum deepened my appreciation for preserving history and played a pivotal role in informing and contextualizing my work for my final thesis project.</p>
<p>In Zagreb, my exploration emerged as a rich source of insights, portraying the city as a vibrant learning environment that significantly influenced and enriched my research pursuits. This experience not only deepened my understanding but also cultivated a lasting appreciation for the profound role of history in shaping our built environment.</p>
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<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Anselma Panic</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/articles/unveiling-zagrebs-cultural-history-through-architecture/">nanovicnavigator.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">March 06, 2024</span>.</p>Anselma Panictag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1603692024-03-05T13:14:00-05:002024-03-05T13:14:54-05:00Decolonizing French theory with Lydie Moudileno<p><em>Lydie Moudileno is the Marion Frances Chevalier Professor of French, Professor in Comparative Literature and Professor in American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California (USC).  Her recent publications include two substantial studies on postcolonial France</em>: Mythologies…</p><p><em>Lydie Moudileno is the Marion Frances Chevalier Professor of French, Professor in Comparative Literature and Professor in American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California (USC). Her recent publications include two substantial studies on postcolonial France</em>: Mythologies Postcoloniales <em>is a study of colonial signs and racialized myths in 21st-century France, inspired by the work of Roland Barthes (co-authored with E. Achille, Ed. Champion, 2018). She is also the co-editor of a multi-contributor volume documenting physical and immaterial traces of Empire in the French Republic, </em>Postcolonial Realms of Memory <em>(Liverpool University Press, 2020).</em></p>
<p><em>Salvatore Riolo, a Ph.D. candidate in Italian Studies at the University of Notre Dame, has written a summary of Moudileno’s lecture, which may also be re-watched on the Nanovic Institute’s YouTube page.</em></p>
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<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSgqi6-aEBk" class="btn btn-lg">Watch lecture</a></p>
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<p>On February 16th, 2024, Professor Lydie Moudileno, Ph.D., delivered an intellectually engaging lecture at the University of Notre Dame titled "Poaching French Theory as Decolonial," exploring the interrelation between postcolonial discourse and the work of French theorists of the late twentieth century, thus highlighting the analytical framework and the interactions between her works and the intellectual landscape of France.</p>
<h2>Poaching as a decolonizing practice</h2>
<p>Moudileno begins by defining the reasons behind the choice of the title of this lecture. In her view, the concept of “poaching” represents the relationship she has with French theorists used as a source to decolonize practice. The French translation of the term “marcher sur les plates-bandes” (lit. “to walk on the flower beds of somebody”) further underscores the nature of the conflicting exchange. Through "poaching," a boundary is forcefully crossed to gather resources. This process of trespassing represents the use of French theorists in postcolonial. However, this movement also allows for a useful shift in perspective that enriches the practice of sociocultural analysis. In engaging with the intellectual landscape of mainland France, there is an attempt to redefine and challenge the paradigm according to which the center is where theory is produced, a place of epistemic privilege for its intellectual history. In contrast, the colonial space is where knowledge is produced but lacks legitimacy due to its geographical origin. Therefore, there is a need for a dialogue between the cultural production of the center and that of the periphery to redefine the balance between the two. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Poaching” offers a pathway to repurpose resources and methodologies tailored to alternative critical contexts.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Illustrating her approach to decolonizing French theorists, Moudileno showcases two pivotal examples of this research methodology. Initially, she examines the interplay between Roland Barthes' seminal work <em>Mythologies</em> (1957) and her volume co-authored with Etienne Achille, titled <em>Mythologies postcoloniales</em>. Subsequently, Moudileno delves into the correlation between Pierre Nora's <em>Realms of Memory</em> (1984) and "Postcolonial Realms of Memory," a collaborative endeavor with Etienne Achille and Charles Forsdick, elucidating the intricate connections between these scholarly works.</p>
<h2>From the Metropole to the decolonial</h2>
<p><em>Mythologies</em> by Barthes stands out as one of the most widely read and studied texts in Barthes' repertoire. Moudileno underscores the profound impact of Barthes' contributions, spanning disciplines from semiotics to cultural, colonial, and postcolonial studies, thereby showcasing the enduring value of his theories. Barthes' <em>Mythologies</em> delves into the interpretation of signs within social contexts, elucidating their relationship with power structures and ideological implications. While primarily focusing on metropolitan areas, emblematic of bourgeois life, Barthes explores everyday sources such as magazines, advertisements, sports events, and toys to uncover the production of myth within the fabric of everyday life, transcending elite literary circles. Additionally, Barthes scrutinizes the naturalization of racial signs within 1950s French society, aiming to define Frenchness through the study of signs, revealing its entrenchment within bourgeois sensibilities. Building upon this foundation, Moudileno's <em>Mythologies postcoloniales</em> endeavors to extend this analysis from a peripheral perspective, probing the presence of race within supposedly race-blind French social orders. Through everyday experiences, Moudileno exposes the subtle racial messaging embedded in societal practices, such as the association of Africa with chocolate, and explores the complexities of integration efforts, as exemplified by the composition of the French national sports team. This nuanced analysis extends beyond the metropole to colonial contexts, scrutinizing how narratives in television and film perpetuate and naturalize differences, thereby enriching our understanding of the intricate interplay between signs, power dynamics, and cultural constructs in contemporary society.</p>
<h2>From national history to postcolonial history</h2>
<p>Following, the examination delves into Pierre Nora's work, particularly focusing on the volumes of the <em>Realm of Memory</em>, which hold a pivotal position as an essential reference for cultural history in France. Inspired by Nora's concept of constructing collective memory, this endeavor was ignited by his influential contributions. Nora's approach, however, drew attention for its conspicuous absence of references to the empire and colonial legacy. Rather than merely critiquing this oversight, the aim was to confront and rectify the gaps in Nora's narrative. Leveraging Nora's foundational ideas provided an avenue to contribute to a more nuanced understanding, enriching the discourse with complexity. This endeavor involved reinterpreting some of Nora's frameworks through a postcolonial lens (such as La Marseillaise, the archival practices, the memorials, and the museums), and introducing new themes. Moreover, the project's scope extended beyond national boundaries to encompass the colonial context, thus amplifying and diversifying France's historical narrative.</p>
<h2>Intellectual roots and renewal</h2>
<p>To conclude, Moudileno expanded on her decision to center her focus on Barthes and Nora, pointing out how it emerges from a deeply personal connection rather than a mere academic pursuit aimed at dissecting theoretical intersections like post-structuralism and post-colonialism. For her, these intellectuals hold a special place rooted in her upbringing and educational background, forged during a time when the empire's colonial legacy was largely overlooked. This intimate tie evokes a sense of ambivalence, as she grapples with both the constraints of this historical framework and her profound engagement with their writings. Rather than idealizing them as sources of enlightenment, Moudileno's exploration of this ambivalence becomes a method of reckoning with France's colonial past while revitalizing her intellectual trajectory. Through the process of deterritorializing their work, she endeavors to transcend conventional boundaries of discourse, paving the way for fresh perspectives and deeper understandings to emerge.</p>
<h2>About the author</h2>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/560038/salvatore_riolo_1_.jpg" alt="Salvatore Riolo" width="600" height="600"></figure>
<p>Salvatore Riolo, a Ph.D. candidate in Italian studies at the University of Notre Dame, earned a B.A. in languages, civilization, and the science of language at the University of Venice and an M.A. in linguistics at the University of Bologna. He was selected as a Nanovic Institute Graduate Fellow for the 2023-24 academic year and serves as co-editor for <em>Europe in the World</em>. His research background includes foreign languages and translation, specifically German, English, and Russian, textual linguistics in literary studies, and semiology. He also has experience as teacher of Italian as a second and foreign language.</p>
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<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Salvatore Riolo</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://eitw.nd.edu/articles/decolonizing-french-theory-with-lydie-moudileno/">eitw.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">March 05, 2024</span>.</p>Salvatore Riolotag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1602272024-02-28T09:23:00-05:002024-02-28T09:23:03-05:00Feminist Foreign Policy: Perspectives from Madrid and Barcelona <p><em>Raleigh Kuipers ’25 is a global affairs and Spanish double major with minors in civil and human rights and European studies. During winter break of the 23-24 academic year, she traveled to Spain with help from a <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/grants/undergraduate/">Nanovic Institute undergraduate grant</a>. Her research</em>…</p><p><em>Raleigh Kuipers ’25 is a global affairs and Spanish double major with minors in civil and human rights and European studies. During winter break of the 23-24 academic year, she traveled to Spain with help from a <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/grants/undergraduate/">Nanovic Institute undergraduate grant</a>. Her research and experiences in Madrid and Barcelona will be an important component of her ongoing research project on feminist foreign policy.</em></p>
<figure class="image image-left"><a href="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/556741/original/lasagrada.jpg"><img src="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/556741/lasagrada.jpg" alt="Raleigh Kuipers in front of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona." width="600" height="600"></a>
<figcaption>Raleigh Kuipers in front of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.</figcaption>
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<p>I came across the term “feminist foreign policy” in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/21/opinion/international-world/feminist-foreign-policy.html?searchResultPosition=1">New York Times opinion essay</a> written by Lyric Thompson, the chief executive of the Feminist Foreign Policy Collaborative, an organization that works to advance these policies in the United States and globally.</p>
<p>I was immediately intrigued—what does it mean for a foreign policy to be feminist? How do these policies work? What impact does a feminist foreign policy (FFP) have on its country and the rest of the world?</p>
<p>The first FFP was implemented by Sweden in 2014, and by 2024, 16 countries have implemented explicitly feminist foreign policies or announced that they will do so.</p>
<p>The Feminist Foreign Policy Collaborative <a href="https://www.ffpcollaborative.org/what-is-ffp">defines the term</a> as:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">“(…) the policy of a state that defines its interactions with other states, as well as movements and other non-state actors, in a manner that prioritizes peace, gender equality and environmental integrity; enshrines, promotes, and protects the human rights of all; seeks to disrupt colonial, racist, patriarchal and male-dominated power structures; and allocates significant resources, including research, to achieve that vision. Feminist foreign policy is coherent in its approach across all of its levers of influence, anchored by the exercise of those values at home and co-created with feminist activists, groups, and movements, at home and abroad.”</p>
<p>These policies seek to promote gender equity both domestically and globally, yet they also go beyond that goal to address broad issues such as climate change, patriarchal structures, and human rights violations, recognizing that these are interconnected problems that require interconnected solutions. Within the countries that currently have these policies, there is also variation in specific focus: for example, Colombia’s FFP is especially pacifist, Germany focuses more on digital equality, and Argentina emphasizes trans feminism.</p>
<h2>Exploring how FFPs address intersectionality</h2>
