Center News

PRESS RELEASES | PROJECTS | STUDENT NEWS | FACULTY NEWS

 

PRESS RELEASES

 

2008-09

EU Center of Excellence receives three-year European Commission grant

 

2007-08

 

September 25, 2007

Mayor of Timisoara, site of the 1989 uprising which led to the overthrow of Romania's Ceausescu regime, to lecture at the University of Michigan. (PDF)

 

September 30, 2007
American-Rumanian Festival announced in Timisoara, Romania. (PDF)

 

December 12, 2007

British Journalist Neal Ascherson to deliver the EUC Annual Distinguished Lecture on Europe. (PDF)

 

2006-07

 

February 14, 2007
Joschka Fischer to deliver the European Union Center's Annual Distinguished Lecture on Europe. (PDF)

 

CES-EUC SUPPORTED PROJECTS

 

FALL 2008

 

WINTER 2008

CES offered support to the following faculty-generated projects focusing on European studies: the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies lecture by Ian Buruma, "Sticks and Stones: The Limits of Verbal Violence"; the German Marshall Fund Academic Policy Research Conference led by Robert Stern (public policy), "Systemic Implications of Transatlantic Regulatory Cooperation and Competition"; and course development by Thomas Chivens (anthropology) for "The Politics and Poetics of Security: post-Socialist States, Integration, and the Limits of Europe." The next application deadline will be July 1, 2008; please watch for the RFP.

 

EUC support continues for three research projects: "Energy Security in Europe and Eurasia," led by CES-EUC director Michael Kennedy and researchers from the Aleksanteri Institute's Energy Group, University of Helsinki; "Pathways for Women to Obtain Positions of Organizational Leadership," led by Cindy Schipani (Ross School of Business); and "The Development of Laws and Policies Related to the Dissemination of Public Opinion Data in Central and Eastern Europe," led by Michael Traugott (communication studies and Center for Political Studies). In addition, the grant is supporting a faculty exchange between the Ford School of Public Policy and Sciences Po, Paris, and two international workshops in May 2008: "The Cultural Politics of European Union Energy Security" (Michael Kennedy); "Contested Space: Federalism and Federation in Europe" (Jenna Bednar, Daniel Halberstam, and Ken Kollman).

 

FALL 2007
The CES call for proposals produced a intriguing array of University-wide projects focusing on Europe. Support goes to the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies for a symposium "Practices and Power in Everyday Life; Aspects of the History of the Twentieth Century" focused on the work of German historian Alf Lüdtke; the 12th Annual DeVries-Vanderkooy Lecture, organized by Ton Broos, director of Dutch Studies; the International Architecture Workshop which invites architecture faculty and students from Spain, France, Japan, and Australia working collaboratively with students from Michigan on a design project in Detroit; the conference "Reconceptualizing the Welfare State to Address 21st-C. Demographic Realities," led by Michael Reisch in the School of Social Work; and the German Marshall Fund Academic Policy Research Conference, "Systemic Implications of Transatlantic Regulatory Cooperation and Competition," led by Robert Stern of Ford School of Public Policy.
 
EUC support continues for three research projects: "The Cultural Politics of EU Energy Security," led by CES-EUC director Michael Kennedy and researchers from the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki; "Pathways for Women to Obtain Positions of Organizational Leadership," led by Cindy Schipani (Ross School of Business); and "The Development of Laws and Policies Related to the Dissemination of Public Opinion Data in Central and Eastern Europe," led by Michael Traugott (CPS). In addition, the grant is sponsoring three workshops "The Cultural Politics of EU Energy Security" (Michael Kennedy); "European Federalism in Comparative Perspective," (Jenna Bednar), and the International Law Workshop (Daniel Halberstam); and a faculty exchange between Ford School of Public Policy and Sciences Po, Paris.

