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$10,000 Laura Shannon Prize awarded to Clemson historian

2013-02-05T08:40:00-05:00

The Nanovic Institute for European Studies has awarded Michael Meng the 2013 Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies for his book, Shattered Spaces: Encountering Jewish Ruins in Postwar Germany and Poland, published by Harvard University Press (2011). The $10,000 Laura Shannon Prize, which is poised to become the preeminent book prize in European studies, is presented annually to the author of the best book in European studies that transcends a focus on any one country, state, or people to stimulate new ways of thinking about contemporary Europe as a whole, and rotates between the humanities and history & social sciences. This is the second award for history & social sciences, which judged nominated books published in 2010 and 2011.

The jury commended Meng’s book, stating:

Michael Meng’s compellingly written and moving study demonstrates how the development of “Europe” as a whole interfaced with the problems of dealing with the physical remnants of Central European Jewish civilization. His work examines the fate of Jewish ruins and remains in Poland and in Germany—East, West, and reunited—from the end of the Second World War until the present. With inventive and original research on the history of Jewish buildings and religious sites in five cities—Warsaw, Wroclaw, Berlin, Potsdam, and Essen—Meng is able to trace the arguments and plans of the decision-makers who determined whether synagogues, community centers, cemeteries, and housing blocks, would be demolished, allowed to disintegrate, or refurbished for other functions. Meng analyzes the important transformation of memory culture in the 1970s and then again after 1989, when, under the influence of what he calls “redemptive cosmopolitanism,” Jewish sites were preserved and have been built anew, to the point where we have beautiful synagogues and impressive historical museums and memorials in both Poland and Germany. In Shattered Spaces, Meng offers important and illuminating insights into why these crucial shifts happened. He brings to this task a broad-ranging understanding of architectural history, urban planning, and postwar European issues of memory and forgetting.

The final jury members were: Paolo Carozza, Professor of Law and Director of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, University of Notre Dame; Harold James, Claude and Lore Kelly Professor in European Studies and Director, Program in Contemporary European Politics and Society, Princeton University; Jytte Klausen, Lawrence A. Wien Professor of International Cooperation, Brandeis University; Norman M. Naimark, Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of Eastern European Studies and Director of the Division of International, Comparative, and Area Studies, Stanford University; and Thomas F. X. Noble, Professor of History, University of Notre Dame.

Meng will accept the award and present a lecture in the fall semester of 2013 at the University of Notre Dame. Michael Meng is Assistant Professor of History at Clemson University. He received his B.A. from Boston College and his Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Meng has received grants and fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Council on Germany, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Fulbright, the German Marshall Fund, the German Academic Exchange Service, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, and the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, among others.

The Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the University of Notre Dame is committed to enriching the intellectual culture of Notre Dame by creating an integrated, interdisciplinary home for students and faculty to explore the evolving ideas, cultures, beliefs, and institutions that shape Europe today. For additional information about the Nanovic Institute, the Laura Shannon Prize, and the author, please see nanovic.nd.edu.

Nanovic Fellow receives Lockwood Award from the American Musicological Society

2012-11-29T10:00:00-05:00

Pierpaolo Polzonetti, assistant professor in the Program of Liberal Studies and Nanovic Institute Faculty Fellow at the University of Notre Dame, has been awarded the 2012 Lewis Lockwood Award for his book, Italian Opera in the Age of the American Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2011). The book looks at how revolutionary America appeared to European audiences through the medium of opera.

Preview the Book

The Nanovic Institute for European Studies is mentioned in the acknowledgments for supporting the book’s research funds, and microfilm acquisition, and hosting of a faculty discussion group that participated heavily in the review of the book. The Institute also provided support in the acquisition of the copy of L’orfanella americana, a rare Italian opera manuscript from 1787 that scholars had believed lost, but resurfaced in 2008 in Genoa, Italy.

The Lewis Lockwood Award honors each year a musicological book of exceptional merit published during the previous year in any language and in any country by a scholar in the early stages of his or her career who is a member of the American Musicological Society or a permanent resident or citizen of the United States or Canada.

Three Nanovic grant recipients publish in Film Matters magazine

2012-11-26T10:00:00-05:00

Film Matters Magazine

Three Notre Dame students from the Department of Film, Theatre, and Television have published articles in the peer-reviewed magazine Film Matters, a quarterly magazine celebrating the work of undergraduate film scholars as well a prepares students for graduate study in the field and additional research. Javi Zubizarreta and Eleanor Huntington published in 2010 and now senior Kathleen Bracke, recent winner of the Princess Grace Foundation Award, will join them 2012. Bracke’s article, “Understanding Defeat by Means of Jan Patocka: A Close Examination of Věra Chytilová’s Daisies“ is forthcoming in issue 3.1 (2012) of Film Matters. All three of these film students also received travel and research grants from the Nanovic Institute for European Studies during their undergraduate careers at the University of Notre Dame.