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<p>These policies seek to promote gender equity both domestically and globally, yet they also go beyond that goal to address broad issues such as climate change, patriarchal structures, and human rights violations, recognizing that these are interconnected problems that require interconnected solutions.</p>
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<p>Contrary to what the name might suggest, many countries explicitly frame their policies as working to benefit everyone—regardless of gender identity—and stress the importance of taking intersectional identities into account. I became interested in how various FFPs address intersectionality and how effective they are in improving the lives of people of various gender identities, racial and cultural minorities, and different immigration statuses. I wanted to learn about FFPs in various countries to learn more about which ones are the most effective in achieving their goals, how countries with these policies collaborate internationally, and what an explicitly feminist foreign policy in my home country, the U.S., could be.</p>
<p>I began my research with a Nanovic Institute grant to Spain for three weeks, traveling to Madrid and Barcelona, where I conducted archival research and interviews with experts in the field. Through my reading and conversations, I hoped to begin to understand the general situation of women in Spain, how the country frames and implements its FFP, and how (and to what extent) it takes into account the diversity of women and the LGBTQ+ community.</p>
<figure class="image image-right"><a href="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/556736/original/usembassy_coin.jpg"><img src="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/556736/usembassy_coin.jpg" alt="Raleigh Kuipers after her meeting with Ambassador Julissa Reynoso, holding the Ambassador's Challenge Coin and a booklet about the art collection in the embassy. The U.S. Embassyin Madrid is visible in the background." width="600" height="600"></a>
<figcaption>Raleigh Kuipers after she met with Ambassador Julissa Reynoso, holding the Ambassador's Challenge Coin and a booklet about the art collection in the embassy. The U.S. Embassy in Madrid is visible in the background.</figcaption>
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<p>While in Madrid, I focused on the FFP itself: how the government announced it, how it was formulated, and how it is currently implemented. I also had the incredible opportunity to meet with Ambassador Julissa Reynoso, the first woman—and Black person—to be the U.S. ambassador to Spain. Before her, there had been 80 men in the role. Among other things, we discussed her experiences as the first woman to serve as ambassador, her previous work with the Gender Policy Council launched by the Biden-Harris Administration, and the U.S. National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality.</p>
<p>In Barcelona, I focused specifically on how Spain’s government and FFP take into account—and sometimes fail to take into account—the unique experiences of its cultural and linguistic minorities in places like Catalonia. In addition to learning about issues specifically related to Spain’s FFP, I also focused on the feminist approach taken by political parties in the region such as the Candidatura d’Unitat Popular-Crida Constituent, a coalition that centers feminism, socialism, and Catalonian independence in its politics. I learned about the experiences of racial minorities in the region and the discrimination against Catalan-speaking people in Spain. I supplemented this research with a trip to the Museu de l'Art Prohibit which taught me about how art that includes “radical” political and social commentary—especially commentary on female sexuality and liberation—is censured throughout the world.</p>
<h2>An ongoing project: Future research plans</h2>
<figure class="image image-left"><a href="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/556738/original/parliament.jpg"><img src="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/556738/parliament.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="404"></a>
<figcaption>"The Palau del Parlament de Catalunya (Parliament Building of Catalonia) in Barcelona.</figcaption>
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<p>This research has prepared me for the summer of 2024, when I plan to continue researching FFPs in Chile, Argentina, and Mexico with funding from the <a href="https://news.nd.edu/news/junior-raleigh-kuipers-honored-as-notre-dames-first-obama-chesky-voyager-scholarship-recipient/">Obama-Chesky Voyager Scholarship</a>. I am interested to see what I learn, how these policies can be compared, and what steps I can take to promote the adoption of an FFP in the U.S.</p>
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<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Raleigh Kuipers</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/articles/feminist-foreign-policy-perspectives-from-madrid-and-barcelona/">nanovicnavigator.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 28, 2024</span>.</p>Raleigh Kuiperstag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1601332024-02-23T13:54:00-05:002024-02-23T13:54:52-05:00Joint symposium offers statement to 2024 Munich Security Conference on Russia's war against Ukraine<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://nanovic.nd.edu/assets/556424/munichconferencer.jpg" alt="Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München" width="600" height="400"> <figcaption>Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the site of the symposium.</figcaption> </figure> <p>On February 13, 2024, a symposium jointly organized…</p><figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://nanovic.nd.edu/assets/556424/munichconferencer.jpg" alt="Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München" width="600" height="400">
<figcaption>Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the site of the symposium.</figcaption>
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<p>On February 13, 2024, a symposium jointly organized and co-sponsored by <a href="https://ucu.edu.ua/en/news/advancing-the-ethical-dimension-of-european-security/">Ukrainian Catholic University</a>, the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, and Ludwig Maximilian University met in Munich, Germany, to consider <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/events/2024/02/12/challenges-of-russias-war-against-ukraine-and-the-ethical-principles-of-sustainable-peace-in-europe/">"Challenges of Russia’s War against Ukraine and the Ethical Principles of Sustainable Peace."</a> </p>
<p>This symposium was held in advance of the <a href="https://securityconference.org/en/">Munich Security Conference</a>, the world's leading forum for debating international security policy. As such, symposium participants authored and cosigned the below statement to the conference:</p>
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<p style="padding-left: 40px;">“<strong>Advancing the Ethical Dimension of European Security</strong></p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">“The Russian war against Ukraine poignantly illustrates that the unassessed, uncondemned, and unimpeded evil of the communist ideology and crimes of the Soviet regime inevitably erupt into wars and suffering of people and nations. Our future security is inherently fragile if we disregard these moral realities and attempt to isolate them from our security considerations, decisions, and strategies. We are also confronted with the reality of religious power narratives and the need to consider the religious and spiritual aspects of our security infrastructure.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">“Drawing from the lessons of 1945, we are reminded that a military victory does not automatically ensure peace and human development. The only partial success – as is evidenced by the present-day tragic events – of the post-World War II international infrastructure and development of Western Europe was contingent upon the mental, moral, and military defeat of Nazi Germany and the Nuremberg conviction of Nazi ideology. The end of the Cold War did not bring “the end of history” – as some commentators thought – but merely signaled a truce followed by a series of wars geared to the restoring of a Russian empire (Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine).</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">“Democratic societies are stakeholders, not merely consumers, of security. Security starts with accepting dignity and human rights as fundamental societal principles, and with a willingness to make sacrifices to uphold this choice. Our vision of future security is incomplete without a conscientious acknowledgment of past moral realities and responsible navigation through the present moral landscape. Any security architecture is unsustainable unless built upon a solid ethical infrastructure, embraced by a resilient, morally sound, and justice-bound public culture. Our future security structure must internalize/appropriate this ethical foundation and thrive in a proper moral climate to prevent corrosion, failures, or eventual collapse<strong>.</strong></p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">“Therefore, the participants of the symposium call upon the upcoming Munich Security Conference 2024 to:</p>
<ul>
<li style="list-style-type: none;">
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">Recognize Russia’s ongoing re-imperialization effort as the most serious present threat to Europe and global democracies requiring a collective response from European countries and allies.</li>
<li aria-level="1">Confirm all needed support for Ukraine to reestablish sovereignty over its internationally recognized territory and provide necessary military, political, and financial assistance to help Ukraine repel the aggression of the Russian Federation.</li>
<li aria-level="1">Acknowledge Ukraine’s sovereign right to pursue NATO membership and endorse its integration into the alliance.</li>
<li aria-level="1">Recognize that security is based on the “power of law,” while insecurity arises from the “law of power.” Without countering and incapacitating Russia’s “law of power” strategy and recommitting globally to authentic law, lasting security and peace will remain elusive.</li>
<li aria-level="1">Acknowledge that efforts to democratize Russia through trade and finance alone disregarding human rights and dignity-based public culture transformations have backfired. Without respect for civic values and virtues, “business as usual” is used as a hybrid weapon enabling the Kremlin’s international aggression.</li>
<li aria-level="1">Mitigate the harm of unprincipled “business as usual,” by automatically triggering sanctions and assistance for countries subjected to aggression under the UN Summit 2005 framework. International sanctions must be enhanced to effectively trace perpetrators and prevent evasion of responsibility.</li>
<li aria-level="1">Develop efficient mechanisms of counteracting Russia’s “nothing is true and everything is possible” media and information strategy as part of its hybrid warfare toolkit to foster public mobilization, counteract hostile narratives, affirm shared values, and fortify resolve against Russian aggression.</li>
<li aria-level="1">Acknowledge that just peace relies on the explicit and early naming of violence and human rights violations. Therefore, the international legal system should be enhanced to more effectively investigate and prosecute Russian leadership and soldiers for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and atrocities against Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Markus Vogt</strong>, Ludwig Maximilian University (Munich, Germany)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Oleh Turiy</strong>, Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv, Ukraine)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Clemens Sedmak</strong>, University of Notre Dame (South Bend, USA)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Volodymyr Turchynovskyy</strong>, Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv, Ukraine)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Zeljko Tanjic</strong>, Catholic University of Croatia (Zagreb, Croatia)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Myroslav Marynovych</strong>, Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv, Ukraine)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Mary Ellen O’Connell</strong>, University of Notre Dame (South Bend, USA)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Jan Tombinski</strong>, EU Ambassador to Ukraine (2012–2016) (Poland)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Robert Brinkley</strong>, British Ambassador to Ukraine (2002-2006) (United Kingdom)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Martin Schulze Wessel</strong>, Ludwig Maximilian University (Munich, Germany)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Marek Misak</strong>, COMECE (Brussel, Belgim)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Antoine Arjakovsky</strong>, Collège des Bernardins (Paris, France)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Andriy Mykhaleyko</strong>, Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (<wbr>Eichstätt-Ingolstad, Germany)</wbr></p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Taras Dobko</strong>, Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv, Ukraine)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Valeria Korablyova</strong>, Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Christian Walter</strong>, Ludwig Maximilian University (Munich, Germany)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Iryna Fenno</strong>, Ukrainian Catholic University / Ludwig Maximilian University (Ukraine/Germany)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Yuriy Shchurko</strong>, Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv, Ukraine)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Andriy Kostiuk</strong>, Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv, Ukraine)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Oksana Kulakovska</strong>, Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv, Ukraine)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Svitlana Khyliuk</strong>, Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv, Ukraine)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Greg Lewicki</strong>, International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations (Gdansk, Poland)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Mariana Bujeryn</strong>, Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center (Boston, USA)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Gelinada Grinchenko</strong>, University of Wuppertal / Kharkiv National University (Germany/Ukraine)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Aloys Buch</strong>, Supra-diocesan Seminary (Lantershofen, Germany)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Markus Patenge</strong>, German Commission for Justice and Peace (Berlin, Germany)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Oksana Mikheieva</strong>, Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv), Centre for East European and International Studies (Berlin) (Ukraine/Germany)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Katrin Boeckh</strong>, Institute of East and Southeast European Studies (Regensburg, Germany)”</p>
