NEWS ROUNDUP

ELEVATING THE RESEARCH PROFILE AND ACADEMIC VISIBILITY OF THE INSTITUTE

“The Nanovic Institute for European Studies supports and facilitates research that contributes to a deeper understanding of Europe; we are especially interested in ‘the peripheries of Europe,’ human dignity, democracy, the transformation of Central and Eastern Europe, and the fundamental moral and political challenges of Europe as a whole.”

– Clemens Sedmak

100 YEARS OF U.S.-AUSTRIAN DIPLOMACY

In August 2021, the Institute held a symposium titled “The U.S.-Austria Peace Treaty at 100: Historical, Political, and Moral Perspectives.” A highlight of the symposium, which was made possible by the Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies, was a lecture on transatlantic relations from an Austrian perspective by the Ambassador of Austria to the U.S., Martin Weiss.

Laura Shannon Prize

The $10,000 Laura Shannon Prize, one of the preeminent prizes for European studies, is awarded each year to the best book that transcends a focus on any one country, state, or people to stimulate new ways of thinking about contemporary Europe as a whole.

In early February, the institute awarded the 2022 Laura Shannon Prize to Pamela L. Cheek, professor of French and comparative literature at the University of New Mexico, for her book Heroines and Local Girls: The Transnational Emergence of Women’s Writing in the Long Eighteenth Century, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. In awarding this top prize in the humanities cycle, the final jury praised Cheek’s work for its rigor, ambition, and craft, describing this “geographically and intellectually ambitious work” as “a ground-breaking contribution to the history of women’s writing and reading.” The 2022 final jury also awarded a Silver Medal to Susan Stewart, the Avalon Foundation University Professor in the Humanities and professor of English at Princeton University, for The Ruins Lesson: Meaning and Material in Western Culture (University of Chicago Press) and gave an Honorable Mention to Barbara Mennel, professor of film studies and German studies at the University of Florida, for Women at Work in Twenty-First-Century European Cinema (University of Illinois Press). In a virtual award ceremony, Peter Gatrell, professor of economic history at the University of Manchester, accepted his 2021 prize in the history and social sciences cycle for The Unsettling of Europe: How Migration Reshaped a Continent (Basic Books). In his prize lecture, Gatrell developed some of the arguments advanced in his book, including the manifestation of migration as both ordeal and opportunity, and emphasized the importance and need for scholars to participate in public debates about issues of pressing contemporary concern.

Launch of 2021-2026 Strategic Plan

The Institute launched its 2021-2026 strategic plan with a panel and reception in October 2021. The plan commits the Institute to transforming students’ lives and paying special attention to “the peripheries,” a term used by Pope Francis to describe the mission of the Church. Nanovic wants to support learning from the “non-centers,” through humble encounters and rich experiences. Titled “Engaging Big Questions and ‘Peripheries’ in Europe,” the plan sets out a vision for turning hearts and minds to Europe to create artisans of a new humanity. To view the Nanovic Strategic Plan: This year, three Nanovic Institute faculty fellows have won competitive fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). John Deak, associate professor of history, won a three-year collaborative research grant to support a research project that seeks to reshape perspectives on how and why the Habsburg Empire collapsed after World War I.

Perin Gürel, associate professor of American studies, won an NEH Fellowship for Research in Turkey to support the completion of a book on the international history of comparisons made between Turkey and Iran. Katie Jarvis, the Carl E. Koch Associate Professor in the Department of History, was awarded a fellowship to develop her second book, Democratizing Forgiveness in Revolutionary France, 1789-1799.

Hildegund Müller receiving the faculty fellow of the year award in 2021 from Clemens Sedmak.

Gallery of European Studies

To celebrate the research, scholarship, and creative achievements of fifty Nanovic faculty fellows, the Institute facilitated an outdoor exhibit at the close of the spring 2022 semester. As part of the celebration, Nanovic awarded its third annual faculty fellow of the year award, in gratitude and recognition of extraordinary service and commitment to the Institute’s mission, to Alison Rice, professor of French and Francophone studies. Previous winners include Hildegund Müller, associate professor in the Department of Classics (2021), and John Deak, associate professor of history (2020).