 

STUDENT NEWS

 

FALL 2008
Recipients of the 2007-08 European Union Center Jean Monnet Graduate Fellowship on Issues of European integration are: Kenichi Ariga (PhD political science), for research "How Much Does Europe matter? Reexamining the European Parliament Elections 1979-2004"; Avraham Astor (PhD sociology), for research "Multicultural Celebrations or Unwelcome Intrusion? The Politics of Mosque Contraction in Spain"; Charles Doriean (PhD political science), "Accommodating Euroskepticism: When Can Europhilic Parties of Government Prevent Defections to Euroskeptic Protest Parties in EP Elections"; Alex Gerber (PhD sociology), "Being Polish/Becoming European: Gender, Sovereignty, and European Integration"; Emanuela Grama (PhD anthropology/history), "On the margins of the New Europe: 'European Heritage' and the local politics of culture in contemporary Romania"; Raquel Vega-Duran (PhD romance languages), "Encountered Identities: Moroccan Muslim Migrants and the idea of the Spanish Nation." This stipend is made possible by the Center for European Studies-European Union Center, and the grant from the European Commission, and funding from the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies, Center for Russian and East European Studies, and the John J. Swiderski Fund.

Recipients of the 2008 CES Summer Fellowships are: Nadia Sera Baadj (PhD history of art) for a curatorial internship at the Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands; Zachary Caple (MS natural resources and environment) for research on landscape planning in urban spaces at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom; Charles William Fletcher III (BA anthropology, linguistics, Spanish) for research on homosexual speech of gay men in Madrid, Spain; Sarah Hamilton (PhD history) for research on European integration and environmentalism in Spain; Rachel Isacoff (BS architecture) for an internship at the American Institute for Roman Culture in Italy; Anna Kroth (PhD education) for research on EU education policy in Germany; Sarah McDermott (PhD history) for research on the cultural education of Antilleans in France; Marcello Mogetta (PhD classical art and archaeology) for archaeological research at the ancient city of Gabii in Italy; Pedro Monaville (PhD history) for research on Congolese political activism in Europe in Belgium and France; Sarah Mullins (BA linguistics, German) for an internship at Labyrinth Kindermuseum in Germany; and Jeremy Weyerman (PhD history) for research on German conceptions and practices of citizenship in Germany.

 

Alex Gerber published "The Letter versus The Spirit: Barriers to Meaningful Implementation of Gender Equality Policy in Poland" in Women's Studies International Forum special issue dedicated to Eastern European women's encounter with the European Union (forthcoming).

 

WINTER 2008

Mariely López Santana (2004-05 EUC Jean Monnet Fellow and assistant professor, George Mason University) published "¿La 'Internalización' de la Estrategia Europea de Empleo en España?" in Revista Española de Derecho Europeo (Spanish Journal of European Law, 2007).

 

FALL 2007
Ron Alquist (PhD economics) is the recipient of the 2007 Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award. Maggie Gebhard (Ford School of Public Policy) received EUCE-MI funding for internship at the OECD in Paris. Jennifer Miller (PhD political science) presented, "Consonant Federalism? The Role of Federalism on Exclusive Identity and Euroskepticism" at the EUSA International Conference in Montreal, Canada on May 17th. She chaired and was a discussant of the panel Euroskepticism: chronological and geographic variation. This summer she spent two months in Europe interviewing party members in the UK and France with regards to party outreach to minority voters. Mariely López-Santana (PhD political science, 2006) accepted a tenured-track position at the George Mason University.

FACULTY/VISITOR NEWS

FALL 2008
Andrei S. Markovits (German and political science) is a 2008–09 fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, CA. Margaret R. Somers (sociology and history) published Genealogies of Citizenship: Markets, Statelessness, and the Right to have Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2008). Meet Professor Somers at the Shaman Drum bookstore in Ann Arbor, Nov 5 at 7 pm.