Kommers honored with Berlin symposium

2012-11-20T09:35:00-05:00

In late October, Donald Kommers, emeritus professor of political science and renowned scholar on German constitutional law, was honored by the American Academy in Berlin with a symposium, “The Curious Life of the Grundgesetz in America.” Kommers is a faculty fellow of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies.

The symposium was held in honor of Kommer’s 80th birthday, and corresponded with publication of the third edition of his book “The Constitutional Jurisprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany.” In addition to the American Academy, the symposium was sponsored by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Dräger Foundation, the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and the Notre Dame Law School.

Originally published by Carol C. Bradley at today.nd.edu on November 20, 2012.

In memoriam: Edward A. Goerner, professor emeritus of political science

2012-10-04T22:00:00-04:00

Edward A. Goerner, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Notre Dame, died Oct. 2 (Tuesday) at Memorial Hospital in South Bend. He was 82 years old.

A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Goerner graduated from Notre Dame in 1952 and served three years in the U.S. Navy before earning a doctoral degree in political science from the University of Chicago in 1959. He taught for a year at Yale before joining the Notre Dame faculty in 1960.

A political theorist with a particular interest in religion and politics, Goerner was one of the University’s most popular teachers, once described in a student publication as “one of those unique individuals you can build an education around” and “a compelling lecturer who discusses political theory not in the intricate language of the academician but rather in the terms of the layman. The result is often discussion in Goerner classes which lasts 20 minutes beyond the bell.”

“Ed Goerner was a towering figure in Notre Dame’s Political Science Department and one of its most respected and conscientious members,” said Donald Kommers, Emeritus Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie Professor of Political Science and professor of law. “Ed was more than an esteemed colleague. He was an accomplished political theorist, a brilliant teacher, a friend and mentor to hundreds of students, a Notre Dame loyalist to the bone, and a person of enormous personal grace and elegance. Ed was also much more than a political scientist. He was a person steeped in liberal learning and Catholic thought and totally committed to the liberal arts; we cherished him for his broad intellectual perspective and ever-inquiring mind. I shall miss him not only for the colleagueship we shared over the decades but also for the conversations we have had in recent years owing to our common interest in opera and symphonic music.”

Goerner contributed numerous articles to such journals as Political Theory, the American Journal of Jurisprudence, and Continuum and was the author of “Peter and Caesar” and editor of “The Constitutions of Europe” and “Democracy in Crisis.” He also served as associate editor of Notre Dame’s journal of political theory, The Review of Politics.

He is survived by his wife, Iris Mensing Goerner of South Bend; four daughters, Liza (Tony) Crisafi of San Diego, Calif.; Meg (Shawn) Collins of Naperville, Ill.; Kate (Bob) Munhall of Phoenix, Ariz.; Becky (Troy) Bach of Portage, Mich.; one son, Peter G. Goerner of Greenwood, Ind.; 10 grandchildren; two sisters, Dorothy Goerner Ducker of Birmingham, Mich., and Alice (Bill) Pike of New Orleans.

Visitation will be from 2-6 p.m. Oct. 7 (Sunday) at Kaniewski Funeral Home, 3545 N. Bendix Dr., South Bend.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 9:30 a.m. Oct. 8 (Monday) in Notre Dame’s Basilica of the Sacred Heart.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Center for the Homeless, 813 S. Michigan St., South Bend, IN 46601; Sacred Heart Parish, University of Notre Dame, 104 The Presbytery, Notre Dame, IN 46556; or the Snite Museum of Art, Notre Dame, IN 46556.

Originally published by Michael Garvey at newsinfo.nd.edu on October 04, 2012.

Nanovic Institute supports exclusive FTT Cannes documentary

2012-09-20T09:00:00-04:00

The Nanovic Institute for European Studies is proud to be the first sponsor to commit to the U Cannes Do It! documentary project.

Notre Dame Film Students Granted Exclusive Right to Make Cannes Documentary

Networking with industry insiders, watching highly anticipated films, walking the red carpet, and seeing stars was all part of the job for a group of University of Notre Dame students who jetted off to the 2012 Cannes International Film Festival this summer.

Working with Assistant Professor Aaron Magnan-Park, the students from the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre (FTT) were granted the exclusive right to make a documentary about the internship program at the festival’s American Pavilion—an opportunity that provided a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the premier event in international film.

