STANFORD UNIVERSITY ICA PROGRAMS & CENTERS: CENTER FOR AFRICAN STUDIES
Vol. 2, Issue 1
ICA Welcomes New Directors by Tre'vell Anderson, MA '14
CENTER FOR EAST ASIAN STUDIES CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES CENTER FOR RUSSIAN, EAST EUROPEAN AND EURASIAN STUDIES CENTER FOR SOUTH ASIA EAST ASIA INTERNSHIP PROGRAM THE EUROPE CENTER FORD DORSEY PROGRAM IN INTERNATIONAL POLICY STUDIES FRANCE-STANFORD CENTER FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES HAMID AND CHRISTINA MOGHADAM PROGRAM IN IRANIAN STUDIES INNER ASIA @ STANFORD MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES FORUM PROGRAM IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SOHAIB AND SARA ABBASI PROGRAM IN ISLAMIC STUDIES THE STANFORD HUMAN RIGHTS INITIATIVE TAUBE CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES
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Clockwise from top left: Sean Hanretta, Pavle Levi, Robert Crews, and Kenneth Scheve
ICA recently welcomed three new directors to the Division: Sean Hanretta, Pavle Levi and Kenneth Scheve. In addition, Robert Crews, who served as the Director of the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies academic years 2010-13, assumed a new role in ICA this September as Director of the Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies. With a keen interest in the history of the African continent, Sean Hanretta, the new Ford Dorsey Center for African Studies Director, brings a variety of experiences that will prove beneficial to the Center and Division. “As director, I hope to continue the tradition of leadership excellence over the last several decades in African Studies at Stanford and to help faculty meet the increasing demand for courses on Africa from undergraduates and students alike,” said Hanretta. continued on page 2
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Hanretta received his Ph.D. in African History from the University “We plan to focus our programming efforts of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003. His current work focuses on the closely on the research and teaching intellectual, cultural and religious history of West Africa. He interests of Stanford's faculty and has also written about topics as diverse as pre-colonial Zulu students,” Scheve stated. gender relations and the layout of mining camps in the Belgian One such example of these efforts is The Congo. His West African focus will certainly be a great asset Europe Center’s new grant competition for graduate student when he leads the BOSP’s Summer Seminar in Ghana from research projects in and about Europe across all disciplines. August to September 2014. “I’m particularly excited about the upcoming Ghana Seminar I’ll be leading with Tom Seligman,” Hanretta said. “The seminar (which is now open for applications) will focus on art, culture and development in Ghana and builds on the great success of the BOSP Cape Town program.” Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREEES) director Pavle Levi brings a similar blend of enthusiasm and experience to his new role.
“In this program, we want to foster the most promising research ideas of Stanford students,” Scheve said. “We’ll take the same approach in developing future programs for undergraduates and faculty.” Scheve received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, and prior to joining Stanford’s faculty in 2012, he taught at both Yale University and the University of Michigan. Scheve’s research focuses on international and comparative political economy and comparative political behavior. He is currently in the process of writing a book with David Stasavage on the intersection of mass warfare, fairness concerns and the development of progressive taxation across twenty countries in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Levi is a professor of film studies in the Department of Art & Art History, where he teaches classes on European cinema, art and politics, and film theory. He received his Ph.D. in 2002 from Robert Crews, Associate Professor of New York University and is the author of Disintegration in History, recently finished a very successful Frames (Stanford University Press, 2007), a study of aesthetics term as director of CREEES and now directs and ideology in the Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav cinema, and, the Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Program in most recently, of Cinema by Other Means (Oxford University Islamic Studies. Press, 2012), an exploration of historical and contemporary avant-garde cinematic practices in various parts of Europe. Crews, named by the Carnegie Corporation This book became the basis of an international exhibition that of New York as one of the 2009 Carnegie is currently on display in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Scholars selected for influential ideas and Belgrade, Serbia. enhancing public discourse about Islam, is well-positioned to take on this role. In addition to his scholarly expertise, Crews Levi is particularly pleased about the future of CREEES. has been actively involved with the Abbasi Program’s academic “I am happy to report that an excellent, programming and outreach efforts as a longtime affiliated energetic new Associate Director has just faculty member and as a member of its faculty board. been chosen for CREEES,” Levi stated. “Jovana Knežević holds a Ph.D. in History In 2009, Crews and former Abbasi Program director Professor and served as Acting Assistant Professor in Shahzad Bashir convened a conference entitled "Alienated the Stanford History Department, where Nations, Fractured States: Afghanistan and Pakistan." she taught courses on the First World War, Discussions at the conference led to the publication of Under the Balkans, and nationalism in the Habsburg Empire. CREEES the Drones: Modern Lives in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Borderlands (Harvard University Press, 2012). is ushering in the 2013-2014 academic year in full force.” With an exceptionally diverse class of MA students now on campus, Levi and Knežević are preparing another season packed with scholarly events, including a Friday noon-time seminar series, and the annual Stanford-Berkeley Conference on Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies.