<p><em>The text of this statement originally appeared on the <a href="https://ucu.edu.ua/en/news/advancing-the-ethical-dimension-of-european-security/">Ukrainian Catholic University's website</a>. It is presented unaltered here.</em></p>
</section>
</article>
</div>Clemens Sedmaktag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1600852024-02-21T16:10:00-05:002024-02-21T16:13:43-05:00Political scientists' research examines if Russia stands to benefit from climate change<p>There exists a narrative about climate change that says there are winners and losers — with Russia being one of the countries that stand to benefit from its effects. In a new study, researchers at the University of Notre Dame found that Russia is suffering from a variety of climate change impacts and is ill-prepared to mitigate or adapt to those climate impacts. And, as the rest of the world transitions to renewable energy sources, Russia’s fossil-fuel-dependent government is not willing or ready to make alternative plans for the country, changes that could potentially benefit the whole of their society.</p><figure class="image image-default"><img src="https://news.nd.edu/assets/559264/fullsize/russia_mikojana_bucht_ansgar_walk.jpg" alt="Large chunks of melting icebergs in a bay off the coast of Russia" width="1200" height="675">
<figcaption>Icebergs in Mikoyan Bay, Bolshevik Island, Severnaya Semlya, Russia. (Photo Credit: Ansgar Walk)</figcaption>
</figure>
<h3><strong id="docs-internal-guid-b78e320e-7fff-b2ec-1ae5-aae1449429aa">New research examines the effect of climate change on Russia and the country’s role in addressing global environmental challenges</strong></h3>
<p>“There’s a narrative out there about climate change that says there are winners and losers. Even if most of the planet might lose from the changing climate, certain industries and countries stand to benefit. And Russia is usually at the tip of people’s tongues, with Russian officials even making the claim that Russia is a potential winner.”</p>
<p>This portrayal, described by <a href="https://news.nd.edu/our-experts/debra-javeline/">Debra Javeline</a>, associate professor of <a href="https://politicalscience.nd.edu/">political science</a> at the University of Notre Dame, Nanovic faculty fellow, and lead author on the recently published study <a href="https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/wcc.872">“Russia in a changing climate,”</a> was debated by her 16 co-authors — all Russia specialists and members of the <a href="https://www.ponarseurasia.org/task-forces/climate-change/">Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS)</a>, a multinational cohort of academics from North America, Europe, and post-soviet Eurasia.</p>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://news.nd.edu/assets/559274/300x350/debra_javeline_300x350_bj.jpg" alt="Dark-haired female professor with bright blue blouse" width="300" height="350">
<figcaption>Debra Javeline (Photo Credit: Barbara Johnston/University of Notre Dame)</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The PONARS scholars, including <a href="https://politicalscience.nd.edu/people/susanne-wengle/">Susanne Wengle</a>, also an associate professor of political science at Notre Dame and a Nanovic Institute faculty fellow, studied the effects of climate change on Russia and Russia’s role in global efforts to combat climate change or obstruct climate action.</p>
<p>“We asked ourselves,” Javeline said of her research team, “does Russia stand to benefit from climate change? Are the claims made by the Russian government officials accurate in that it does benefit them?”</p>
<p>The PONARS network includes social scientists of different disciplinary backgrounds, allowing each co-author to contribute analysis of Russia in their respective fields, including agriculture, international affairs, the changing Arctic, public health, civil society, and governance.</p>
<p>Drawing on their collective expertise and a comprehensive literature review, the researchers found that Russia is already suffering from a variety of climate change impacts — despite the government’s positive spin — and is ill-prepared to mitigate or adapt to those climate impacts. And, as the rest of the world transitions to renewable energy sources, Russia’s fossil-fuel-dependent government is not willing or ready to make alternative plans for the country, changes that could potentially benefit the whole of their society.</p>
<p>“The future of Russia is politically and economically interdependent with the future of the climate,” she said. “If we have any hope of seeing a peaceful Russia that can rejoin the international community with a more responsive government, then we can’t talk about one without the other.”</p>
<p>But while Russia continues to wage a carbon-intensive war in Ukraine after a full two years, it remains “increasingly isolated from the international community and its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” the researchers wrote.</p>
<p>The cause for concern lies in the fact that not only is Russia considered the world’s largest country, occupying more than half the Arctic Ocean coastline, but it is also warming four times faster than Earth as a whole and is a primary emitter of greenhouse gases, according to the PONARS study.</p>
<figure class="image image-left"><img src="https://news.nd.edu/assets/559277/300x350/susanne_wengle_300x350_mc.jpg" alt="Dark-haired female professor with blue eyeglasses and black sweater" width="300" height="350">
<figcaption>Susanne Wengle (Photo Credit: Matt Cashore/University of Notre Dame)</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Environmental impacts already occurring in Russia include flooding, heat waves, drought, and wildfires that affect not only communities, but agriculture, forestry, and water resources as well. “Russia is one of the world’s most important producers and exporters of grains,” said Wengle, an expert on Russian agriculture. “What this means is that the effects of climate change on Russian farms are a concern not only for Russians but for everyone concerned with global markets for commodity crops and global food security.”</p>
<p>Global warming has had a huge influence on Russia’s permafrost, which is now thawing at alarming rates. What was once considered permanently frozen, stable ground is now defrosting, shifting, and causing tremendous damage. The study pointed to increased flooding, landslides, caving, or sinking of ground that supports existing infrastructures — resulting in cracked foundations and compromised shelters.</p>
<p>“Some Russian cities in high-latitude regions report infrastructure damage from thawing permafrost and soil instability for up to 80 percent of buildings and for pipelines,” the researchers discovered.</p>
<p>Russian leadership, however, interprets these climate impacts self-servingly and encourages its citizens to accept them as benefits, according to the PONARS scholars. For example, while Russian scientists warn about extreme temperatures and decreased Arctic sea ice, the Russian government touts a year-round Arctic sea route and a more livable climate overall. And although Russian climatologists study the effect of climate change, there are limited policies in place to reduce the vulnerability of some regions to climate impacts, and generally little adaptation planning and even less implementation of actual adaptations.</p>
<p>The researchers found that there is also a real climate leadership deficit in Russia and an absence of commitment to mitigate and adapt. “No top political leader champions a climate agenda,” they proclaimed. “Those in the highest positions of power demonstrate silence or denial.”</p>
<p>Furthermore, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has exacerbated the climate emergency. “The humanitarian disaster is of the utmost importance — the number of deaths and structures that were destroyed — but the collateral damage is intense destruction to the atmosphere,” Javeline noted.</p>
<p>The war has brought irreparable damage to the global climate from increased military emissions, which the researchers explain as taking the form of “potentially several million extra tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.” Military operations have all had a harmful effect on the environment by adding toxic chemicals and hazardous waste into the air and water supplies.</p>
<p>The PONARS study serves as a framework to identify gaps in research. In particular, the scientists believe that more research is needed on the political dimensions of Russia in our changing climate — namely, taking a closer look at the country’s centralized political system and how it handles policy challenges related to climate change.</p>
<p>Javeline and Wengle added that the researchers hope to improve understanding of climate issues affecting Russia so that when Russian leadership does decide to acknowledge the country’s precarious position in a changing climate, there will be a reliable base of knowledge to assist them with efforts to mitigate and adapt. <br><br><em><strong>Contact:</strong> Tracy DeStazio, associate director of media relations, 574-631-9958 or <a href="mailto:tdestazi@nd.edu">tdestazi@nd.edu</a></em></p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Tracy DeStazio</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://news.nd.edu/news/does-russia-stand-to-benefit-from-climate-change/">news.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 21, 2024</span>.</p>Tracy DeStaziotag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1600642024-02-21T10:00:04-05:002024-02-27T13:51:16-05:00Learning to fight climate change by recontextualizing diplomacy at COP28<figure class="image image-right"><em><img src="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/559034/garrett_and_linnea.jpg" alt="Garrett Pacholl (left) and Linnea Barron (right)." width="600" height="600"></em> <figcaption>Garrett Pacholl (left) and Linnea Barron (right).</figcaption> </figure> <p><em>Linnea</em>…</p><figure class="image image-right"><em><img src="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/559034/garrett_and_linnea.jpg" alt="Garrett Pacholl (left) and Linnea Barron (right)." width="600" height="600"></em>
<figcaption>Garrett Pacholl (left) and Linnea Barron (right).</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Linnea Barron ’26 is a biological sciences and peace studies double major with minors in scientific computing and the Glynn Family Honors Program. During the fall of 2023, she traveled to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to attend the COP28 conference with assistance from the <a href="https://glynnhonors.nd.edu/">Glynn Program</a> and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies. Also making the journey with support from the <a href="https://asia.nd.edu">Liu Institute for Asia & Asian Studies</a> was Garrett Pacholl ’24, a history and global affairs double major who is also part of the Glynn Family Honors Program. Together they bring their reflections on the conference, diplomacy, and what comes next.</em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“When the heat gets high, and the floods roll in, and the people rise, let them hear us sing, it's the end of fossil fuels.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is the song we chanted with other protestors outside the main negotiation hall at the annual United Nations Climate Conference COP28 in Dubai. After a draft text containing vague and weak language on fossil fuels was published just hours before the conference was set to end, those of us who were frustrated with the nature of diplomacy at the conference rallied to hold the “red line,” a text that contained a complete phase-out of fossil fuels. Shouting, screaming, and singing outside of the room where negotiations were occurring was a powerful image. It was an impassioned display of activism to the point that officials of the host conference told us that we were being “too loud.”</p>
<figure class="image image-left"><a href="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/559037/original/protest1.jpg"><img src="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/559037/protest1.jpg" alt="Protesters gather in one of the main streets of the venue, pushing for more comprehensive change." width="600" height="330"></a>