“There was always a frenzy,” says senior Erin Moffitt. “There’s a certain chaos to it because everyone comes with certain aspirations and goals they want to be achieved by the end. So there are people trying to distribute movies, people trying to get into movies; the range of people you meet there is extraordinary.”

Capturing Cannes

For 17 days in May, Moffitt plus seniors Collin Erker and Nicole Timmerman, junior Zuri Eshun, sophomores Phillip Gayoso and Leah Kalas, as well as alumni Alissa Ott ’12 and Edward Song ’06 raced around Cannes—often in matching Notre Dame T-shirts—to capture just the right footage.

It was also a great opportunity, Eshun says, to demonstrate the talent and professionalism of Notre Dame’s film program. “Being there, being those Notre Dame kids who were always shooting everywhere, we definitely had an impact,” she says. “Everyone around us knew we were really dedicated to our project and that really made a name for Notre Dame in the American Pavilion and the internship program.”

But while the setting may have been glamorous, shooting in Cannes at the festival was a real challenge because so many things were going on at once, from star-studded red carpet events, press conferences, and screenings to the constant flurry of business and networking activity that takes place during the annual gathering. And, of course, there are the real-world surprises inherent in any documentary project.

“You can plan as much as you want,” Moffitt says, “but rain will come when you want to shoot outside, a surprise guest will appear somewhere but you suddenly can’t get through to that area. With documentary, you always have to stay on your toes. You have to be ready for anything.”

True Team Effort

Solid teamwork was a key to the project’s success, says Erker, who served as a co-producer with Moffitt and Ott. “I have never before been dropped in a group that simply works so well together,” he says. “We worked incredibly long hours but were able to maintain the right attitude throughout the grueling days.”

And the work didn’t start or stop at Cannes.

Along with Magnan-Park, who served as executive producer, the team met regularly during the 2011-12 academic year to design the overall aesthetics of the film, write the shooting script, determine equipment needs, and work out other logistics. They also shared all pre- and post-production duties.

The final project took three forms: The Festival, a documentary that promotes Cannes, the American Pavilion, and the benefits of interning there; a package of featurettes that focus on the specific types of internships available; and a trailer that can also be used as an introductory audiovisual clip when American Pavilion representatives visit college campuses.

“As much as it was an enriching experience for us as individuals, as a team, and as a University,” Magnan-Park says, “the larger mission was to present this opportunity for a global audience so that other people who are equally impassioned about cinema and want a career as filmmakers or in production, exhibition or distribution—or on the academic side—will discover the internship program.”

Drive and Passion

Magnan-Park and the entire team say they are proud to play a role in raising the international profile of Notre Dame’s film department.

“It really showcases our drive and passion,” Moffitt says. “Any other school could have thought of this project, but they didn’t. We did. And not only that, we got full funding from the University.”

Indeed, the project received support from across the University, including the Center for Creative Computing, Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement, College of Arts and Letters, College of First Year Studies, DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts, FTT, Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, Multicultural Student Programs and Services, Nanovic Institute for European Studies, and Office of Campus Ministry.

In return, participants returned from Cannes with valuable hands-on experience in film production, insight on the international film world, a new understanding of the various career paths available within the industry, and—perhaps most important—inspiration.

“Being in film, being committed to film, the ultimate destination is always Cannes,” Magnan-Park says. “And what is beautiful about this is that the students got to experience it early in their careers so they know already what it is about. Now, after the documentary, they will be able to find their own path to make it there again on their own, sooner rather than later.

“It’s not an impossible dream. They have been there once; a return trip is almost guaranteed.”

Read the comments and reflections by the U CANNES DO IT! Team

by Kate Cohorst

Originally published on the FTT website on September 18, 2012

Major New Archive in Russian History

2012-09-13T11:00:00-04:00

Thanks to the efforts of faculty fellow Semion Lyandres (History) and crucial seed funding from the Nanovic Institute, Notre Dame has now unveiled a significant archive of primary documents that shed new light on the origins of modern Russia.

Acquired from Zinaida Leonidovna Polievktova-Nikoladze in Tblisi, Georgia, the archive contains three generations of materials collected by a family in Georgia descended from Niko Nikoladze, the father-in-law of Mikhail Polievktov, a prominent Russian historian from St. Petersburg.

After establishing a historical commission in 1917 to document the February Revolution that deposed the Tsar, Polievktov had to flee Russia in the 1920s with the commission’s materials. Their whereabouts remained a mystery until Lyandres tracked them down and negotiated their sale.

