Graduate And Professional

Populism has a complicated relationship with power and democratic institutions. Conventional wisdom assumes that populists cannot last in power; they either become mainstream or turn authoritarian. Such hypotheses are arguably rooted in systematic, anti-populist theorizations, which view populism always as a threat to democracy, connecting it with demagogy and irresponsibility and understanding it as a force that belongs to the opposition.

This talk puts these claims under scrutiny, as they distract our attention from populism’s ‘essence’—the construction of collective identities in the name of ‘the people’ against ‘the elites’. Using a discursive and performative perspective, Giorgos Venizelos focuses on the charismatic function of populism to mobilize emotions and interpellate identification through antagonistic discourse and transgressive aesthetics. Such an account offers a rigorous yet flexible conceptualization that allows one to grasp the rhetorical and affective dynamics of populism in power.

Giorgos Venizelos is Fellow in Political Polarization at the Democracy Institute, Central European University. His research is situated at the intersections of contemporary political theory and comparative politics with a special focus on populism, anti-populism and discourse theory. He has published in journals including Political Studies, Constellations, Critical Sociology and Representation . He co-convenes the Populism Specialist Group of the Political Studies Association ( www.giorgosvenizelos.com).

One of the most underreported human catastrophes of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is the ongoing cultural and existential erasure of the country’s Nadazov Greek population, which, prior to the war, constituted the third-largest ethnic group (after Ukrainians and Russians) in the bitterly contested Donetsk region. Most of these Greeks were concentrated in and around the city of Mariupol, which they founded after Catherine the Great had resettled them from their ancient homeland of Crimea in 1778. This imperial precedent—and the cultural prejudice used to justify its expedience—would persist. The Soviet policy of mass persecution of Greeks, which included deportations, executions, and bans on their language and culture, started with the NKVD’s so-called “Greek Operation” under Stalin in 1937 and continued for many years thereafter. For today’s Nadazov Greeks, who come from a region of Ukraine that has been militarized since 2014 and much of which was effectively destroyed in some of the heaviest fighting of 2022, Russia’s war and occupation now pose a question of both cultural preservation and immediate survival.

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Tetiana (Tatiana) Liubchenko is an associate professor of Greek Linguistics at Kyiv National Linguistic University (Ukraine). She obtained her undergraduate degree in Philology (English language and literature, Modern Greek) from Mariupol State University in 2000 and received her PhD in Greek Philology from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in 2009. She has published over 50 articles in various subfields of linguistics. Tetiana was head of the Modern Greek and Translation Studies section at Kyiv National Linguistic University. She also served as an expert at the Hennadi Udovenko Diplomatic Academy of Ukraine through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine; an expert at the Institute of Education Content Modernization through the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, which supervised the publication of school textbooks under state order; and she was head of the All-Ukrainian School Olympiad in Greek Language and Literature. As a representative of the Greek population of Ukraine, she has been participating in the organization of numerous international events at the diplomatic level for more than 25 years. With the outbreak of full-scale war in Ukraine, she moved to Greece, where she works as a translator and interpreter and serves as a representative of the Union of the Greeks of Ukraine in Greece, a non-profit organization. Her most recent projects include translating and participating in a 2023 documentary about the Ukrainians and Greeks of Ukraine who now live in Greece as a result of the war (part of the “Thessaloniki The Human Histories” TV series). She is also working on launching a website dedicated to the preservation of the legacy of Ukraine’s Nadazov Greeks.

Join a YCBA student guide for a tour of In a New Light: Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art.

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While the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) is closed for building conservation, more than fifty major collection works, spanning four centuries of British landscape and portraiture traditions, are on view at the Yale University Art Gallery. Join our student guides to learn more about the exhibition, as well as architecture, collection, and history of the YCBA.

The Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy hosts Russia expert Tom Graham for a frank discussion on US-Russia relations. His new book, Getting Russia Right, identifies the blind spots that have prevented Washington from seeing Russia as it really is and from crafting a policy to advance American interests without provoking an aggressive Russian response. 

A former Jackson School Senior Fellow and Foreign Service officer, Graham is now a managing director at Kissinger Associates, Inc., where he focuses on Russian and Eurasian affairs. He was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russia on the National Security Council staff from 2004 to 2007 and Director for Russian Affairs on that staff from 2002 to 2004. From 2001 to 2002, he served as the Associate Director of the Policy Planning Staff of the Department of State. He co-founded the Russian Studies Project at Yale.

Arne Westad, Elihu Professor of History and Global Affairs, and Director of International Security Studies and the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy, will moderate.

Free and open to the Yale community.

The seminar led by Dr. Raphaela Schweiger will delve into the profound impacts of digitalization and technological advancements on migration and refugee policies. In a world shaped by rapid technological change, this seminar offers an exploration of the evolving landscape, both globally and in some specific cases in Africa, the Middle East, Europe and North America. Technology has already begun reshaping the experiences of migrants, refugees, and those on the move. From AI-powered virtual psychotherapy in refugee camps to blockchain-based solutions for identity verification, the migration management field is undergoing a profound evolution. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated these digitalization processes, demanding swift policy adaptation. The seminar will investigate the wide-reaching effects of digital connectivity, from online learning platforms empowering refugees to the creation of new information ecosystems in the migration space. AI, biometrics, and blockchain are driving innovations in critical migration areas, from predicting migration patterns to transforming asylum processes. But this transformation isn’t without its challenges. As technology intersects with geopolitical shifts, we must grapple with questions of privacy, data access, and human rights. Vulnerabilities and discrimination in the migration space demand our attention.

Raphaela Schweiger is a 2023 Yale World Fellow and the Director of the Migration Program at the Robert Bosch Stiftung. Her portfolio includes global governance of migration, climate mobility, the future of protection of refugees and migrants, and the intersection between technological change and migration. She also works on the intersection of migration with other global issues, such as climate change, peace and conflict, inequalities, and inclusive societies, and has published widely on these issues. Raphaela is a board member of the Doris Wuppermann Foundation, a German foundation, focusing on supporting youth-led initiatives fostering democracy and civic participation. She holds a PhD from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, a Political Science and Law degree from the University of Munich, an International Studies/Peace and Conflict Studies from the Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, the Technical University Darmstadt and the University Complutense de Madrid.