WINTER 2008
Robert Franzese (political science) received the Sage Award for best article published in European Union Politics in 2006 for "Strategic Interaction among EU Governments in Active-Labor-Market Policymaking: Subsidiarity and Policy Coordination under the European Employment Strategy" (w/ Jude Hays). He also published Modeling and Interpreting Interactive Hypotheses in Regression Analyses (2007, w/ Cindy Kam), and "Interdependence in Comparative Politics: Theoretical- and Empirical-Model Specification, Estimation, Interpretation, and Presentation" (w/ Jude Hays), forthcoming in Comparative Political Studies"Frontiers of Comparative Politics: 40^th Anniversary Issue."  Jane Fulcher (musicology) co-edited Opera and Society in Italy and France from Monteverdi to Bourdieu [2007, w/ Victoria Johnson (sociology), and Thomas Ertmann (sociology, NYU)]. The volume contains Fulcher's two articles: "Symbolic Domination and Contestation in French Music: Shifting the Paradigm from Adorno to Bourdieu," and "The Effect of a Bomb in the Hall: the 'French Opera of Ideas' and its Cultural Role in the 1920s." Her article, "Romanticism, Technology, and the Masses: Arthur Honegger and the Allure of French Fascism," appeared in Western Music and Race (ed. Julie Brown, 2007). Scott L. Greer (health management and policy) received a two-year NSF grant to study the role of the European Court of Justice in reshaping the health and social security systems of Britain, France, Germany, and Spain. He published Nationalism and Self-Government: The Politics of Autonomy in Scotland and Catalonia (2007) and edited Devolution and Social Citizenship in the United Kingdom (forthcoming). Anna Grzymala-Busse (political science) published Rebuilding Leviathan: Party Competition and State Exploitation in Post-Communist Democracies (2007). James C. Hathaway, James E. and Sarah A. Degan Professor in the Law School, was appointed dean of the University of Melbourne Law School and the Hearn Chair in Law at Australia's most prestigious law school. Andrei S. Markovits (German and political science) will be the Dr. Elizabeth Ortner-Chopin Visiting Professor at Webster University in Vienna in summer 2008 and was awarded an academic year 2008–09 fellowship at the Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, CA. Tom O'Donnell (Residential College) received a Fulbright Scholar award for "The Political Economy of Oil: A Comparative Study of the Internal and External Policies of Venezuela and Algeria." Helmut Puff (German) was named Richard Hudson Research Professor of History, January through May 2008. Lars Rensmann (DAAD visiting professor, political science) published Querpass: Sport und Politik in Europa und den USA (2007, w/ Andrei S. Markovits). The English version, Global Players: Sports, Politics, and Identity in Europe and America, is forthcoming. The Law School's 2008 Jean Monnet Research Fellow is Aldo Sandulli, professor of administrative law, University of Napoli. Margaret R. Somers (sociology and history) spent 2006-07 as a Center Fellow at the International Center for Advanced Studies, New York University. She was also awarded a NEH grant for the same time period and completed Genealogies of Citizenship: Markets, Statelessness, and the Right To Have Right (forthcoming). George Steinmetz (sociology and German) published The Devil's Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German Colonial State in Qingdao, Samoa, and Southwest Africa (2007). In September 2007, Jean-Marie Viaene (2003–04 NVP from the Erasmus University Rotterdam) was named visiting fellow of the European Union in Brussels. He will coordinate research on the measurement and comparison of the degree of economic integration in different parts of the world, in particular among EU countries and states in the U.S. Viaene published "The Trade and FDI Effects of EMU Enlargement" (w/ Jelle Brouwer and Richard Paap), forthcoming in the Journal of International Money and Finance. Geneviéve Zubrzycki's (sociology) recent book, The Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and Religion in Post-Communist Poland, received this year's Orbis Book Prize awarded annually by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies for "the best book in any discipline, on any aspect of Polish affairs." The book also won the American Sociological Association’s Distinguished Book Award in the Sociology of Religion and was a finalist for the Norbert Elias Prize awarded in the Netherlands. Zubrzycki received OVPR and Rackham Faculty grants for her research project on "State (re)formation, National Identity and Religion: A Comparative Study of Poland and Quebec."

