All Ages

Russia, Ukraine, and the Laws of War

Event time: 
Wednesday, March 8, 2023 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location: 
Horchow Hall HRCH, 103 (GM Room) See map
55 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 06511
Event description: 

With Alona Verbytska, human rights advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ms. Verbytska’s portfolio covers the “Human Rights of the Defender.” She assesses and monitors the adherence to the laws of war in the conflict. She will speak about issues such as the commission of and accountability for war crimes, the use of mercenary soldiers, and the treatment of prisoners of war.

Admission: 
Free

203-432-0061

Breaches of International Law in the Aggression Against Ukraine: Women in Russian Captivity

Event time: 
Tuesday, February 21, 2023 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location: 
Henry R. Luce Hall LUCE, 203 See map
34 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 06511
Speaker/Performer: 
with Lyudmila Huseynova, Anna Olsen, and Tetiana Katrychenko
Event description: 

Lyudmila Huseynova is a resident of the temporarily occupied Novoazovsk region of Donetsk region where she worked as a safety engineer at a local poultry farm. At the time of her arrest, she had spent the past five years caring for orphans and semi-orphans from the temporarily occupied village of Primorske. She was detained on October 9, 2019 for volunteering, espousing a pro-Ukrainian position (a blue-yellow flag hung over her house in Novoazovsk for a long time), and for her social media activity. Lyudmila was initially detained in the Izolyatsia prison, where she was severely tortured. She was later transferred to a pre-trial detention center in Donetsk and charged with “espionage.” During the three years of Ludmila Huseinova’s imprisonment, the local “courts” never delivered the so-called sentence.
Anna Olsen is a senior combat medic of the chemical and biological protection company of the 36th separate brigade of marines. She, along with her siblings and stepsisters, was at the Ilyich factory in Mariupol. She was captured and spent six months in captivityat Olenivka, undergoing physical and psychological torture, and held with over 3 dozen others in a cell designed for just six individuals.
Tetiana Katrychenko is a journalist, coordinator of Ukrainian NGO Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR), and author of the 2019 report Prisoners of War and Civilian Hostages of Donbass. Since the beginning of the armed conflict, her journalistic focus has been on covering the topic of illegally detained persons in eastern Ukraine. Katrychenko later shifted from journalism work to conducting advocacy campaigns in support of detainees’ families and subsequently joined the MIHR’s team. Since February 2020, Katrychenko has been a member of the Commission launched by the Ministry of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories in Ukraine, which deals with issues related to the recognition of persons deprived of liberty as a result of armed aggression against Ukraine. Katrychenko manages the Female Face of Donbass Hostages project: she compiles lists of hostages held by representatives of illegal armed groups in Donbas, maintains contact with relatives of hostages, and interviews ex-hostages after their release. She also provides advice to relatives of newly detained persons, as well as to the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies dealing with the issue.

203-432-0061

Greece & Classical Music: In Myth and Tradition

Event time: 
Sunday, February 19, 2023 - 2:00pm to 3:00pm
Location: 
35 Hillhouse Avenue HLH35, Provost's House See map
35 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 06511
Speaker/Performer: 
Jared Andrew Michaud (Baritone) and Christina Maria Koti (Piano)
Event description: 

Greece has a strong folk music culture and a tradition of Byzantine music (Greek Orthodox church music). These styles include musical features such as tropic modes and compound rhythms, musical elements that sound ‘exotic’ to the Western-trained ear. Furthermore, the music that is often associated with Greece around the world is an early 20th-century urban popular style known as rebetika (e.g. Zorba’s dance). With these musical styles and traditions, one might wonder how Western classical music could ever find its footing; the musical building blocks of each style are so far apart that it seems that a ‘Greek version’ of classical music—an amalgamation of these two worlds—would be difficult to achieve. But surely Greek classical musicians do come to mind: Maria Callas, Dimitris Mitropoulos, Nikos Skalkottas, and perhaps others. However, while these famed Greek classical musicians put Greece ‘on the map’ for the rest of the world, they were not completely embedded in the music making of Greece nor in the creation of a national school. So does Greece have a national school of music, a collective of classical music composers working to create a national genre, an equivalent to Glinka, Britten, Bartok, or Janaček?
This recital program explores this nuanced relationship between Greek music and classical music, the age-old duality of East and West. They begin by highlighting the ways in which Greek mythology and antiquity have influenced canonical Western classical music composers such as Schubert and Berkeley. They then see that Greek musical styles have actually been incorporated into the works of other canonical composers, such as Ravel. Some composers of Greek origin have studied and lived abroad (e.g. Lambelet) and have even become pupils of Ravel (e.g. Riadis), but they still endeavored to create a national school of music, a ‘genuine’ Greek classical music style adjusted to western principles. They attempted to westernize Greek music in a similar way to the Europeanization of the nation’s political system after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Composers of the Greek National School—most notably Kalomiris, Riadis, Varvoglis, and Lambelet—attempted to create a ‘national music,’ but their music was ultimately seen as foreign to the vast majority of the Greek population. In contrast, another camp of composers (e.g. Hadjidakis, Mikis Theodorakis, Constantinides), who actually lived and worked in Greece, set out to create a new style that drew elements mainly from popular and folk music. The music of the latter composers has since dominated the musical scene and is considered to be truly ‘Greek music,’ and our program pairs this ‘authentic’ style with the styles perceived to be ‘Greek’ from the rest of the world. In doing so, they present a complex musical portrait of Greece, pulled between East and West but somehow sitting at the center of the world just as it has for centuries.