<figcaption>Protesters gather in one of the main streets of the venue, pushing for more comprehensive change.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet clearly, we were not being loud enough, as the final text published the next day contained stronger, yet still inadequate wording on fossil fuels. The <a href="https://unfccc.int/documents/636584">official text</a> “<em>calls on</em> Parties to <em>contribute</em>” to various mitigation measures including “<em>transitioning away</em> from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.”</p>
<p><em>Calls on. Contribute. Transitioning away. </em>Language that felt sterile, surgical, belying the growing urgency of the crisis these measures were meant to address.</p>
<h2>No “all-nighters” in climate change</h2>
<p>It felt like we were watching humanity working on a global group project whose grade would determine the fate of our entire species. Scientists provided the grading scales and the benchmarks, such as keeping global warming under 1.5°C from pre-industrial levels and reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. And like a typical group project, we watched policymakers from around the world take minimal, incremental steps—measures that are wildly insufficient to reach these important targets—as these looming dates rapidly approached, feebly attempting to soothe us with unsubstantiated promises that these problems could be solved at the last minute. We watched country representatives, particularly those from states with historically high emissions rates, deflect blame for their inaction and promise everyone that they are just doing their best.</p>
<blockquote class="pull">
<p>We may not live in an ideal world with ideal solutions already in place, but that just means that we have space to push for more comprehensive solutions. We do have power, however large the problem may seem, and the first-ever explicitly codified language calling for a transition away from fossil fuels is another tool for us to use.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are a couple of things wrong with this “group project” metaphor. One, focusing solely on deadlines ignores the fact that the climate crisis is right here, right now. Global procrastination has direct implications for people’s lives and livelihoods today, not just in 25 years. We saw this truth etched in the determination of negotiators from Pacific island nations, whose resolve stemmed in large part from the knowledge that climate inaction meant that their homes would soon be permanently swallowed up by rising sea levels. We saw this truth radiating from the righteous anger of civil society actors, recounting the names of environmental defenders whose “heinous crimes” were protesting for the integrity of their lands.</p>
<p>Second, and perhaps most importantly, the standard group project experience usually involves what might charitably be called “doing everything at the last minute.” But it’s impossible to solve the climate crisis with this hope in mind. No all-nighter will put all the pieces back into place—there is too much to do, and a lot of these steps require significant time and effort to accomplish. Inaction now leads to tipping points, be they in 2050 or much, much sooner, from which there is no coming back. It’s now or never.</p>
<h2>Disappointment, but also hope, in diplomacy</h2>
<figure class="image image-default"><img src="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/559038/fullsize/conference.jpg" alt="A crowd walking toward the dome at the COP28 conference in Dubai." width="1200" height="816">
<figcaption>The massive main thoroughfare of Dubai's Expo City, host to COP28.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As former members of the <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/academics/diplomacy-scholars/">Nanovic Institute’s Diplomacy Scholars Program</a>, centered on experiencing and understanding diplomacy in theory and practice for our future professional lives, we were interested in attending COP28 to witness a real diplomatic event firsthand. Our experiences made us wary of diplomacy. To us, diplomacy was failing humanity. The decisions made in high-level negotiations had life-or-death implications for many countries facing the worst effects of climate change. Losing sight of the 1.5℃ warming target would mean displacement and incalculable damage to those living in small island states and so many others. It will mean lives lost due to flooding, hurricanes, and wildfires. We met many individuals from the most affected countries, including the Marshall Islands, Fiji, and Palau, who were incredibly inspiring, kind, and passionate people. We found ourselves angry at diplomacy, at the unfairness of countries like Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries holding up negotiations when people’s lives were on the line. Even creative forms of diplomacy, like the Presidential Majlis held by COP President Sultan Al Jaber, an informal and open conversation based on the Arab tradition, did not produce positive outcomes.</p>
<p>Our experiences at COP28 certainly showed us the limitations of traditional diplomacy. In the face of an ever-growing crisis that requires tackling powerful vested interests with significant monetary and political influence, as well as vast structural issues, the immense time spent on nebulously worded outcomes and vague promises seems far too ineffective to put forth the necessary solutions to our survival. However, diplomacy is not merely confined to negotiations. It’s a mindset. Thinking back on our experiences as Diplomacy Scholars and in our work, we remember one of the foundational lessons of diplomacy—to use what you are given to push for the best outcome possible. We may not live in an ideal world with ideal solutions already in place, but that just means that we have space to push for more comprehensive solutions. We do have power, however large the problem may seem, and the first-ever explicitly codified language calling for a transition away from fossil fuels is another tool for us to use.</p>
<figure class="image image-left"><a href="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/559039/original/d2db6310_faab_4ec2_83f3_e514e16510f1.jpg"><img src="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/559039/d2db6310_faab_4ec2_83f3_e514e16510f1.jpg" alt="The Observers group at COP28." width="600" height="450"></a>
<figcaption>Observers group with activist Vanessa Nakate.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While it seems traditional diplomacy may be failing us, there is still hope. The final text did not provide much of a framework for inherent change, but it provides an avenue to push for concrete action on climate change. As youth, we have a large role to play in climate diplomacy. We do not have to tolerate inaction in high-level negotiations. It is essential that we push for actual transitions away from fossil fuels in our countries. We can even start being climate activists in our own communities, raising this conversation to greater prominence on our campus and supporting measures like University divestment, which has not been accepted on an institutional level. We hope, as well, that more students from Notre Dame can attend future COPs and contribute their voices to these important conversations—using what they are given to push for the best outcome possible.</p>
<p>While diplomacy as we typically think of it may have offered disappointment for those who care about the climate crisis, we do not have to accept defeat. We can use the tools we have to make meaningful change in our own positions and in our own home communities.</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Linnea Barron and Garrett Pacholl</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/articles/learning-to-fight-climate-change-by-recontextualizing-diplomacy-at-cop28/">nanovicnavigator.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 21, 2024</span>.</p>Linnea Barron and Garrett Pacholltag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1600662024-02-20T09:59:00-05:002024-02-21T09:59:27-05:00Finding Love in the Least Likely Place<p>When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Professor Misha Gekhtman was in Kyiv. His life changed forever for better and for worse.</p><figure class="image image-right"><a href="https://math.nd.edu/people/faculty/michael-gekhtman/"><img src="https://international.nd.edu/assets/559157/pr_1.24.24_michael_gekhtman_and_family_07.jpg" alt="Professor Misha Gekhtman and Family" width="600" height="400"></a></figure>
<p><em>When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Professor Misha Gekhtman was in Kyiv. His life changed forever for better and for worse.</em></p>
<p><a href="https://math.nd.edu/people/faculty/michael-gekhtman/">Misha Gekhtman</a>, professor of Mathematics at Notre Dame, never expected that Russia would invade Ukraine–or that fleeing for his life would also lead to falling in love, marrying, and gaining a daughter.</p>
<p>When he tells the story–part tragedy, part romantic comedy–Misha admits, "If I read this as a screenplay, I would laugh because it's so unbelievable." Lifetime Movie or not, it's his reality.</p>
<p>Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, at the height of Soviet power, his biggest dream as a kid was to travel the world. "Growing up as a Jew in Soviet Russia, I wasn't allowed to study whatever I wanted or to leave easily," Misha said. "But I was good at math, got a PhD, and it opened doors for me. Like a marble in a pinball machine, I found my way–first to the U.S. and ultimately to Notre Dame."</p>
<p>The 2023 winner of the College Teaching Award has been a fixture on campus for 25 years, teaching 30 different courses. He's learned to lean forward when a student raises their hand and stammers, "This might be a stupid question, but…"</p>
<p>"That's always when they have an idea that leads to a major development," Misha said.</p>
<p>But he admits that beyond his students, colleagues, and research, "What's kept me here at Notre Dame is basketball." Most days at 7 am, Misha plays Guard in a pickup league of University students and faculty, ages 19-65. Although he didn't know it then, a basketball game on February 16, 2022, would turn Misha's life upside down.</p>
<p>Through the league, Misha volunteered to drive a group of refugees to see the Fighting Irish Men's Basketball play at the <a href="https://tour.nd.edu/locations/joyce-center/">Joyce Center</a>. The men, who had left everything they knew behind in Afghanistan, had recently resettled in South Bend.</p>
<p>Misha shakes his head, recalling what happened next. "They enjoyed the chance to see this game. I never expected that one week later, I would be crossing the Ukrainian-Polish border on foot, trying to escape a war and cross a border as they had in Afghanistan." Suddenly, they had a lot in common.</p>
<h3>War breaks out</h3>
<p>The next morning, Misha's mother, Evgeniya, in her 80s and still living in the family apartment in Kyiv's center, called him with the sad news that his father, Isaak, was about to pass away. Rushing home on the next flight, he made it just in time to say goodbye to his dad. Jewish custom calls for those who have passed away to be laid to rest within 24 hours, and the family made arrangements for that to happen the next day.</p>
<p>He was jolted awake by the low, rumbling boom of an air raid. Russian forces had breached the outskirts of Kyiv in a surprise offensive. Misha's memory of that excruciating morning is a blur. Somehow, they managed to make the necessary arrangements for his late father, then hurried back to the apartment to shut off the electricity and packed a single suitcase containing his mother's entire life.</p>
<p>The goal was to take an evacuation train running to the West of Ukraine, get to Poland, and ultimately to Berlin, where Misha's sister, Vladislava, who was in Kyiv for the funeral, lives.</p>
<p>He explained, "My mom had left her home just a day after burying her husband. This was the second time she was running away from Kyiv. Eighty years earlier, when she was five years old, she was running away to Eastern Russia from Hitler's bombs."</p>
<p>At her age, it was difficult for Misha's mother to run and climb the many flights of stairs leading to the central train station. As they waited on the packed platform, a mother and her teenage daughter approached them. They were holding hands, and each carrying just a small backpack. "Is this where we wait for the train to Lviv?" she asked breathlessly.</p>
<p>Her name was Oksana Kuzemko, and she was escaping Ukraine with her teenage daughter, Viktoriia.</p>
<h3>Oksana and Viktoriia's story</h3>
<p>A few months before the war began, Oksana, a cosmetologist at a private clinic in Kyiv, was sitting in her psychologist's office, struggling to process grief. She was divorced and, for years, had put all her energy into raising her two daughters. Tragically, her oldest daughter had died from cancer. Now, her younger child, Viktoriia, was in her final year of high school. Trying to help Oksana continue, the psychologist said it was time to imagine a new future for herself, too.</p>
<p>"Describe what your ideal man would be like," the practitioner instructed.</p>
<p>Oksana sighed. This was such a silly exercise but she’d play along.</p>
<p>"His name will be Michael. He'll speak English. He will be an athlete, and he will travel all over the world," she said. Then she forgot all about it until she met Misha–the man standing before her on the train platform whose full name is Michael.</p>
<p>The morning of the invasion was just like any other for Oksana and Victoria. They had no idea that war was coming. When they heard the first explosions, they quickly filled two backpacks with snacks and bottled water, grabbed their identification papers, and spent the first three days sheltering in the family country house and a nearby bomb shelter. But then the bombs started falling there, too.</p>