The archive contains transcripts of interviews conducted by the Polievktov commission, which challenge important interpretations of what happened that winter. It also preserves a massive number of diaries, official papers, volumes of correspondence, and photographs from Polievktov’s descendents, all of whom were interesting professional figures in their own right. Typically, collections like these come from different sources and are sold separately at auction. What is unique about this archive is that it was preserved entirely intact, in one place, and that Notre Dame was able to purchase it in its entirety.

“Lyandres’s work in bringing the Polievktov collection to Notre Dame means that we will become a major center of research in this area. It’s an extraordinary achievement.”

~ John T. McGreevy, The I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters

It took three years to transport the documents by hand to the Special Collections department of Hesburgh Library. By far the largest and most significant archive in modern European history at Notre Dame, the Polievktov archive is one of the most important and extensive private collections of papers on modern Russian history in the United States.

“It’s a real coup,” says Lyandres. “From nothing, our visibility changes overnight. We become a major player in modern Russian history.” The materials will now be processed, organized, digitized, and made fully accessible, making possible a wide range of new scholarly projects and graduate student dissertations. “The Polievktov-Nikoladze papers will be mined by students of imperial Russia and the Soviet Union for decades to come,” says George Rugg, curator of Special Collections at the Hesburgh Library. An exhibit of items drawn from the collection will be on display this fall.

“Without the Nanovic Institute’s support at a critical time, this collection may not have made it to Notre Dame.”

~ Semion Lyandres, Associate Professor of History and co-director of the Russian and East European Studies program

Archival photos reproduced from the originals held by the department of special collections of the University Libraries of Notre Dame.

History Ph.D. Student Awarded Fulbright to Switzerland

2012-08-15T16:00:00-04:00

Adam Asher Duker, a graduate student in the University of Notre Dame’s Department of History, has been awarded a 2012 Fulbright to Switzerland, along with a Bourse de la Confédération Suisse.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program funds up to a year of research and study abroad in more than 140 countries. Approximately 1,000 winners are selected each year, based on their academic and leadership potential.

“I am thrilled for the opportunity to continue my research in Geneva this year,” says Duker, whose dissertation is tentatively titled “Providence Under Pressure: Israelite Identity and Siege Warfare in France and Geneva, 1562-1602.”

Advised by Brad Gregory, Dorothy G. Griffin Professor of Early Modern European History, Duker’s dissertation explores the intellectual, cultural, emotional, and psychological facets of Christian identity during the French Wars of Religion and the Savoyard siege of Geneva.

Duker’s research examines how different confessional communities understood themselves through the lens of the Hebrew Bible, and how the meaning this Israelite identity changed along with the fortunes of Catholic and Protestant armies during the course of the religious wars.

“I hope to reconstruct and critically examine how Christians during the Reformation era sought to monopolize the identity of ancient Israel, and how this identity had the power to both inflame and pacify confessional violence,” he says. “By understanding the discourse and modes of thought of these Christians, I intend to identify how specific aspects of religious belief and identity inspired confessional hostility. My research will forward our understanding of the rhetoric and reality behind religious warfare in early modern Europe.”

Duker will spend the 2012-2013 academic year at the Institut d’Histoire de la Réformation (IHR), which is housed at the Université de Genève.

“The IHR boasts some of the best faculty and one of the best research collections in Reformation studies,” Duker says. “I have had the opportunity to participate in the IHR’s cours d’été seven times over the last four years and have benefited immensely from the focused seminars led by Professors Irena Backus, Philip Benedict, Maria-Cristina Pitassi, and Daniella Camillocci, among others. I look forward to spending nine uninterrupted months conducting research in Geneva.”

In addition to the Fulbright and Bourse de la Confédération Suisse fellowships, Duker received a multi year Harvey Fellowship in 2010. He also won the 2011 Carl S. Meyer Prize from the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference (SCSC) for a paper titled “The Hermeneutics of Emotional Restraint: Calvin’s Pastoral Theology of Imprecation in Comparative Context.”

The Meyer Prize is awarded—not necessarily every year—for the best research paper presented by a graduate student or assistant professor at the previous meeting of the SCSC. The prize includes recognition in The Sixteenth Century Journal, and the opportunity to publish a revised version of the conference paper in the journal.

Learn More >

Originally published by Kate Cohorst at al.nd.edu on July 24, 2012.

Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University nominated Apostolic Exarch for Ukraines in France

2012-08-01T16:00:00-04:00

Pope Benedict XVI nominated Rev. Borys Gudziak, one of our friends from the Catholic Universities Partnership, as Apostolic Exarch for Ukrainians in France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Switzerland this summer. Full story

In memoriam: Sabine MacCormack, Hesburgh Professor of Arts and Letters

2012-06-18T16:00:00-04:00

Sabine MacCormack, Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Professor of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame, died Saturday (June 16) after suffering a heart attack while gardening at her home in South Bend. She was 71.