203-432-0061

Balkan Communism Revisited

Event time: 
Thursday, February 16, 2023 - 9:30am to 5:30pm
Location: 
Henry R. Luce Hall LUCE, 203 See map
34 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 06511
Event description: 

In the past few years there has been a revived interest in how international Communism affected politics and society in the Balkan region during the Cold War. Most importantly, new research has convincingly shown that Soviet control was not uniform in the region and that the cracks that appeared on the surface of the Soviet bloc merit investigation as they expose significant differences at the societal, political, and cultural level. Can we speak of Balkan Communism as a distinct analytical category or is it more pertinent to deal with communism in the region based solely upon its national framework and characteristics? This panel of scholars aims to present to the public new findings on this topic while exploring the residue of that era in collective memory and public history.
10.00 – 11.30: First panel
Elidor Mëhilli, City University of New York
Balkan Communism as a Lesson in Geopolitics
Nikos Marantzidis, University of Macedonia
Stillborn Balkanism: the Comintern, the Balkan Communist Federation and Greek Communism during the interwar

Theodora Dragostinova, Ohio State University
“As Much Balkan as Communist”: Perspectives on Balkan Communism during the Late Cold War

13.30 – 15.00: Second panel
Vladimir Tismaneanu, University of Maryland
Balkan Communism as National Stalinism: Reflections on the Romanian Experiment

Emily Greble, Vanderbilt University
Contested Communisms: Myths, Practices, and Experiences of Communism in Yugoslavia

Stefan Gužvica, University of Belgrade
Sickle Without Hammer: a Balkan Perspective on Communism from the Comintern to the Cominform

15.30 – 17.00: Plenary session and concluding remarks (discussant: John Iatrides, Southern Connecticut University)

This event will be available in person on the Yale University campus and via Zoom.

203-432-0061

Addressing the Security Risks of Anti-Roma Hate Speech on Social Media Platforms

Event time: 
Monday, February 13, 2023 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location: 
Online See map
Speaker/Performer: 
Pavlina Pavlova
Event description: 

This paper examines hate speech and its associated risks for human security, focusing on user-generated content (UGC) targeting Roma and related content moderation standards, tools, processes, and practices. The Romani people have experienced systemic racism, discrimination, and exclusion and faced prejudices, stereotypes, and hostility across countries. These negative attitudes are perpetuated, broadcast, and intensified in online spaces in the form of hateful and racist speech or incitement to violence. The paper outlines cases that illustrate common narratives about Roma and their translation into the online realm while highlighting the individual and community harm for targeted people. The narratives and security risks are further instrumentalized to examine the challenges and tensions that platforms encounter when developing and applying measures for content moderation. It is proposed that AI-powered detection tools are integral to tackling hate speech, but due to the highly contextual nature and differentiated risks connected to this phenomenon, they are unfit for being the exclusive means for decision-making. Policing the online ecosystem is most effective when models of content moderation are applied holistically with each layer extending the security and compensating for the limitations of the other. Social media providers need to follow a victim-sensitive approach to tackle the asymmetric threats that hate speech presents to minority, marginalized and vulnerable communities.
Pavlina Pavlova is Public Policy Advisor at the CyberPeace Institute in Geneva, Switzerland. Prior to joining the Institute, she was an official at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) working on security assessment and capacity building of Roma human rights defenders in the OSCE area. Pavlina worked with hate crime victims and gained first-hand experience with the impacts and harm that inadequate content moderation presents for Roma in Europe.