 

FALL 2007
Reuven Avi-Yonah (law) Irwin I. Cohn Professor of Law, was recently appointed Chair of the American Bar Association's Committee on Value Added Tax and Other Consumption Taxes for a two-year term beginning July 2007. In May 2007, he was named International Research Fellow at the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation. Jenna Bednar (political science) and Dario Gaggio (history) were both promoted from assistant professor to associate professor with tenure.Rita Chin was awarded a fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 2007-08 and a Rackham Faculty Fellowship in support of her new book project on the European Left and postwar immigration. Rachael Criso (Romance languages & literature) received a grant from CRLT to attend the UNTELE Conference on cross-cultural communication, global networking, and second language acquisition in Compiègne, France, where she presented a paper. Dick E. H. De Boer, 2002 NVP from the Netherlands Research School for Medieval Studies in Gröningen, presented "Obey Me! I Am Neither Dead nor Insane: Disputed Authority in the Fourteenth-Century Low Countries" at the 42nd Congress of Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University. Frieda Ekotto (French and comparative literatures) was presented with the Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Award by the Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs for outstanding contributions to the development of a culturally and ethnically diverse campus community. Daniel Halberstam (law) presented "Zur Langfristigen Geschichtswirklichkeit und der Theorie des Föderalismus in Europa" at an international conference on European integration in Berlin and published "Desperately Seeking Europe: On Comparative Methodology and the Conception of Rights," International Journal of Constitutional Law 166 (2007). He also published "Of Grace and Dignity in Law: A Tribute to Friedrich Schiller" in Friedrich Schiller und der Weg in die Moderne (Walter Hinderer, ed., Königshausen & Neumann: Würzburg, 2007). James C. Hathaway's book, The Rights of Refugees under International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2005) was recently selected by the American Society of International Law to receive its Certificate of Merit designed to recognize "the most distinguished work in the field of international law in the current year or in the immediately preceding year." Vassilis Hatzopoulos (2006 Law School Jean Monnet Fellow and Assistant Professor at the Democritus University of Thrace) has been serving as an expert in the Directorate for the Internal Market at the European Parliament. He published "Why the Open Method of Coordination is bad for you: A letter to the EU,” in the European Law Journal 13, no. 3 (2007), and has "With or without you: judging politically in the area of freedom, security and justice" forthcoming in the European Law Review. Alexander Knysh (NES) published Al-Qushayri's Epistle on Sufism: An Annotated Translation (Garnet/Ithaca Press, March 2007) and was awarded a fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 2007-08 for his book project "Islam and Empire in the Northern Caucasus." Olga López Cotín (Residential College) contributed "Desde la mirada oscura: Geografías fílmicas de la inmigración en España" to the edited volume Memoria colonial e inmigración: la negritud en la España posfranquista. Eds. Rosalía Cornejo Parriego-Pról & Juan Goytisolo (Barcelona: Edicions Bellaterra, 2007, pp.142-58.) Andrei Markovits (political science and Germanic languages and literatures) is winner of the 17th-annual Golden Apple Award and the Tronstein Award for the best teacher in the Department of Political Science, received an honorary doctorate from the Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany. James I. Porter (classical studies) published the edited volume, Classical Pasts: The Classical Traditions of Greece and Rome (Princeton U. Press, 2006). Helmut Puff (Germanic languages and literatures) will serve as Interim Chair at the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures in 2007-08. Enrique García Santo-Tomás (Spanish), was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship given annually for distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishments. Scott Spector (history and Germanic languages and literatures) and Johannes von Moltke (screen arts and cultures and Germanic languages and literatures) received fellowships for 2007-08 from the Institute for the Humanities for their respective projects, "Violent Sensations: Sexuality, Crime, and Utopia in Berlin and Vienna, 1860-1914" and "Moving Pictures: Film, History, and the Politics of Emotion."