Faculty Fellows Recognized

A number of long-standing Nanovic Institute faculty fellows have been recognized by prestigious institutions and societies in both the U.S. and Europe over the past year. Diane Desierto, professor of law and global affairs, was named chair-rapporteur of the United Nations’ Expert Group on the Right to Development, a role she assumed in January 2022.

Essaka Joshua, professor of English, was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, an international educational organization founded in 1707 that promotes understanding of the human past. Patrick Griffin, the Madden-Hennebry Professor of History and Director of the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, was elected to the American Antiquarian Society in recognition of his “contributions to the scholarship of American immigration and nationhood.” Ingrid Rowland, professor in the School of Architecture, won an inaugural Grace Dudley Prize for Arts Writing, one of nine SilversDudley Prizes for writing made by the Robert B. Silvers Foundation.

Faculty Fellow Book Awards

Katie Jarvis 2020 Louis A. Gottschalk Prize from the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies for Politics in the Marketplace: Work, Gender, and Citizenship in Revolutionary France (Oxford University Press, 2019) Ian Ona Johnson Society for Military History’s 2022 Distinguished Book Award for best first book for Faustian Bargain: The Soviet-German Partnership and the Origins of the Second World War (Oxford University Press, 2021)

Sarah Shortall Junior Award from the European Academy of Religion and the 2020-2021 Laurence Wylie Prize in French Cultural Studies for Soldiers of God in a Secular World: Catholic Theology and TwentiethCentury French Politics (Harvard University Press, 2021) Sophie White 8 major book awards, including the 2020 Frederick Douglass Book Prize and the James A. Rawley Prize from the American Historial Association for Voices of the Enslaved: Love, Labor, and Longing in French Louisiana (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press, 2019) Rev. Hans Zollner, S.J., delivered the 2022 Keeley Vatican Lecture in early April, titled “How Is the Catholic Church Safeguarding Children? A Perspective after the Recent Developments in Europe.” A native of Regensberg, Germany, Father Zollner is one of the Catholic Church’s leading experts on the safeguarding and protection of minors and vulnerable people from sexual abuse. A theologian, psychologist, and licensed psychotherapist, he works primarily through the Pontifical Gregorian University and has been a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors since his initial appointment by Pope Francis in 2014. In his lecture, Fr. Zollner explored his perspective on a “double crisis”: sex abuse by members of the clergy and its coverup by Church authorities. He also reflected on these crises in light of recent European developments including the January 2022 report on abuse and coverup in the Archdiocese of Munich and the war in Ukraine. Zollner delivered a message that called upon all of the Faithful — clergy and laity — to play a part in creating transparency and finding a path toward healing. Established in 2005 through the generous support of alumnus Terence R. Keeley, this annual lecture provides a way to deepen Notre Dame’s connection to the Holy See by bringing distinguished representatives from the Vatican to explore questions surrounding

the University’s Catholic mission. Fr. Zollner was introduced by Kathleen Sprows Cummings, Rev. John A. O’Brien College Professor of American Studies and Nanovic Institute faculty fellow.

Barrett Family Lecture

In March, Lord Patten of Barnes delivered the 2022 Barrett Family Lecture titled “Is There a New World Order?” at the Notre Dame London Global Gateway. Chancellor of the University of Oxford since 2003, Lord Patten has had a long career in politics, diplomacy, and foreign service, including serving as the last British governor of Hong Kong from 1992 to 1997, overseeing its transfer to China. Lord Patten’s lecture took place one month after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a dramatic development in geopolitics that infused his topic with a new urgency. His discussion spanned the post-World War II creation of “a world order of rules and institutions which ensured, for most people, decades of peace and decades of increasing prosperity,” and the ways in which Russia and China became “holdouts” from what was happening elsewhere. Highlighting the fractious nature of relations between those two world powers and much of the rest of the globe, Lord Patten urged diplomacy and courtesy in diplomatic relations but also stressed that “we should be very firm about what we believe in.” He ended his lecture with an appeal to younger generations — including the many Notre Dame study abroad students who attended the event — to take up their responsibility to forge a better road to peace and prosperity than that made by his own generation. The Barrett Family Lecture Series was established through the generous support of R. Stephen and Ruth Barrett. The initiative brings prominent leaders in the areas of business, politics, and the arts to the University of Notre Dame’s Global Gateway facilities in Dublin and London to share their views on issues of major importance to the understanding of Europe with Notre Dame students and the wider community.