<p>Reliving it, Oksana shudders. "My mom hugged me and told me that I should take Viktoriia and try to get out, but she would stay there because Ukraine is where she has spent her life." It was the last time she would get to hug her mother.</p>
<p>They walked miles to the train station. No schedule was posted, and knowing which track was scheduled to depart for Lviv was impossible. Viktoriia remembers, "Misha, his sister, and mom looked calm despite the chaotic environment, so we approached them to ask for directions."</p>
<p>Almost instantly, the Gekhtmans, Oksana, Viktoriia, and a Chinese-Canadian man nearby formed a small tribe of travelers. They intuitively knew they could trust one another and that getting to Poland in a group would be safer.</p>
<p>Eventually, the group shouldered their way onto a train to Vinnytsia, where they spent eight stressful hours trying to board a train that would take them further west towards the border. They were among the lucky few to make it onto a train bound for Liviv.</p>
<p>Oksana wedged herself onto a luggage rack precariously piled with suitcases. She and Misha passed the time by sharing their life stories with the openness of two people who thought they would never see each other again–realizing quickly that they had both experienced significant loss.</p>
<p>In addition to his father, Misha's wife, Marina, had passed away in 2019, leaving him alone. Their two adult sons, Ilya and Dmitri, followed in Misha's footsteps and became mathematicians too, Ilya at Israel's prestigious Technion and Dmitri in California's tech industry. Misha told Oksana all about raising the boys and the agony of losing a true love.</p>
<p>Finally, against all odds, after hours of talking, they made it to Lviv, where Misha gave one of their hotel rooms to Oksana and Victoria. The next day, they crossed the border to Poland on foot in the bitter winter cold, hugging at the border as friends picked Misha's family up in a car to drive to Berlin. The others were taken to a refugee shelter.</p>
<p>Misha says, "At first, I just wanted to help Oksana, but in retrospect, I recognize that there was an immediate spark." Months later, when Canada opened its borders to Ukrainian refugees, Misha told Oksana about it via WhatsApp. Still, it wasn't until he drove seven hours through the night to meet them at the airport in Toronto that he became aware of romantic feelings, too. But he wasn't ready to admit it out loud.</p>
<p>Was this destiny, he wondered.</p>
<p>By then, Oksana had already realized that Misha was the Michael she'd imagined with her psychologist years before. Still, she didn't want to scare him off.</p>
<p>One day, they were messaging one another while Misha sat in a diner in South Bend. She drew parallels to a restaurant in Kyiv they'd both known and loved.</p>
<p>Misha typed, "This must be destiny."</p>
<p>Just then, a waitress came to the table to take his order. "My name is Destiny, and I'll be your server today," she said, pointing to her nametag. Misha's jaw dropped.</p>
<p>Ultimately, Misha invited Oksana and Viktoriia to immigrate to the U.S. and join him in South Bend. That's when he received a straightforward text message from Oksana.</p>
<p>"I realize you are a nice person, but why do you insist on helping us?" it asked.</p>
<p>She waited with a pounding heart for six hours as Misha's three little dots flashed gray to white. What if he didn't feel the same way, she wondered.</p>
<p>He turns bright red when he talks about it. "I am a mathematician, and I needed to formulate the right answer," he admits. "I'm not good at talking about my feelings, but this is one problem that Oksana helped me solve."</p>
<p>Neither of them were looking for love. They'd each become resigned to remaining single forever. "What happened to us is pure magic," Misha admits.</p>
<h3>Building a new life together</h3>
<figure class="image image-left"><img src="https://international.nd.edu/assets/559155/pr_1.24.24_michael_gekhtman_and_family_57.jpg" alt="Professor Misha Gekhtman and Family" width="600" height="400"></figure>
<p>Six months later, Viktoriia and Oksana moved to South Bend and began their new life with Misha. Viktoriia's one requirement was that they adopt a kitten. Misha had never owned a pet and feared that the balance of his quiet life would be turned upside down–but now Mon'ka is almost always in his lap.</p>
<p>During Christmas break, Misha drove them South to see the ocean for the first time. In Miami, he proposed to Oksana with a ring. Then, with Viktoriia as their witness, the pair were married at City Hall in October 2023. Oksana wore a striking Ukrainian dress called a vyshyvanka for the occasion. Misha wore a matching shirt. Both were embroidered with traditional patterns meant to protect the bride and groom and bless their union.</p>
<p>Penn High was the fifth school that Viktoriia attended in one year. It was frustrating to repeat junior year all over again and challenging to adjust to a small Midwestern town after living in a major European capital. Eventually, she made friends and even took the initiative to land an internship at the <a href="https://harpercancer.nd.edu">Harper Cancer Research Institute</a>. Viktoriia's next step is applying to college.</p>
<p>Misha said, "I'm always looking for ways to do something to support Ukrainians." Last year, a colleague from the Computer Science department connected Misha with the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. "With a grant from <a href="https://international.nd.edu">Notre Dame International</a>, I've been collaborating in creating a curriculum on the mathematics behind data science," he explained. "I'm planning to deliver a few lectures to students remotely when the class occurs."</p>
<p>Oksana said from their home in South Bend, "It's only been a year, but it feels like we've always been together as a family." While she attends English classes, Oksana works towards a medical assistant certification. She's grateful for the opportunities but longs for her old job at the clinic in Kyiv.</p>
<p>Misha admits, "A large part of my brain is always preoccupied with thinking about Ukraine. It doesn't look promising right now. Sometimes, I feel guilty that happiness like ours came from all this heartbreak."But, in a way, pushing ahead with life, with joy, is a form of resistance. Nowadays, the trio is often found at the <a href="https://performingarts.nd.edu">Debartolo Performing Arts Center</a>, dressed in blue and gold, the colors of Notre Dame and Ukraine. They clap in unison for the actors and musicians and this life they've built together as a family in South Bend.</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Danna Lorch</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://international.nd.edu/news-stories/news/finding-love-in-the-least-likely-place-2/">international.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 20, 2024</span>.</p>Danna Lorchtag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1602282024-02-20T09:30:00-05:002024-02-28T09:30:12-05:00A French Philosopher and the Limits of the Historical Science: Maurice Blondel’s History and Dogma<p>In the passage from the 19th to the 20th century, many European historians were concerned about assuring the scientific status of their discipline. In 1897, in France, Charles Seignobos and Charles-Victor Langlois published <em>Introduction aux Études Historiques</em>, a book that would shape French…</p><p>In the passage from the 19th to the 20th century, many European historians were concerned about assuring the scientific status of their discipline. In 1897, in France, Charles Seignobos and Charles-Victor Langlois published <em>Introduction aux Études Historiques</em>, a book that would shape French historical scholarship for the next decades. In its first pages, the authors affirmed that “History is made with documents” and “Without documents, there is no history.” This insistence upon this documentary conception of history is the conclusion of a process that started at the end of the Modern Age when the humanists of the Renaissance began applying techniques of historical analysis to literary documents.</p>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/558463/51ss0y4p_il.jpg" alt="Charles-Victor Langlois" width="314" height="500"></figure>
<p>This process carried far-reaching implications for the understanding of the Christian faith in Europe. During the Middle Ages, Christian thinkers assumed a coincidence between the image of Jesus Christ developed from the first Christian writings by speculative theology and the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth. From the end of the 18th century, several thinkers began to point to apparent divergences between the “Christ of faith” and “the Jesus of history.” When a French Catholic priest named Alfred Loisy adopted this historiographic methodology in his 1902 book <em>L’Évangile et l’Église</em>, he ignited a controversy that would pass into history as the Modernist crisis.</p>
<p>Loisy distinguished in his book between the purely historical study of Jesus and the faith-based affirmation of his divinity. And the former, he said, offers no basis for the latter. Nor should it because, for Loisy, these are two separated realms. Such a radical separation seemed excessive for most theologians and Church leaders of the time, who criticized Loisy’s book from different perspectives. Eventually, he would recognize the incompatibility of his ideas with Catholicism and abandon the priesthood and the Christian religion altogether.</p>
<p>Among the different reactions to <em>L’Évangile et l’Église</em>, one touches on the conception of historical science from a philosophical point of view. Maurice Blondel, a Catholic philosopher, exchanged letters with Loisy regarding the book and eventually published three articles addressing “the philosophical lacunae of modern exegesis” under the title of “History and Dogma.” In those articles, Blondel explores philosophically the limits of our knowledge of the reality of past events through historical science.</p>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/558465/alfred_loisy.jpg" alt="Alfred_Loisy" width="178" height="236">
<figcaption>Father Alfred Loisy</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The philosopher takes a stance against the objectivist view of history, prevalent at his time, by distinguishing two meanings of the word. History means, in the first place, the facts as they happened, the reality of human actions in the past. It also means the scientific endeavor to know these facts through historical documents. Although history-science intends to unveil history-reality, we should not confound them both. A narrative or description could be “historically accurate” because it follows the scientific rules of the historical discipline yet could fail to convey the reality it aims to describe in its totality. Blondel frequently uses the image of the relation between a portrait and what it represents. A good portrait captures some aspects of its object, but the two are at different levels of existence. As it would be wrong to take the portrait for the person represented, it would be misleading to take the results of a historical inquiry for the facts as they happened.</p>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/558464/portrait_de_maurice_blondel_807x1024.jpg" alt="Portrait of Maurice Blondel" width="600" height="761">
<figcaption></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Applying his conclusions to the historicity of the figure of Jesus, Blondel asserts that, although the historian can gather factual data from the historical study of the documents, this portrait is not the complete reality of Jesus. Is there, then, any other means to access this complete image? Blondel’s answer could seem disingenuous to a scientifically-minded reader. According to him, we can validly attain knowledge about the historical figure of Jesus through the Christian tradition, understood as the practice of the faith in the Christian community throughout the centuries.</p>
<p>Blondel argues that the impression that Jesus produced upon his contemporaries could not be fully described or even conceptualized in the first Christian texts. However, the religious practice inspired by him kept and passed on even these unconceptualized elements so that future Christians might attain an even better understanding of his identity. The core of his argument consists in affirming that there are aspects of the “real” historical figure of Jesus (in the sense of history-as-fact) that historical research (history-as-science) could not retrieve and were, instead, accessible to the Christian practice. That is why Blondel affirms that "in some respects, tradition knows history differently and better than the critical historian."</p>
<p>In a period marked by an objectivist view of historical science, Blondel arguments could hardly find an approving audience. Loisy dismisses his arguments as pure fantasy and a desperate attempt to save the Christian dogma from the corrosive effect of historical criticism. However, later in the 20th century, philosophers such as Hans-Georg Gadamer, Michael Polanyi, and Thomas Kuhn would arrive at similar conclusions by studying the evolution of scientific theories and the role of hermeneutics in our historical knowledge. They refuted the view of any science as a pure objective enterprise and highlighted the role of interpretation and future developments to ascertain the truth about a given event. It seems that the apologetic intents of Maurice Blondel, inspired by his philosophy of action, allowed the French philosopher to see more clearly the limits of the historical science than his opponents, practitioners of this science. Although inspired by a theological problem, “History and Dogma” presented valuable insight into the nature of historical research that later philosophical thought would confirm.</p>
