A 1931 poster showing a man in a Chinese hat, an Arab in headdress, a Native American and an African

Speaker to address the roots of fascism in Europe

On April 11, political theorist Eleni Varikas will speak on “The Colonial Genealogies of Fascisms in Europe" as part of the 2018 Institute for Comparative Modernities (ICM) New Conversations Series. The talk, at 4:45 pm in G22 Goldwin Smith Hall, is free and the public is invited.

Image of a rally with an American flag and a sign saying "love"

Historian examined today’s populist revolt in April 23 talk

In what seems to be a new age of populism, what does history tell us about elites and the will of the masses? Public intellectual and renowned military historian Victor Davis Hanson will address these issues in his talk, “Populist Revolt: Everything Old is New Again,” April 23 at 5:15 pm in Cornell’s Bio-Tech Building, G10

historian

Military historian to speak on populism April 23

<p>In what seems to be a new age of populism, what does history tell us about elites and the will of the masses?</p><p>Military historian Victor Davis Hanson will address these issues in his talk, “Populist Revolt: Everything Old is New Again,” April 23 at 5:15 p.m. in G10 Biotechnology Building. The lecture is sponsored by the Freedom and Free Societies program at Cornell and is free and open to the public.</p>

Chistine Jasmin in the snow

Scholarship opens paths for Christine Jasmin '18

<div><p>When Christine Jasmin ’18 was applying to colleges, her first glimpse of Cornell—a video posted on the university website—told her it would be a good match for her eclectic passions.</p><p>“It was a video of a student doing an interpretive dance to represent a biological mechanism,” she said. “That was mesmerizing.”</p><p>Jasmin, a science-oriented student with a lifelong love of dance, wanted to go to a college that would let her do something like that.</p></div>

books lying open on a table

Faculty participate in Ithaca's Spring Writes Literary Festival

<p>Arts & Sciences faculty will participate in this year’s Community Arts Partnership’s Spring Writes Literary Festival, taking place in downtown Ithaca May 3-6. The festival features literary-themed events, including panels and workshops geared towards emerging and established writers, as well as events for the general public such as readings, performances, play readings, and performances. This is the festival’s ninth year showcasing Finger Lakes Region writers.</p>

McGraw Tower in spring

Small grants fire up new research in the social sciences

<div><div><p>Why is expertise that used to be authoritative now sometimes dismissed as “fake news”? Is it possible to save an endangered language by bringing a native speaker to Cornell to document it? And what does it mean to work in a Bosnian weapons factory when the source of one’s livelihood is lethal to others and the environment?</p></div></div>

Klarman Hall

Olga Litvak

Trained in Jewish history at Columbia University, I work at the intersection between Jewish experience and Jewish expression. My principal subject and the focus of my writing and teaching lies in the east of Europe, where Jewish people — readers and writers, husbands and wives, fathers and sons, scholars and mystics, prophets and poets — created a culture that now lives on three continents and speaks at least twice as many languages. What continues to draw me to the study of this culture is the way in which it seems to nourish the radical contradictions that gave the world both the politics of Leon Trotsky and the fancy of Marc Chagall, both the “value pluralism” of Isaiah Berlin and the “objectivism” of Ayn Rand, both Portnoy’s Complaint and Fiddler on the Roof. How could the same place be the home of both Jewish nostalgia and Jewish revolution? In the course of writing two books and multiple articles that, in one way or another, attempt to answer this intractable question, I have had to grapple with a variety of themes that engage all modern historians — social fracture and economic mobility, mass migration, sexual anarchy, the rise of ideology, and the impact of catastrophic violence. In my new project, a book on the Russian origins of Jewish nationalism, I return to the battleground of modernity in order to find the historical traces of another Eastern European Jewish paradox: how a movement intended to liberate the Jewish body served to discipline the Jewish mind.

/olga-litvak
Klarman Hall

Mara Yue Du

Mara Du’s research centers on the history of modern China (17th century – present), particularly on law, gender, and state-building.