Admission: 
Free but register in advance
https://yale.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Yg6u1iNxS0a7TrhfP0B0Fw

203-432-0061

PRFDHR Seminar: Genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Its Aftermath: Bosnian Muslims’ Perceptions, Interpretations, and Explanations, Professor Jasmina Besirevic Regan

Event time: 
Tuesday, February 7, 2023 - 2:30pm to 3:45pm
Location: 
Henry R. Luce Hall LUCE, 203 See map
34 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 06511
Speaker/Performer: 
Jasmina Besirevic Regan, Yale University - Departments of Sociology and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration
Event description: 

The presentation will provide a brief overview of the history of former Yugoslavia and focus on its violent break-up, especially on the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It will discuss the refugee experience and importance of family relationships, ethnic and religious identities, as well as the issues around returning home and rebuilding their community in Banja Luka.

Jasmina Besirevic Regan is the Associate Dean for Graduate Education at the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and a faculty member in the Departments of Sociology and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration. Her academic training is in the sociology of genocide and her teaching and research interests include ethnic conflict, identity, nationalism, human rights, and refugee resettlement. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Yale having also earned the Master’s degree there. Her dissertation on ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian city of Banja Luka focuses on the emergence of a Bosnian Muslim refugee community.

Dr. Besirevic Regan has presented papers on the sociology of genocide at a number of professional meetings, and has been invited to speak at international conferences both at Yale and abroad. Before joining the Graduate School academic affairs team, she served as the Dean of Trumbull College, one of fourteen residential colleges at Yale, for twelve years.

Admission: 
Free but register in advance

Documentary Screening: With Olive Groves in the Aegean: Greeks & Turks

Event time: 
Wednesday, November 30, 2022 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location: 
Rosenkranz Hall RKZ, 202 See map
115 Prospect Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Event description: 

In 1923 when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk rebuilt modern Turkey on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, the Treaty of Lausanne ordered that all Muslims of Turkish decent who were living in Greece be exchanged with any Greek Christians living in Asia Minor. This population exchange of nearly two million people has left deep traces, many of which are still perceptible today. Fortunately one thing soothed the resulting pain and resentment: both Greeks and Turks had been growing olive trees since the olden days, providing a main source of survival and wealth. They lost their homes, but found new olive groves offering the livelihoods they needed.

203-432-0061

Borders, Migration, and Ethnicity in Historical Perspective: Greek Americans and Italian Americans in Context

Event time: 
Wednesday, November 16, 2022 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location: 
Online See map
Event description: 

Theodora Patrona teaches literary courses at the School of English of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki as special teaching fellow. She has published extensively on Greek American and Italian American literature and film, and regularly reviews for journals and sites abroad. Dr Patrona is the author of Return Narratives: Ethnic Space in Late Twentieth Century Greek American and Italian American Literature(Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2017), and coeditor of Redirecting Ethnic Singularity: Italian Americans and Greek Americans in Conversation (Fordham University Press, 2022). Dr Patrona is currently working on two projects, co-editing a volume on the unchartered cultural contribution of Greek American women and another one on the concept of the father in Italian American culture.

203-432-0061

2022 Annual YaleCHESS Lecture: Antisemitisms in Weimar Germany: Evidence from Children's Tales

Event time: 
Friday, November 4, 2022 - 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Location: 
Institution for Social and Policy Studies PROS77, The Policy Lab at ISPS See map
77 Prospect Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Speaker/Performer: 
Robert Braun
Event description: 

Robert Braun, Assistant Professor, Sociology and Political Science, University of California - Berkeley
Professor Braun’s research focuses on civil society and intergroup relationships in times of social upheaval and has been published in the American Journal of Sociology, the Annual Review of Political Science, the American Political Science Review, the American Sociological Review, Theory and Society and Social Forces. His first book “Protectors of Pluralism” tries to explain why some local communities step up to protect victims of mass persecution while others refrain from doing so and is forthcoming at Cambridge University Press. his second book project, “Bogeymen”, traces the evolution of fear in Central Europe throughout the 19th and 20th century by studying the spread of frightful figures in children’s stories.

203-432-0061

Laura Briggs- RITM Distinguished Speaker Series

Event time: 
Thursday, October 27, 2022 - 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Location: 
Humanities Quadrangle HQ, L01 See map
320 York Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Speaker/Performer: 
Laura Briggs
Event description: 

Professor Briggs is an expert on U.S. and international child welfare policy and on transnational and transracial adoption. Briggs’ most recent book, Taking Children: A History of American Terror (University of California Press, 2020), examines the 400-year-old history of the United States’ use of taking children from marginalized communities—from the taking of Black and Native children during America’s founding to the Donald Trump’s policy of family separation for Central American migrants and asylum seekers at the U.S./Mexico border—as a violent tool for political ends.

Admission: 
Free
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