Chicago Center On Democracy 

The Maroons by Louis-Timagène Houat, translated by Aqiil Gopee (with Jeffrey Diteman)

5-6pm, Tea Room, Social Science Research Building (201)

12:00pm, Virtual 

The Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts and Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies

Ofer Ashkenzazi - “How Civil Society Saved And Will (Possibly) Destroy Israel: October 7 And The Future Of Israel’s Democracy 

The Joyce Z. and Jacob Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies and The Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity

The Joyce Z. and Jacob Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies and Pozen Center for Human Rights

3CT, the Pozen Center for Human Rights, and the International Institute of Research as part of the University of Chicago Center in Paris. 

February 20: Studying Distributive Justice "In Action": The Case of Free Riding Beliefs by

February 26: "Decorative Colonialism: Coconut Cups and the Early Modern Atlantic World" Benjamin Schmidt University of Washington, Department of History 

March 4: "Administration in Federalist political thought and the participatory model of the Constitution" Tingfeng Yan University of Chicago, Department of Social Thought and History 

February 20: Yuchen Yang, CSGS Dissertation Fellow, PhD Candidate in Sociology Discussant: James Messerschmidt, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Southern Maine 

February 22: Hadith Inscriptions in Medieval Anatolia Dr. Mehmetcan Akpınar — UChicago NELC & Divinity School 

February 26: Simona Forti Full Professor, Political Philosophy Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy TBD

March 4: Ben Laurence Instructional Professor in the Social Sciences Collegiate Division and the Division of Social Sciences, University of Chicago  “Labor Struggle and Transformative Experience” 

February 21: Arwa Awan "Sovereignty & Colonial Underdevelopment in Fanon and Césaire

February 28: Dr Malgorzata Mazurek - "Economics of hereness: the polish origins of global developmentalism, 1918-1968"

Thursdays 3:30 - 5pm in Pick Hall 506 & Zoom

February 22: Sabrina Arias,

Feb 29: Karen Nershi,

Xiaogao Zhou, a doctoral candidate in the department of sociology and a 21-22 Rudolph Field Research Fellow, recently published a paper in Social Science and Medicine about the patterns of medical care provided to trans individuals in China. Based on ethnographic research in China, their article examines how medical professionals incorporate family members in care decisions for transgender adults to negotiate tensions between international standards and China’s medical system. Zhou notes that as affirmative care emerges as a viable approach in transgender healthcare in China, healthcare providers in China attempt to adhere to international standards and adopt a less pathologizing and binary model of care. However, lacking tools to navigate medical disputes, health providers mitigate risks by seeking input from family members in care decisions. Zhou identifies two ways providers incorporate family members in medical care decisions: sometimes providers will undertake restrictive gatekeeping based on family opinions, especially for transgender people who are perceived as unable to live a “normal” life. Additionally, providers employ affective labor, such as psychological support and education for family members, to facilitate their involvement in transgender healthcare.

Prof. Michael Albertus, a CISSR 24-25 Faculty Fellow and Noah Schouela, a CISSR 20-21 Rudolph Field Research Fellow, co-authored a paper on the co-optation strategies used against agricultural workers in fascist Portugal. Published in Comparative Political Studies, the article focuses on rural corporatist organizations known as Casas do Povo (Houses of the People) which brought together the landowners and rural workers under the same organizational roof. Although these organizations provided some social and welfare benefits and facilitated dialogue between the managerial class, owners of capital, and the workers, the main aim of this expanded union structure was to keep agricultural workers under check, especially in the country’s southern regions where there was a considerable counter-mobilization against the regime. The authors note that the Estado Novo government took this conciliatory route to establish the Casas do Povo. However, Albertus and Shouela suggest, the supposed cooperative and unifying nature of the Casas diluted dissent by giving the workers a false sense of social belonging and initiative whereas the superficial bargaining structure that was intrinsic to the Casas led to an assumption of power that was inflated on the part of the workers. Albertus and Schouela view the creation of such organizations as indicative of authoritarianism which maintains a misleading appearance of popular consent, functionality, and institutional robustness.

Prof. Stephan Palmié's New Book Thinking with Ngangas: What Afro-Cuban Ritual Can Tell Us about Scientific Practice and Vice Versa

Stephen Palmié, the Norman & Edna Freehling Professor in the Department of Anthropology, recently published his new book from UChicago Press, Thinking with Ngangas: What Afro-Cuban Ritual Can Tell Us about Scientific Practice and Vice Versa. Inspired by the works of a Jesuit priest and proto-ethnographer,Father Laftau, who compared the practices of the Iroquois with those of Ancient Greeks, Prof. Palmié sets on a quest to understand similar convergences between Western science and Afro-Cuban science. Dr. Palmié traces this history of the West’s fascination with Afro-Cuban culture, including rituals and proto-scientific practices, and compares how Western logic and Afro-Cuban knowledge share similarities. In the book, Dr. Palmié considers the concept of experimentation and discovery and suggests that culture predicates how these practices and knowledge-building create similar understandings of humanity and nature. He suggests that modernity aims to create distance between the human and nature, but he shows how experimentation and scientific practices in all cultures derive their knowledge from our environments, whether human or nature itself.