A native of Frankfurt, Germany, MacCormack was educated there and in England, where she earned bachelor and doctoral degrees from Oxford University in 1964 and 1974, respectively. Before joining the Notre Dame faculty in 2003, she had taught history and the classics at the University of Texas at Austin, Stanford University and the University of Michigan.

MacCormack, a historian and classicist who taught and wrote about religion and culture in ancient Rome and colonial Latin America, was unusual among her international colleagues for the prominence of her scholarship in those two very different areas. She also was among Notre Dame’s most popular and affectionately regarded teachers, not only among the graduate students whose dissertations she directed, but also among first year students whom she taught in the required University Seminar course. A particular focus of her teaching, she said, was “on the nature of knowledge; on what we think we know, and why, and what we might actually know.”

“Her commitment to the most exacting scholarship spanned centuries, cultures and continents,” said Rev. Robert E. Sullivan, professor of history and associate vice president for academic mission at Notre Dame. “Her devotion to her students, from first year to Ph.D., and her genius for friendship were also catholic.”

One of those students, Clifford Ando, now a professor of classics, history and law at the University of Chicago, said that MacCormack’s painful childhood in a Europe shattered by World War II had left her “intensely committed to the self-redemptive power of human communities and to the role of scholarship in acts of love and understanding. A lifelong commitment to the indigenous populations of Spanish Latin America was, for her, not simply political, nor to one side of historical scholarship. She urged, rather, that responsible historical scholarship should embrace the totality of populations, which were at once Latin and Spanish; Quechua, Creole and Aymaran; European and American.”

MacCormack was one of Notre Dame’s most highly decorated faculty members. Among the conspicuous recognitions of her innovative scholarship were the 2003 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Distinguished Achievement Award and her 2007 election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was the author of numerous articles and book chapters in several languages and the author of five books, including “Art and Ceremony in late Antiquity;” “Religion in the Andes: Vision and Imagination in Early Colonial Peru;” “The Shadows of Poetry: Vergil in the Mind of Augustine;” and, most recently, “On the Wings of Time: Rome, the Incas, Spain and Peru.”

“Sabine was one of the most distinguished humanists in Notre Dame’s history, and one of the leading humanists in the contemporary scholarly world,” said John McGreevy, I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters. “Her scholarly range, from antiquity to the colonial Andes was matched by her extraordinary scholarly passion, from the impeccable Latin she used to study Augustine to the Quechua she mastered to better understand the lives of Andean indigenous people during the period of the Spanish conquest.”

Most recently, as if to illustrate that passion and range, MacCormack had been at work both on a textual exegesis of Saint Augustine’s commentaries on Genesis and on a study of the life and ideas of the 16th century Jesuit missionary, historian and theologian José de Acosta S.J.

A funeral Mass will be celebrated Friday (June 22) at 2 p.m. in Saint Matthew Cathedral Catholic Church in South Bend. Contributions may be made to the Bishop Crowley Education Fund in care of the Cathedral of St. Matthew. A memorial Mass for Sabine MacCormack in Notre Dame’s Basilica of the Sacred Heart is being planned for early next fall at a date and time to be announced.

Originally published by Michael O. Garvey at newsinfo.nd.edu on June 18, 2012.

Director of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies to address the Pontifical Academy of the Social Sciences

2012-04-26T11:00:00-04:00

This week, the Director of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, A. James McAdams, will address the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences at the Casina Pio IV in Vatican City at a plenary session on “The Global Quest for Tranquillitas Ordinis: Pacem in terris, Fifty Years Later.” Pacem in terris, an encyclical written in 1963 by Pope John XXIII, presents three core features of an international moral order: a set of principles to guide the relations among states; a novel prescription to govern these relations; and an ongoing challenge. McAdams, in a paper entitled “Which Europe? What Union?” applies these principles to the European Union’s response to the sovereign debt crisis. He suggests that if Germany took a more self-consciously European leadership role, its leadership could help to realize a sense of European identity that serves Pacem in terris’s conception of an international moral order.