Burcak Keskin-Kozat, Associate Director of the Abbasi Program, is excited to work with him: “His cutting-edge scholarship, excellent service record, and interdisciplinary engagement will help promote an informed dialogue about Islam and Muslim societies at Stanford.”
Kenneth Scheve, the new director of The Europe Center, shares Tre'vell Anderson is a student in Stanford's Graduate Program with Levi the goal of providing scholarly programming appealing in Journalism. ] to both Stanford faculty and students.
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Žilnik Speaks on One Woman, One Century by Tre'vell Anderson and CREEES Staff
The Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREEES) hosted international film director Želimir Žilnik for a one-night screening of his film One Woman, One Century in late October, which drew students and scholars of film, history, women’s studies, as well as numerous members of the general public. The documentary film, which was based on the life of 100-yearold Dragica Srzentić, focused on her experiences as a member of the Communist Party in pre-World War II Yugoslavia, her involvement in the Partisan movement during the war, and her repression and imprisonment in the years following the Tito-Stalin split. Žilnik created the film from statements and interviews as well as stylistically animated reconstructions of her life story. He drove the narrative with a journey Srzentić took to Moscow for a May Day parade in 2011. In a particularly memorable scene, Srzentić poses for a photograph with men dressed as Stalin and Lenin. After the experience, Srzentić offers a reflection on the two Soviet leaders that expresses the evolution of her own mixed experience with Communism in the span of her long life, “I respect them as revolutionaries, and believe they were both true revolutionaries. Even if Stalin went astray.”
Promotional image for the well-attended October 24 event
“Many of the facts we have heard in the film have been quite Srzentić’s intimate perspective on the political and social history surprising and a great process of learning for all of us in the of the now post-Yugoslav region offered viewers fresh insight crew, especially for the younger people,” he said. into a tumultuous era. The film has received a good deal of interest and media “Žilnik found a novel and compelling approach to telling the attention, and has brought greater awareness to the history story of Europe’s 20th century through the life of this woman of the former Yugoslavia and to the struggles endured by — and it is significant that she’s a woman — who directly Srzentić and her contemporaries. experienced many of its outstanding events and moments,” “Her life is an excellent example for analyzing hopes and dreams, CREEES Associate Director Jovana Knežević observed. and, at the same time, the dangerous side of state socialism With a career spanning nearly five decades, Žilnik is known for and state communism,” Žilnik said. his socially engaged cinema. Particularly fond of, and skilled When asked by a student, during a filmmaker’s workshop Žilnik with, what is known as “docu-fiction,” he combines animated held the day following the screening, whether there is a images and location shooting with on-camera interviews to consistent theme in his diverse body of work, Žilnik stated, provide modern audiences an effective glimpse into history. “I’ve tried to give the stage to people who have been marginalized During the question and answer session that followed the by political systems or society so that they could express the screening, Žilnik offered insight into the impact that creating thoughts and emotions they’ve lived through.” a documentary about the former Yugoslavia through Srzentić’s And while telling the stories of his subjects, Žilnik’s films also life had on him and the members of his crew. tell the life of the filmmaker. “My films are also a diary of my “Dragica is very extraordinary, not only because her life was own experiences through different regimes and moments in so long and full of tensions and struggles, but because she is history,” concluded Žilnik. telling us a personal history that is very much different from For more information on Želimir Žilnik and his other work, visit everything we now hear in ex-Yugoslavia,” Žilnik said. www.zilnikzelimir.net . Žilnik remarked that it was refreshing to compare Srzentić’s CREEES is Stanford University's hub for the interdisciplinary study narrative with what is typically found in school curriculum and of a vast and fascinating region stretching from the Berlin Wall to noted that many of her experiences may not be widely known. the Bering Strait. Visit creees.stanford.edu for more information. ]
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