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Jelani Cobb

Jelani Cobb to address questions of policing and racial justice in Krieger Lecture

<p>The escalating tensions between police and the black community in the United States will be the subject of the 2018 Krieger Lecture in American Political Culture, delivered by historian Jelani Cobb. The event will include a screening of Cobb’s PBS Frontline documentary “Policing the Police,” followed by a conversation with <a href="http://history.cornell.edu/russell-rickford">Russell Rickford</a>, associate professor of history in the College of Arts & Sciences.</p>

Amanda Coate

Amanda Coate: 'Some of my best memories are going to the Rare and Manuscript Collections'

<h3>Amanda Coate</h3><h3>History</h3><h3>Ithaca, NY</h3><p><strong>Why did you choose Cornell?</strong></p><p>I chose Cornell because the Arts & Sciences curriculum offered me the opportunity to explore different interests before deciding on a major. As someone who was undecided about what she wanted to study when applying to college, I liked the freedom that I would have during my first two years at Cornell to be “undecided” while still working toward a degree.</p>

Seniors 2018: Ready to move on to the next adventure

<p><em>This story is the last in a series, checking in with some of our seniors as they plan for life after Cornell. </em></p><p>From medical school to exciting jobs to a time of discovery, the five seniors <a href="http://as.cornell.edu/news/senior-year-finding-future-relishing-each-moment">we profiled earlier this year</a> are moving on to new adventures after they graduate this weekend.</p>

Prison education program graduates 16 at Five Points

Prison education program graduates 16 at Five Points

<p>The first graduating class of Five Points Correctional Facility inmates in the <a href="http://cpep.cornell.edu/">Cornell Prison Education Program</a> (CPEP) received their degrees to congratulations and cheers at a recent ceremony.</p>

How the American asylum bureaucracy grew

<p>History Professor Maria Cristina Garcia writes in this <a href="https://on.wsj.com/2tNXVgt">Wall Street Journal editorial</a> that the policy makers who crafted the 1980 Refugee Act never imagined that within a generation the U.S. would be flooded with requests.</p>

Carol Warrior

Carol Warrior, assistant professor of English, dies at 56

“Carol was a bright light in our department and our college. Her brilliance and expertise was only matched by her kindness and generosity,” said Ella Diaz, associate professor of English and Latina/o studies. Gretchen Ritter, the Harold Tanner Dean of Arts and Sciences, called Warrior “one of the rising stars of our faculty.”

Image of a globe

Einaudi Center welcomes new program directors

The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies has selected new leaders for its South Asian, East Asian, Latin American, and peace and conflict studies programs, as well as in its international relations minor.

Image of a ball in colonial India, with a chandelier; men and women in fancy evening clothes, and Indians in turbans

Colonial Love

<p> <em>This is an episode from the “What Makes Us Human?” podcast's third season, "What Do We Know about Love?" from Cornell University’s College of Arts & Sciences, showcasing the newest thinking from across the disciplines about the relationship between humans and love. Featuring audio essays written and recorded by Cornell faculty, the series releases a new episode each Tuesday through the fall semester.</em></p>

Joel Sibley

Joel Silbey, emeritus professor of history, dies at 84

<p>Historian Joel H. Silbey, the President White Professor of History Emeritus and a member of the Cornell faculty since 1966, died Aug. 7. He was 84.</p><p>Silbey was a prolific scholar of American history and political behavior, with a particular focus on the 19th century, and his teaching and scholarly interests included the Jacksonian era, sectional controversy, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and quantitative methods in history.</p>

German map showing the Gulf of Aden around 1860. Credit: By August Heinrich Petermann (Somaliland and Aden: Images from the Past) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Field research leads to surprising results for historian

<p>Some research just has to be done on-site, said historian <a href="http://history.cornell.edu/mostafa-minawi">Mostafa Minawi</a>, and he should know.</p><p>Thanks to an ANAMED fellowship, he spent seven months in Sudan, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Somalia and Djibouti, tracking down details for his new book on Ottoman/European/Ethiopian competition over the coast of Somalia. The most surprising thing he found, he said, was how alive that history still is in some areas.</p>

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