This gathering of the Pontifical Academy of the Social Sciences is expected to include Reinhard Cardinal Marx, who offered the Nanovic Institute’s Keeley Vatican Lecture at Notre Dame in 2010; Walter Cardinal Kasper, a 2002 Notre Dame honorary degree recipient; as well as Nobel Prize winners in economics Kenneth Arrow and Joseph Stiglitz. Pope John Paul II founded the Pontifical Academy of the Social Sciences in 1994 for the purpose of “promoting the study and progress of the social sciences, primarily economics, sociology, law and political science.” The Academy seeks to foster dialogue that can aid the Church in the development of social doctrine and its application in contemporary society.

McAdams, the William M. Scholl Professor of International Affairs at the University of Notre Dame, has directed the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at Notre Dame since 2002. The Nanovic Institute is committed to enriching the intellectual culture of Notre Dame by creating an integrated, interdisciplinary home for students and faculty to explore the evolving ideas, cultures, beliefs, and institutions that shape Europe today. The Nanovic Institute continues to explore opportunities to develop Notre Dame’s relationship with the Vatican, such as through the Keeley Vatican Lecture series.

Program for The Global Quest for Tranquillitas Ordinis: Pacem in Terris, Fifty Years Later

Download the Paper Which Europe, What Union?: Pacem in Terris, the Euro, and the Future of European Unification (PDF) by A. James McAdams

Nanovic Institute awards $10,000 Laura Shannon Prize to 'The Hebrew Republic'

2012-02-14T22:30:00-05:00

The Nanovic Institute for European Studies is pleased to announce that Eric Nelson has been awarded the Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies for his book, The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought, published by Harvard University Press (2010). The $10,000 Laura Shannon Prize, which is poised to become the preeminent book prize in European studies, is presented annually to the author of the best book in European studies that transcends a focus on any one country, state, or people to stimulate new ways of thinking about contemporary Europe as a whole, and rotates between the humanities and history & social sciences. This is the second award for the humanities, which judged nominated books published in 2009 and 2010.

The jury commended Nelson’s book, stating:
“An electrifying, bold analysis, Eric Nelson’s The Hebrew Republic is a transformative work in political and intellectual history that makes a significant contribution to European studies. Nelson argues persuasively that a European engagement with Jewish political thought was central to the development of modern notions of republican government, the redistribution of wealth, and religious tolerance. Using rabbinical commentaries and examining republican thought, Nelson’s careful scholarship offers a wealth of new and counter-intuitive insights. This is a watershed in presenting the history of political thought and is a very important book with which scholars will engage and argue for decades to come.”

The final jury was composed of Caryl Emerson, A. Watson Armour III University Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Princeton University; Don Howard, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values, University of Notre Dame; Suzanne L. Marchand, Professor of History, Louisiana State University; Mark W. Roche, Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C. Professor of German Language and Literature, University of Notre Dame; and Paul Woodruff, Professor of Philosophy and inaugural Dean of the School of Undergraduate Studies, University of Texas at Austin.

Nelson will accept the award and present a lecture in the fall semester of 2012 at the University of Notre Dame. Nelson is Professor of Government at Harvard University. His research focuses on the history of political thought in early-modern Europe and America, and on the implications of that history for debates in contemporary political theory. Nelson received his A.B. summa cum laude from Harvard University (1999) and his Ph.D. from The University of Cambridge (2002). He has been awarded fellowships by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies. He has also been a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows, a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a British Marshall Scholar.

Notre Dame alumnus ordained to the episcopate by Pope Benedict XVI

2012-01-18T06:00:00-05:00

The Nanovic Institute for European Studies offers its congratulations to Charles Brown, a Notre Dame alumnus, who was ordained to the episcopate by Pope Benedict XVI in Rome on Epiphany earlier this month. He was elevated to the rank of archbishop and given the titular see of Aquileia in northeastern Italy. He will be serving as the papal nuncio in Ireland. Bishop Brown presented the inaugural Keeley Vatican Lecturer in 2005, “From Notre Dame to the Vatican and Home Again: An Insider’s View of the Papacy of John Paul II”.

Read Pope Benedict XVI’s homily at the liturgy, which includes a beautiful reflection on the liturgy of episcopal ordination intertwined with the feast of Epiphany.

Original story provided by the Center of Ethics and Culture

Watch the ordination on YouTube

Full story by Catholic News Agency

Engineering professor to help review U.S. national nanotechnology efforts

2012-01-16T08:00:00-05:00

University of Notre Dame professor Wolfgang Porod has been invited to serve on the committee conducting a comprehensive strategic review of the U.S. government’s National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI).

The NNI encompasses the nanotechnology-related activities of 25 Federal agencies and coordinates a portfolio of basic and applied research activities focused on advancing the economic and national security interests of the United States. The 2012 federal budget provides $2.1 billion for the NNI, and cumulative investment in the NNI since 2001 totals over $16.5 billion.