<h2>Suggested Further Reading</h2>
<p>Maurice Blondel, “History and Dogma,” in <em>The Letter on Apologetics and History and Dogma</em>, translated and edited by Alexander Dru and Illtyd Trethowan (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994).</p>
<p>Robert C. Koerpel, “Between ‘History and Dogma’: On the Spirit of Tradition in the Demands and Limitations of Modernity,” in <em>The New Blackfriars</em> 95 (2014), n. 1055, p. 3-20.</p>
<p>Émile Poulat, <em>Histoire, dogme et critique dans la crise moderniste</em>, (Paris: Albin Michel, 1996), 3rd edition.</p>
<h2>About the author</h2>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/559142/whatsapp_image_2024_02_20_at_8.29.56_am.jpeg" alt="1" width="600" height="815"></figure>
<p>Anthony Queirós is a Ph.D. candidate in Dogmatic Theology at the Pontifical University Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome, Italy. His academic journey includes Humanistic Studies, bachelor’s degrees in philosophy and theology, and an MA in Theology at the Institut Catholique de Paris. His interests include Dogmatic and Fundamental Theology, theological reception of contemporary philosophy, and the question of tradition and modernity in religious thought, with a particular focus on European theologians of the 20th century.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Anthony Queirós</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://eitw.nd.edu/articles/a-french-philosopher-and-the-limits-of-the-historical-science-maurice-blondels-history-and-dogma/">eitw.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 20, 2024</span>.</p>Anthony Queiróstag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1600172024-02-19T13:49:00-05:002024-02-19T13:49:01-05:00Ius gentium and the right to migrate: a historical retrieval of the Spanish Scholastics (Part 1: Francisco de Vitoria)<p>This essay explores the concept of ius gentium in the 16th-century Spanish scholastics as a conceptual tool to understand the right to migrate as promoted in recent Catholic social teaching as a flexible norm that retains a close link to natural law. Theologian Daniel Groody points out that civil…</p><p>This essay explores the concept of ius gentium in the 16th-century Spanish scholastics as a conceptual tool to understand the right to migrate as promoted in recent Catholic social teaching as a flexible norm that retains a close link to natural law. Theologian Daniel Groody points out that civil law in migration ethics studies should not be understood as a separate reality. For this reason, he argues that it is the job of theology to remember that civil law is deeply connected to the eternal law, which is God’s loving plan to the universe, and the natural law, which is how the human person discovers God’s plan for herself. In this context, the law of nations, which is the main subject of this essay, is a bridge between civil law and natural law.</p>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/558509/download_1_.jfif" alt="Pope Pius XII" width="187" height="269">
<figcaption>Pope Pius XII</figcaption>
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<p>Pius XII was the first pope to argue for the existence of a “right to migrate” in the apostolic constitution Exsul Familia of 1952. He claimed that this right to cross political borders was based on the universal destination of goods, the theological principle by which we understand that God created the earth for the flourishing of all human beings.</p>
<p>Later on, John XXIII articulated the right to migrate among the fundamental rights due to the human person, but for the first time put a limit to it by saying that it was conditioned by “just reasons.” John Paul II followed this lead and clarified that this was not an absolute right, meaning a right that cannot be limited by the state like the right to live, and it should be in harmony with the common good and the duty of the state to protect its borders.</p>
<p>The Church’s approach to the right to migrate represents a midterm between a non-border policy, where the right of migration would be practically limitless, and policy restrictions that make legal migration virtually impossible. Current theological reflection on migration ethics emphasizes the right to migrate while downplaying regulation policies based on sovereignty, border security, and common good of host communities. The main problem is how to understand this law as a fundamental human right grounded on the universal destination of goods and the dignity of the human person while maintaining the need for regulation. How can we protect the rights of migrants while conciliating them with the good of the host society?</p>
<p>To provide some conceptual tools to answer this question and understand this “non-absolute right to migrate,” this essay will turn to the historical retrieval of the Spanish scholastics. They addressed the problem of human mobility of their time using theological and legal concepts. The 16th century witnessed large migration movements across the globe fueled by colonization, poverty, trade, and missionary work. In this context, Francisco de Vitoria presented the “right to travel” as the right of free passage to move and dwell in foreign territory. This right was limited by certain conditions. He identified it under the legal category of “law of nations,” an idea inherited from the Roman jurisprudence tradition through Thomas Aquinas. This type of norm was rooted in natural law, while being flexible enough to be applied according to the circumstances of time and place.</p>
<p>Francisco Suarez follows Vitoria by providing a rich study of ius gentium. Although he does not directly address the right to travel, his systematic analysis can help shed more light on the way the Spanish scholastics used the concept of the law of nations.</p>
<p>For this reason, this essay presents the Spanish scholastics as offering a synthesis of theological thought on the law of nations applied to human mobility. The notion of ius gentium is a powerful moral category that helps us to understand the natural law origin of the present-day concept of the right to migrate. Moreover, it shows why such a right should be applied according to the concrete circumstances of each society in line with the common good. This essay will analyze the way these two theologians understood ius gentium and how they saw its relation to natural law while being a flexible norm. Our goal is to use the concept of the law of nations to understand Catholic Social teaching on migration and apply it as a theological principle to current migration policy. The first part of the essay will engage with Vitoria and the second part with Suarez.<strong> </strong></p>
<h2><strong>Francisco de Vitoria</strong></h2>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/558512/francisco_de_vitoria_biografa_quin_es_y_qu_hizo_2021_economy_wikicom.jpg.webp" alt="FV" width="600" height="400"></figure>
<p>Francisco de Vitoria is one of the great figures of the second scholastics in the 16th century. He was a Dominican friar who taught theology at the University of Salamanca in the first half of the 1500s. Influenced by Aquinas and the Roman legal tradition, he dealt with the idea of ius gentium in many of his works. In the lecture “On the American Indians” Vitoria connects this idea of the law of nations with the right of travel. This right, which is similar to our concept of the right to migrate, meant that people were free to move across territories granted that they did not cause harm to anyone. In the lecture, Vitoria analyzed the justice regarding the possibility of just war by Spaniards against native populations in the Americas in the context of the colonization of the New World. He examines different titles by which the colonizers could wage war. While it could sound like Vitoria is trying to legitimize colonization, he is actually placing severe limits on European expansion and implicitly arguing for natives’ rights and autonomy. For instance, he claims that Papal or Imperial authority does not include political power over the natives' territory.</p>
<p>One of the titles that Vitoria deems just is the violation of the right to hospitality and to travel by the indigenous people. According to him, those rights are based on the law of nations and to break them without a justification would open the possibility of war and appropriation of land. Again, Vitoria limits the kind of hospitality to which the Spaniards are entitled. For example, they are not entitled to hospitality if they harm the natives in any way.</p>
<p>But, what exactly is the law of nations in this context? First, Vitoria argues that the law of nations derives from natural law. This argument is drawn from the ancient Roman law code called “Justinian institutes”. In this sense he uses the sentence “What natural reason has been established among all nations is called the law of nations.” This is very relevant information regarding Vitoria's understanding of ius gentium. For him, this type of law is not merely a norm that is common to the nations, but it has its origin in the natural law. In a way, Vitoria is open to the possibility that certain laws of nations could be, properly speaking, natural law itself. We clearly can see this connection between natural law and the law of nations when Vitoria explains why citizenship is part of the law of nations. He claims that the proof of confirmation that citizenship is a right sustained by ius gentium comes from nature. He invokes the natural characteristic of man as a “civil animal”, a creature that pertains to a community and hence is entitled to citizenship in a community. He concludes that the status of not having any citizenship conflicts with both the natural law and the law of nations.</p>
<p>The second relevant piece of information that Vitoria provides regarding the concept of ius gentium is that it is a law common to all nations. He explains that “amongst all nations it is considered inhuman to treat strangers and travelers badly without some special cause, humane and dutiful to behave hospitably to strangers. This would not be the case if travelers were doing something evil by visiting foreign nations.” Therefore, besides having origin in the natural law, ius gentium can be identified by its presence in the legal systems of all or most societies. Its extent includes even the inhabitants of the New World and their communities, as Vitoria constantly reminds us throughout the text. This is a very important note since later on Suarez showed himself very skeptical regarding the idea of a universal law of nations. For him, this type of law is too dependent on human consent.</p>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/558511/download_2_.jfif" alt="FV" width="203" height="248"></figure>
<p>From Vitoria's argument, we also gather that he believes that the ius gentium is not absolute, or at least has not the same necessity as that of natural law. He points out that the Europeans have the right to trade and travel “as long as they do not harm” the indigenous people. Hence, there are circumstances in which the right to travel as a law of nations should not be applied, especially in those cases when any type of harm is being produced against the host nation.</p>
<p>When talking about divine and natural law, Vitoria mentions on two occasions that a human law that goes against it would lose the force of law. For example, if the right to travel is understood as divine and natural law, then it would be unjust to enact a human law that forbids foreign travelers in one’s territory. Vitoria never makes the same kind of precision regarding the law of nations. It seems that a community could enact a law that goes against the law of nations if this law of nations is not divine and natural itself. We can imagine that the law of nations in this case could still be derived from the natural law, but not properly speaking be the natural law itself. For this reason, it would be easier to change the law of nations.</p>
<p>Does a violation of the law of nations automatically legitimate a coercitive action to enforce it? Vitoria thinks that first rational persuasion should be employed in order to secure compliance with ius gentium. He argues that once non-violent means are used to convince and persuade without avail, then war and proportional violence can be employed to enforce the law. This shows us the rational element of the law of nations, which should be recognized by any human being. In this sense, Vitoria is very optimistic about the universal character of the ius gentium.</p>
<p>Vitoria's exposition of ius gentium in “De Indis” is not systematic. He employs the concept of the law of nations to explain the rights of travel, dwelling, trade, and citizenship. It is difficult to understand if this concept is part of natural law or positive law. Sometimes they seem to coincide, and in other moments he draws a hard line between them. Moreover, it is ambiguous how one should verify whether a particular law is part of the ius gentium.</p>
<p>In spite of these problems, Vitoria’s treatment of ius gentium helps us to understand that the law of nations is first of all truly a law. Further, it is a universal law common to the commonwealth of nations. It has its origin in natural law, but it is not similarly biding. Finally, the law of nations is not absolute, it can be changed and overridden by human law. In the next part of the essay, we will examine Suarez’s contribution to this debate.<strong> </strong></p>
<h2 dir="ltr">Suggested further reading</h2>
<p>Vitoria, Francisco de, Pagden, Anthony, and Lawrance, Jeremy. <em>Political Writings. “On the American Indians” and “On Just War”, “De</em> Temperantia.” Cambridge [England] ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991</p>