This second triennial review of the NNI, mandated by the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act, will be conducted through the National Academies and submitted to the White House’s National Science and Technology Council.

The reviewers’ tasks include examining the role of the NNI in transferring technologies to the private sector, assessing how the NNI measures progress toward its goals, and analyzing NNI’s management and coordination of nanotechnology research across both civilian and military federal agencies.

Porod, the Frank M. Freimann Professor of Electrical Engineering at Notre Dame and director of the University’s Center for Nano Science and Technology (NDnano), brings valuable expertise and experience—particulary in nanoelectronics, materials science and engineering, and research management—to the review team.

He is the co-inventor of the “quantum-dot cellular automata” concept, which is a new way of representing information by electronic charge configurations at the molecular level, and is a pioneer in “nanomagnet logic,” one of the emerging device technologies being pursued by the Semiconductor Research Corporation’s Nanoelectronics Research Initiative.

As the director of NDnano, Porod oversees research programs in such areas as nanomaterials, new energy harvesting technologies, and the interface between biological systems and nano-scale structures.

The Triennial Review Phase II committee is comprised of a range of academic and corporate leaders and is expected to deliver its report by February 2013.

NDnano is one of the leading nanotechnology centers in the world. Its mission is to study and manipulate the properties of materials and devices, as well as their interfaces with living systems, at the nano-scale.

Originally published by Arnie Phifer at newsinfo.nd.edu on January 13, 2012.

Grant recipient delves into German National Defense Politics and Catholics in the Second Reich

2012-01-13T12:35:00-05:00

Mark Kettler, ’12, is writing an honors thesis in History to explore how German organizations tried to enlist Catholic support for the military on the eve of the First World War. Central to his project is a close exploration of original source materials in Germany. Kettler is interested for example in militaristic organizations like the Wehrverein, a group dedicated to pre-war military reforms. The major archives on this group are located in Koblenz, and Kettler is unusually well-prepared to explore them. Beyond his coursework at Notre Dame, he studied German in Munich for a month and in Berlin during the past two summers. During the 2010-11 academic year, he has been in Notre Dame’s study abroad program at the Freie Universität in Berlin and working on his thesis under the direction of John Deak (History). To prepare even more carefully for his thesis research, Kettler has also studied Sütterlin, a form of cursive used throughout Germany prior to 1941.

Diving into German archives, Kettler proposes to build a more comprehensive understanding of how religious communities in Germany were shaped to fit a nationalist and militant project.

Because what he wanted to do in Germany was so precisely and productively tied to his research question, his preparation for archival work so thoroughly appropriate, and his proposal so strong a model of clear writing, the Nanovic Institute’s faculty grant committee gave Kettler’s proposal their unqualified praise and, thanks to the generosity of R. Stephen and Ruth Barrett, the Barrett Prize for best undergraduate proposal.

Alumna Update: What can you do with a Minor in European Studies?

2011-11-30T15:15:00-05:00

I took a minor in European studies and also received a Nanovic grant to study in Lyon, France during my senior year. I am now just completing my Master’s dissertation in Modern French Studies at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England. I split my year between the campus in Canterbury and Kent’s new campus in Paris, and took courses mostly in nineteenth-century French literature but also in french film, expat literature and comparative literature.

Studying for a Master’s abroad was a fabulous experience, and I would certainly encourage students to look into it (and particularly into English universities; taught MA’s typically last one year and are offered in many really interesting subjects). My classmates came from all over the world, I made some really great friendships, and though I’m back in the States at the moment, I do plan on eventually returning to England for work.

I would definitely encourage any student who has even the slightest interest in living/working/studying in Europe to do a minor in European studies. It really set the groundwork for everything I’m doing now: I appreciated being able to tailor the minor to reflect my interests, and see it as such a well-rounded and interdisciplinary program of study in general – my Master’s program is really interdisciplinary as well, and I love being able to combine so many varying interests. The grant gave me a great opportunity to work on my research skills (as well as travel!). Truly, I can’t say enough good things about the Nanovic in general.

Regards,
Lindsay Poulin ’08

Pope Benedict XVI appoints Monsignor Charles Brown as new Apostolic Nuncio to Ireland

2011-11-28T10:00:00-05:00

The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, has appointed Monsignor Charles Brown as new Apostolic Nuncio to Ireland. Monsignor Charles Brown was the first Terrence R. Keeley Vatican Lecturer at the Nanovic Institute for European Studies in 2004. Read More

Faculty fellow wins ACE / Mercer's International Book Award

2011-11-23T08:00:00-05:00

Nanovic faculty fellow Margot E Fassler, Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Music History and Liturgy and Co-Director of the Master of Sacred Music Program at the University of Notre Dame has won the ACE / Mercers’ International Book Award for The Virgin of Chartres: Making History through Liturgy and the Arts (Yale University Press, 2010). The ACE Awards are designed to celebrate the successes and diversity of architectural and artistic projects in religious buildings throughout Britain. The ACE / Mercers’ International Book Award is awarded to a book which makes an outstanding contribution to the dialogue between religious faith and the visual arts.

The winners of ACE Awards were announced at the Bishopsgate Institute, London on 16 November 2011, 7pm.

Download the ACE Awards press release.

German Professor Robert Norton Wins Translation Prize

2011-11-21T15:00:00-05:00

Professor Robert Norton, chair of the Department of German and Russian Languages and Literatures at the University of Notre Dame, recently received the Ungar German Translation Award for his English edition of Ernst Bertram’s Nietzsche: Attempt at a Mythology, which originally appeared in German in 1918.

Sponsored by the American Translators Association (ATA), which represents 11,000 members from more than 90 countries, the Ungar award recognizes distinguished translations of German literature into English.

Norton, who is also a concurrent professor in the Department of Philosophy, says he was both pleased and surprised by the honor: “The previous recipients tended to be works of literature, while the book that I did was a book of philosophy.”

Bertram is considered one of the foremost interpreters of Nietzsche, Norton adds, and his book “was extraordinarily important in the perception and understanding of Nietzsche at a critical time in German and European history.”

Translating a text of such lasting importance was exhilarating, Norton says, but it also presented formidable challenges—in part because Mythology is exceptionally well written.

“[Bertram] was a poet, so one of the things that he did was coin a lot of words … and he did so with great abandon. On any given page, you can locate a word that is absolutely unique.”

In his translation, Norton took special care to respect Bertram’s linguistic craftsmanship by preserving the subtlety involved in the invention of such words.

“You don’t want to give just a literal translation because it wouldn’t make any sense,” he says. “One of the goals that I have in translation is that it should read like English and not like a translation.”

As a scholar, Norton says he enjoys both translation and research. He is currently writing two books. The first chronicles debates in Germany during World War I, focusing on the late 19th- and early 20th-century philosopher and theologian Ernst Troeltsch. The second examines Life Philosophy, an early 20th-century movement in German philosophy.

Eventually, he also plans to translate one of Troeltsch’s works called The Spectator Letters, which chronicles the early years of the Weimar Republic.

Learn More >

Originally published by Chris Milazzo at al.nd.edu on November 17, 2011.

MES prize announced in memory of J. Robert Wegs

2011-11-08T09:00:00-05:00

The J. Robert Wegs Prize for Best Minor in European Studies Capstone Essay

The Nanovic Institute for European Studies is pleased to announce The J. Robert Wegs Prize for Best Minor in European Studies Capstone Essay. One prize will be awarded to the Minor in European Studies who authors the best essay written in fulfillment of the Minor capstone essay requirements. This prize comes with a $250 award. The prize is named in memory of J. Robert Wegs (1937-2010), founding Director of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies until 2002. One of his contributions to the Nanovic Institute was the development of the Minor in European Studies.

Requirements

All essays must have been submitted by a registered Minor in European Studies in fulfillment of the European Area Studies Essay Requirement. All essays submitted in fulfillment of this requirement each academic year will be considered for the award, whether written in the Fall or Spring semester. Essays written in a European language other than English will also be considered.

Criteria

Essays will be judged on the quality of both the student’s research and writing.

Academic Biography of J. Robert Wegs

James Robert “Bob” Wegs was the Founding Director of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies.

A popular and sought after lecturer, Wegs accompanied a Notre Dame-sponsored cruise on the Danube River in the early 1990s, giving daily talks on the history and culture of the region. Among the passengers were a recently retired investment counselor and 1954 Notre Dame alumnus, Robert S. Nanovic, and his wife Elizabeth. Impressed, the Nanovics later endowed a program devoted to the study of issues which seemed indispensable to an understanding of contemporary Europe: nationalism, citizenship, ethnicity, immigration, and the place of Europe in world history. Notre Dame’s Nanovic Institute for European Studies was established in 1993 with Robert Wegs as its director. He served in that position until 2002.

“The Nanovic Institute would never have come into being without Bob’s vision and inspired leadership,” says A. James McAdams, Scholl Professor of International Affairs and present director of the Nanovic Institute. “He recognized Notre Dame’s great potential in European studies and made it possible for us to become what we are today.”