<p>Lantigua, David M. 2021. <em>Infidels and Empires in a New World Order : Early Modern Spanish Contributions to International Legal Thought</em>. First paperback edition. Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press.</p>
<p>Cavallar, Georg. 2002. <em>The Rights of Strangers : Theories of International Hospitality, the Global Community, and Political Justice Since Vitoria</em>. Aldershot, England ; Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate.</p>
<p>Tellkamp, Jörg Alejandro. 2020. <em>A Companion to Early Modern Spanish Imperial Political and Social Thought</em>. Leiden ; Boston: Brill.</p>
<h2>About the author</h2>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/525888/antonio_lemos.jpg" alt="Antonio Lemos" width="225" height="225"></figure>
<p>Antônio Lemos hails from Curitiba, Brazil. After studying law at the Universidade Federal do Paraná, he graduated in philosophy and theology at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome, Italy. It was there that he attained a degree in licentiate in sacred theology (equivalent to a master's degree), with a specialized focus on moral theology and Catholic social teaching. His licentiate dissertation bore the title “Perspectivas morais do fenômeno migratório no magistério recente” (Moral perspectives of the migratory phenomenon in the recent Magisterium). Presently, he is engrossed in the pursuit of a Ph.D. in moral theology from the University of Notre Dame. His ongoing research journey navigates the right of migration as laid out in Catholic social teaching and the traditions of Christianity. He holds a particular fascination for the theological and moral principles that serve as the bedrock of this right, while also tracing its historical origins, with a keen eye on the sixteenth and seventeenth-century Spanish scholastic influences. His other interests include virtue ethics, economics, business ethics, and bioethics. When Antonio is not studying, he enjoys drinking IPAs, listening to German heavy metal, and playing Dungeons and Dragons with fellow theologians.</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Antônio Lemos</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://eitw.nd.edu/articles/ius-gentium-and-the-right-to-migrate-a-historical-retrieval-of-the-spanish-scholastics-part-1-francisco-de-vitoria/">eitw.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 14, 2024</span>.</p>Antônio Lemostag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1597572024-02-12T08:00:00-05:002024-02-12T08:17:49-05:00Music's Resonance in Times of War<p>As Russia's invasion of Ukraine persists, music emerges as a powerful force, capable of touching the deepest chords of human emotion and resilience. In the midst of conflict and uncertainty, music transcends language barriers to unite hearts, bolster spirits, and remind us of enduring beauty in the…</p><p>As Russia's invasion of Ukraine persists, music emerges as a powerful force, capable of touching the deepest chords of human emotion and resilience. In the midst of conflict and uncertainty, music transcends language barriers to unite hearts, bolster spirits, and remind us of enduring beauty in the face of adversity. Songs, in particular, provide multidimensional emotional spaces: processing trauma through expressions of hope, lamentation, fragility, and resilience.</p>
<h2>The Healing Power of Song</h2>
<blockquote class="pull">
<p>In these challenging times, the power of music, as experienced through Ukrainian art songs, remains a beacon of hope.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A recent guest artist residency, sponsored by the <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu">Nanovic Institute for European Studies</a>, featured the extraordinary talents of baritone Simon Barrad and pianist Kseniia Polstiankina. Their performance unveiled the remarkable potency of Ukrainian art songs, offering solace, strength, and a sense of shared history. Barrad, a Grammy-nominated baritone, and Polstiankina, a distinguished pianist, embarked on a journey to explore the rich tapestry of Ukrainian art songs, a musical tradition that had been silenced for decades.</p>
<p>Kseniia Polstiankina, originally from Ukraine, embarked on a personal voyage of discovery as she delved into the world of Ukrainian composers. Trained primarily in Western and Russian classical repertoire, she was previously unaware of the hidden gems of her own cultural heritage. With the help of fellow Ukrainian musicians, Kseniia and Simon (who has Ukrainian Jewish heritage) breathed life into compositions that have long been suppressed, revealing a profound connection to their homeland and its enduring spirit.</p>
<p><iframe width="900" height="505" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mlmFLr5YQEE" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<h2>The Power of Shared Experience</h2>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://nanovic.nd.edu/assets/557232/s_k_5o.jpg" alt="Simon Barrad and Kseniia Polstiankina" width="600" height="432">
<figcaption>Simon Barrad and Kseniia Polstiankina.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The concert “<a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/events/2023/10/31/an-odyssey-of-ukrainian-song-simon-barrad-baritone-with-kseniia-polstiankina-piano/">An Odyssey of Ukrainian Songs</a>” on October 31, 2023, went beyond the mere rendition of notes on a score. It became a conduit for shared experiences and collective memory. Barrad's dramatic readings of modern Ukrainian poets, interwoven with the songs, illuminated the resilience and defiance that have been constants in Ukraine's history. The concert drew a diverse audience of faculty, students, and community members; its global accessibility through livestreaming reached listeners in Ukraine who expressed profound appreciation. Audiences were treated to evocative performances of overlooked works by Ukrainian composers like Lysenko and Lyatoshynsky, alongside compositions by German, Austrian, American, and Jewish composers of Ukrainian heritage, including Leonard Bernstein. Through the concert and ensuing conversations among the audience and artists, participants bonded by communally experiencing art that preserves cultural memories. Scored as soft lamentation, defiant anthem, rapturous ode, or nostalgic echo, the renditions channeled diverse emotions while seeding hope’s renewal through musical act and witness.</p>
<p>In these challenging times, the power of music, as experienced through Ukrainian art songs, remains a beacon of hope. It stirs something deep within us, reminding us of our shared humanity, resilience, and capacity for solidarity. Music, in its ability to uplift spirits and kindle a sense of unity, continues to wave the flag of hope even in the face of adversity. It is a testament to the enduring power of art to heal, inspire, and connect, offering solace and strength during humanity's darkest hours.</p>Stephen Lancastertag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1598022024-02-09T14:06:00-05:002024-02-13T14:06:55-05:00From Plato to China? Conceptual Bridges from Early Modern Europe<p>Something has vexed Chinese Catholicism for over four hundred years: communication. From Matteo Ricci’s appearance before the Wanli Emperor in 1601 to Pope Francis’s agreement with Xi Jinping in 2018, a deep, lasting rapprochement between Roman Catholicism and Chinese culture has yet to appear. Is…</p><p>Something has vexed Chinese Catholicism for over four hundred years: communication. From Matteo Ricci’s appearance before the Wanli Emperor in 1601 to Pope Francis’s agreement with Xi Jinping in 2018, a deep, lasting rapprochement between Roman Catholicism and Chinese culture has yet to appear. Is the religion intractably European? Are respective cultural categories so disparate as to preclude a sturdy middle ground? Missionary evangelists and native Chinese Catholics can provide contemporary answers to these questions. For a historical perspective on the issue, however, one should turn firstly to fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Renaissance humanists. This might seem strange, but it provides the first page in a fascinating and forgotten chapter of early modern history, wherein European scholars sought to understand themselves in relation to other peoples and places.</p>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/557667/scroll.jpg" alt="Scroll" width="500" height="567">
<figcaption>Preface to Agostino Steuco’s De perenni philosophia (1545)</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our story begins not with the Jesuit missions to China, but an Italian recovery of Greek literature. As fifteenth-century humanists translated and edited ancient texts, they looked for an organizing principle, some sort of narrative or concept to tie classical antiquity together. Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), the Florentine translator of the Platonic corpus, developed such a principle: prisca theologia, or “ancient theology.” Drawing on both Patristic and Neoplatonic antecedents, this theory maintained that the best of classical European knowledge did not originate in either Greece or Rome, but in Egypt and Chaldea (modern-day Iraq). To read deeply in Plato, then, was to transcend the boundaries of “western” civilization and participate in a deeper, global tradition.</p>
<p>This prisca theologia proved popular. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) and Agostino Steuco (1497-1548) would take up the theory and expand it, with Steuco going so far as to say that every culture possessed fragments of the knowledge given to Adam by God (which Steuco attempted to reconstruct in his work De perenni philosophia). Through the influence of these successors and Ficino’s own scholarship, variations of prisca theologia became a typical way of thinking about ancient philosophy in the 1500s. Even Protestant writers, such as Philippe de Mornay (1549-1623) and Walter Raleigh (1552-1618), adopted the theory with glee. For these early moderns, the greatest wisdom of European civilization derived from non-European sources.</p>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/557666/priest.jpg" alt="Priest" width="464" height="588">
<figcaption>Portrait of Athanasius Kircher from his Mundus Subterraneus (1664)</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As for the link between prisca theologia and China, there is one key figure: Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680). A German Jesuit polymath who taught at the Roman College, Kircher was famous for his capaciousness and loquaciousness, writing on mathematics and physical sciences as much as languages and literature. Ancient Egypt loomed particularly large in his imagination, and in his (in)famous Oedipus Aegypticus, he boasted a “translation” of thitherto undeciphered hieroglyphics. It was a failure, but a spectacular one, and in its references to ambiguously eastern wisdom, Renaissance prisca theologia shines through. As best he could, Kircher rooted around in ancient documents for the ur-source of all knowledge.</p>
<p>This led him to China, whose mission was dominated by the Society of Jesus. Gathering together the reports of fellow Jesuits, Kircher published his China Illustrata in 1667. The work promised a distillation of everything China—language, customs, plants, animals—into a succinct compendium. Like many other Kircherian endeavors, this grandiose synthesis was inaccurate yet influential. Most importantly, Kircher attempted to connect Chinese writing and culture to that of ancient Egypt and thereby grafted the Middle Kingdom into his variation on the prisca theologia. China Illustrata constituted an important shift, taking a technique developed to understand dead civilizations and applying it to a living society.</p>
<p>The “Figurists” would put the Kircherian shift into action. Shaped by the speculations of their confrere, this group of French Jesuits came to China in the 1680s and glossed Confucianism through yet another variety of prisca theologia. As Joachim Bouvet (1656-1730) and his partners told the tale, Chinese civilization derived from Shem, son of the biblical patriarch Noah, and so the Confucian Four Books and Five Classics actually contained antediluvian wisdom. This was not some proto-colonial subjugation of Chinese culture to European categories, but an attempt to establish a hermeneutical foundation upon which Western and Eastern intellectuals could stand as equals, heirs to common, primordial patrimony.</p>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/557670/emperor.jpg" alt="Emperor" width="362" height="576">
<figcaption>Portrait of the Kangxi Emperor in Court Dress Anonymous Qing Dynasty Court Painter</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps naive to us, but not to the Figurists’ Chinese interlocutors. The Kangxi Emperor (r.1661-1722), impressed by these Jesuits’ knowledge and respect for Chinese culture, kept them close at hand and even issued an Edict of Toleration in 1692, recognizing Catholicism legally and thus rewarding a century of hard missionary toil. With imperial legitimization, the Society of Jesus might have established the most robust expression of non-European Catholicism in Early Modernity. Unfortunately, other missionaries objected to the Figurists’ “syncretism,” and as a result of the so-called Chinese Rites Controversy, the Kangxi Emperor quashed the missions in 1721. With the Figurist vision shattered, only a persecuted Chinese Catholicism would endure until the restoration of sustained Catholic missions in the twentieth century.</p>
<p>Though its success was short-lived, the Jesuit use of prisca theologia gives an optimistic answer to our original query. By bracketing any notion of European superiority and deploying an ambitious, cosmopolitan theory of knowledge, early modern scholars were able to place differing cultures in affirming relation to one another. Here at the University of Notre Dame, we often say that “Your Research Matters,” but in the throes of the research process, the end goal is sometimes obscure. This historical episode can encourage and remind us of how crucial scholarly ingenuity can be, using even the seemingly recondite to bridge insurmountable divisions and bring people just a little closer together.</p>
<h2>Suggested Further Reading</h2>
<p>Brockey, Liam Matthew. <em>Journey to the East: the Jesuit Mission to China, 1579-1724</em>. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007.</p>
<p>Hanegraaff, Wouter J. <em>Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture</em>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.</p>
<p>Schmitt, Charles B. “Perennial Philosophy: From Agostino Steuco to Leibniz.” <em>Journal of the History of Ideas</em> 27, no. 4 (1966): 505–532.</p>
<p>Stolzenberg, Daniel. <em>Egyptian Oedipus: Athanasius Kircher and the Secrets of Antiquity</em>. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013.</p>
<p>Wei, Sophie Ling-chia. <em>Chinese Theology and Translation: The Christianity of the Jesuit Figurists and Their Christianized Yijing</em>. Milton: Taylor & Francis Group, 2019.<strong><br></strong></p>
<h2>About the author</h2>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/557665/roberts.jpg" alt="Roberts" width="600" height="567"></figure>
<p>Samuel Roberts is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Notre Dame. He received his B.A. in history from Hillsdale College and his M.A. in history from the University of Notre Dame. His research explores the reception of classical texts and their use in writing histories of philosophy during the sixteenth century, focusing on the work of Vatican librarian Agostino Steuco (1497-1548). His further interests include early modern translation of the Greek Church Fathers, Jesuit missionary strategies in the Americas and East Asia, and the intellectual foundations of religious toleration in Reformation Europe. He has been a Sorrin Fellow at the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, a Graduate Fellow at the Nanovic Center for European Studies, and a Teaching Fellow at the Notre Dame London Global Gateway.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Samuel Roberts</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://eitw.nd.edu/articles/from-plato-to-china-conceptual-bridges-from-early-modern-europe/">eitw.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 09, 2024</span>.</p>Samuel Robertstag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1597202024-02-06T10:05:57-05:002024-02-06T10:05:57-05:00Impact of L’Arche London in West Norwood Neighborhood<figure class="image image-right"><em><img src="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/552258/grace_inline.jpg" alt="Grace Clinton"></em> <figcaption>Clinton in upper West Norwood on survey collection day.</figcaption> </figure> <p><em>Grace Clinton ’24 is a preprofessional studies (SC) and global affairs</em>…</p><figure class="image image-right"><em><img src="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/552258/grace_inline.jpg" alt="Grace Clinton"></em>
<figcaption>Clinton in upper West Norwood on survey collection day.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Grace Clinton ’24 is a preprofessional studies (SC) and global affairs major with a concentration in international development studies. She is minoring in anthropology. During fall break of the 2023-24 academic year, she traveled to London to study the impact and community recognition of the local <a href="https://www.larche.org/">L’Arche community</a> with support from <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/grants/undergraduate">a Nanovic Institute grant</a>.</em></p>
<p>Engaging with L’Arche communities has been a formative and enduring part of my undergraduate studies at Notre Dame. During the summer of 2021, I spent my time living and working within the L’Arche community in Washington D.C., through the <a href="https://socialconcerns.nd.edu/">Center for Social Concerns</a>. L’Arche is an international organization that creates homes for people with and without intellectual disabilities to live together. The L’Arche model is based on mutually transformative relationships, both for residents and the people who work with them. During my time there, I grew to love my job as a primary caregiver for our residents. We would spend time watching movies, reading books, taking trips to museums, and preparing meals together. I also discovered how essential this community’s presence was in the greater Adam’s Morgan neighborhood. L’Arche residents were friendly neighbors, frequent coffee shop patrons, and employees at a local art studio, demonstrating that the impact of L’Arche extended beyond its residents and those who worked in the home.</p>
<p>During my time studying abroad in London in the fall of 2022, I continued my engagement with L’Arche communities by volunteering at L’Arche in London. I loved joining the community in neighborhood walks and fun art projects. After returning to Notre Dame, I still felt a strong connection to the L’Arche community.</p>
<figure class="image image-left"><img src="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/552259/copy_of_west_norwood_cemetery.jpg" alt="West Norwood Cemetery" width="600" height="408">
<figcaption>West Norwood Cemetery adjacent to the L'Arche London office where community walks take place.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the Nanovic Institute’s research priorities is looking at the voices and experiences of those on the <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/research/research-priorities/peripheries/">peripheries</a>. More often than not, people with intellectual disabilities have been physically put at the edges of society.</p>
<p>Historical usage of asylums or inadequate group living removed these people from everyday society. The introduction of new models like L’Arche is starting to reshape these ideas.</p>
<p>My experiences sparked an interest in how community living environments help reduce stigma towards people with intellectual disabilities.</p>
<p> I wondered if there are benefits to the greater neighborhood. Understanding these impacts could encourage legislators to fund similar houses, convince city councils to approve care permits, and begin measuring community engagement.</p>
<blockquote class="pull">
<p>Encouragingly, over 50% of respondents indicated they are interested in becoming engaged with L’Arche in the future through community dinners, gatherings, or home visits.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In 2023, I received a <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/grants/undergraduate/research/">Nanovic undergraduate fall research grant</a> to research the impact of the L’Arche community on the West Norwood neighborhood in London. I spent most of my days in West Norwood collecting surveys to gauge people’s knowledge and opinions on L’Arche. I would go door to door, stand on busy intersections, or engage with local storefronts to gain research participants.</p>
<p>In the end, I collected almost 50 valid surveys to analyze L’Arche’s impact. The survey questions were written in collaboration with its members so that the results would best serve them; one such question asked what types of future engagement people would like to have with L’Arche.</p>
<figure class="image image-default"><img src="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/assets/552260/fullsize/copy_of_westnorwoodhighstreet.jpg" alt="West Norwood's High Street" width="1200" height="901">
<figcaption>High Street in the West Norwood Neighborhood.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My preliminary findings show that while people were aware of L’Arche, few had engaged with the community. People recognized them as neighbors and as an establishment in the community but their opinions about those with intellectual disabilities did not change much with the presence of L’Arche. Encouragingly, over 50% of respondents indicated they are interested in becoming engaged with L’Arche in the future through community dinners, gatherings, or home visits.</p>
<p>These surveys cannot holistically grasp the entire neighborhood’s opinions or the full impact of L’Arche. Still, they indicate that L’Arche is an important figure within the neighborhood where it is located, and people are willing to be engaged.</p>
<p>Whenever I get to engage with L’Arche I learn something new. The integration of people with intellectual disabilities into mainstream society is not only needed but is also beneficial to everyone. I would like to thank <a href="https://www.larche.org.uk/pages/category/larche-london">L’Arche London</a> for their warm hospitality and the role they played in this research.</p>
<p><a href="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu" class="btn btn-cta">Read more student stories on <em>Nanovic Navigator</em></a></p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Grace Clinton</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://nanovicnavigator.nd.edu/articles/impact-of-larche-london-in-west-norwood-neighborhood/">nanovicnavigator.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 06, 2024</span>.</p>Grace Clintontag:nanovic.nd.edu,2005:News/1596892024-02-05T08:36:00-05:002024-02-05T08:37:26-05:00Notre Dame Rome inaugurates Graduate Research Fellowships in Rome<p><a href="https://graduateschool.nd.edu/">The Graduate School </a>in partnership with Notre Dame International and the <a href="https://italianstudies.nd.edu/">Center for Italian Studies</a> is offering semester- and year-long dissertation research fellowships at the Rome Global Gateway to advanced…</p><p><a href="https://graduateschool.nd.edu/">The Graduate School </a>in partnership with Notre Dame International and the <a href="https://italianstudies.nd.edu/">Center for Italian Studies</a> is offering semester- and year-long dissertation research fellowships at the Rome Global Gateway to advanced humanities PhD students in the College of Arts and Letters.</p>
<figure class="image image-left"><img src="https://rome.nd.edu/assets/556261/450x/mc_7.20.22_religious_liberty_summit_10_1_.jpg" alt="Mc 7" width="450" height="307"></figure>
<p>The goal of this residential fellowship is to facilitate dissertation research for students who demonstrate the need to conduct substantial work in Rome and its vicinity and to create a cohort of scholars engaged in the academic communities of Notre Dame Rome and the city.</p>
<p>This fellowship is designed to support only those students in the advanced stages of doctoral work.</p>
<p><strong>Benefits:</strong> Selected fellows will receive a housing and airfare allowance (one semester - $7,000; one year - $10,000).</p>
<p>The Rome Gateway will offer guidance on identifying housing, support the visa application and the rest of the immigration process (costs borne by the fellow), and provide office space at the Gateway facility on Via Ostilia, just steps from the Colosseum. Additionally, Notre Dame Rome will support the fellows in networking with local experts and students at other institutions. Fellows will be expected to participate in the academic events and activities organized by the Rome Global Gateway and to present their work in progress in internal seminars and/or seminars organized with partner institutions.</p>
<p><strong>Eligibility Requirements:</strong> Applicants must be currently enrolled in a humanities Ph.D. program in the College of Arts and Letters. Applicants should have completed all coursework and examinations. The dissertation proposal/project must be approved by the applicant's doctoral committee by the time of application.</p>
<p><strong>Program Dates:</strong> Fall semester: arrivals from Sept 2, 2024, with a start date of Sept 9, 2024. End of the program on Dec 21, 2024. Spring semester: arrivals from Jan 20, 2025, with a start date of Jan 27, 2025. End of the program on May 10, 2025. Year-long: Sept 2, 2024, with a start date of Sept 9, 2024. End of the program on May 10, 2025.</p>
<p><strong>Evaluation Criteria:</strong> A multidisciplinary review committee will be charged to evaluate the applications based on the quality and clarity of the proposal, the need for conducting research in Rome, and the professional benefits of this fellowship for the researcher.</p>
<p><strong>Application:</strong> To apply please send the following materials in PDF format using <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdBHwp6v99BodHS9wEr6R_sqeCRXvhDDZNE0OWTgvpb7q9m0A/viewform">the online application form</a> by February 16, 2024:</p>
<ol>
<li>Curriculum vitae</li>
<li>Statement of Purpose (1,000 words limit, double-spaced) that explains the parameters of your dissertation and how it will benefit from your research in Rome.</li>
<li>Research schedule for the fellowship (1 page).</li>
<li>Letter of reference from your advisor (sent separately to gradgrants@nd.edu). Please combine all of your application materials except for the reference letter into a single PDF.</li>
<li>Applicants will be notified about the outcome approximately three weeks after the deadline. The organizers anticipate to award up to ten (10) fellowships for the 2024-2025 cycle.</li>
</ol>
<p>Please contact Michael Skalski (mskalski@nd.edu) at the Office of Grants & Fellowships with any questions.</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Costanza Montanari</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://rome.nd.edu/news-stories/news/notre-dame-rome-inaugurates-graduate-research-fellowships-in-rome/">rome.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">January 31, 2024</span>.</p>Costanza Montanari