November 21 - December 4, 2023
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The CISSR-AFIDEP Residential Fellowship for Junior Scholars
CISSR is launching an exciting new partnership with the African Institute for Development Policy – a pan-African research organization that maintains offices in Lilongwe, Malawi and Nairobi, Kenya. During the 2023-24 academic year, CISSR will host AFIDEP’s director and three junior scholars for 3-to-6-week mentored, writing residencies. The exchange program was designed by Jenny Trinitapoli (CISSR, Sociology), Nyovani Madise (AFIDEP, Social Statistics), and Francis Dodoo (AFIDEP, Demography) with the intentions of building research capacity and forging a long-term institutional collaboration. Generously funded by the University’s Global Provost for sub-Saharan Africa Grants and CISSR, these residential junior fellowships foster interdisciplinary and transnational collaboration among researchers working across the social sciences. Read more about this year’s AFIDEP-CISSR fellows below or on our website.
Nurudeen Alhassan
Dr. Nurudeen Alhassan holds a PhD in Population Studies from The University of Ghana. Dr. Alhassan works on populations dynamics including: fertility, contraception, gender, and household composition in Africa. Dr. Alhassan previously worked on the TEAM-UP project, which collected data about the widespread use of traditional methods of contraception in low and middle income countries. At CISSR, Dr. Nurudeen will prepare two articles that leverage the TEAM-UP data to explain a puzzling trend: the increase in the use of traditional methods of contraception among the urban, educated, and young.
Mziwandile Ndlovu
Dr. Ndlovu holds a PhD in Governance and Regional Integration from PAU-GHSS in Cameroon. Dr. Ndlovu studies the parliamentary structure of African democracies with a particular focus on women's representation. During his CISSR residency, Dr. Ndlovu will be workshopping an article on women’s representation in African parliamentary systems and revising it for publication. Dr. Ndlovu’s paper considers how female politicians are operating within African democracies and asks how their involvement is both transforming modern African democracies and producing examples for the rest of the world. Dr. Ndlovu hopes to explore the opportunities for Africa to introduce a new form of representation for female politicians.
Eugene Arnaud Yombo Sembe
Dr. Yombo Sembe received his PhD in political science from the University of Yaoumdé II in Cameroon. Dr. Yombo Sembe’s work concentrates on autocratic regimes in close succession in Africa. Conceptualized as “autocratic renewal”, this phenomenon describes the establishment of autocratic regimes following elections or recurrent illegitimate usurpations of power in Africa. During his CISSR residency, Dr. Yombo Sembe will be focusing his effort on a new book project about autocratic renewal in African contexts. Dr. Yombo Sembe’s published research argues that scholars analyzing the autocratic episodes in African democracies commit two main epistemological fallacies. The first is to consider a move forward within the postcolonial democratization journey of independent African states as a move backwards due to a Euro-centric bias in assessment; and the second is the tendency to interpret “normal” episodes of backsliding that could be observed in any democratic system as a particularly African phenomenon.
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Call for Proposals: Research Grants & Book Project Funding for Enhancement, Translations, and Workshops
CISSR provides up to $25,000 for faculty research projects at any stage of development. Funds may be used for a wide range of research-related activities, including field and archival research, purchasing data, research assistance, hosting a visiting collaborator on a short-term basis, or organizing a conference for publishing a special issue or edited volume.
CISSR invites University of Chicago faculty to apply for book workshop and/or monograph enhancement awards to support scholarly manuscripts in preparation for publication.
- Book workshops provide faculty an opportunity to improve their manuscripts through an intensive day-long workshop in which colleagues, editors, and other key readers gather to provide critical input and suggestions.
- Monograph enhancement awards support scholarly book projects in myriad other ways. Awards are intended to offset the costs of open access fees, subvention fees, translations, indexing, permissions, cartographic services, and other expenses that aid in the completion of highest quality manuscripts.
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Center for East Asian Studies
5pm, Franke Institute
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November 27
CEERES
11am, Virtual
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Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity
12pm, Kelly 108 & Virtual
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November 28
3CT
2:15pm, Virtual
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Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies
12pm, Virtual
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Center for East Asian Studies
5pm, Franke Institute
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Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity
4pm, Kelly 108 & Virtual
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Crown Family School
9am, Crown Family School Lobby
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Neubauer Collegium
4pm, Neubauer Collegium
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Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
4:30pm, Harper 130
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Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity
12pm, Keller Center Forum
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Community Room 5733 S University Ave (closed during break from Nov 20 - Nov 24) |
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Around Town and Down the Road |
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November 24
UChicago Alumni
1:30am, Virtual
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December 1
Newberry Library
3pm, Rettinger Hall, 60 West Walton Street
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Tuesdays 3:30 - 4:50pm in Pick 506
November 28: Jessica Sun, Emory University
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Thursdays 12:30 - 1:50pm in NORC conference room, Room 232 at 1155
November 30: Melissa Kerney, University of Maryland
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Tuesdays 5-6pm in CSGS 5733 University Ave - Room 103 & Hybrid
November 21: "Unexplored Ambition: The Failure and Holes in the Gender Data Gap” - Alyssa Calder Hulme, MAPSS
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Various Wednesdays 4:30 - 6pm in Pick 105
November 29:
The Compter’s Commonwealth: Commercial Taxation and the Institutionalization of Public Debt in 17th-century England
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Empires Workshop
Mondays 12:30 - 2:00pm in SSRB 201
November 27: Alexandre I. White, Johns Hopkins University
December 5: Ellen M. Nye, Harvard University
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Wednesdays 4:00-5:30 PM in SSRB 224 John Hope Franklin Room
November 29: David Blackbourn, Cornelius Vanderbilt Distinguished Chair of History Emeritus, Vanderbilt University Book Talk - Germany and the World: A Global History, 1500-2000
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Thursdays 3:30 - 5pm in Pick Hall 506 & Zoom
November 30: “Is Unilateralism Bad for Trade: Maybe” - Robert Gulotty
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Thursdays 5 - 6:30pm in Pick 118
November 30: "Marks and Traces: Caribbean Carceral Ruins in the Photo - Essays of Eduardo Lalo and Patrick Chamoiseau" - Gabriela Lomba Guzmán
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Fridays from 10:30am until 12:00pm
December 1: "Disparity Analysis: A Tale of Two Approaches" - Xiang Zhou, Professor of Sociology at Harvard University
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Natalia Niedman Alvarez Analyzes the Global Movement from “Rule of Law” to a “Rule of Rights” |
Natalia Niedmann Alvarez, a PhD student in the Department of History and a CISSR 23-24 Rudolph Field Research Fellow, published an article about the philosophical foundations of the concept of rights and law. Deriving mostly from the writings of political philosopher Hannah Arendt, Ms. Niedman discusses in her paper whether the concepts of right and just are read through the lenses of flights instead of laws. Ms. Niedman argues that this redefinition of justice as a norm within the frame of rights instead of laws causes a particularization, and leads to the discussion of justice being both fragmental and preferential. This, in turn, makes these concepts not inclusive of all but some, and the contestations between these groups about the degree and nature of the rights attained or enjoyed creates an uneven ground upon which it is hard to build cohesive legal norms gradually confining the scope of justice to a discussion of what is deserved or earned and undermines the regulatory aspect of law. A full text of Ms. Niedman’s paper was published by The International Journal of Human Rights in February 2022.
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Asst. Prof. Marisa Casillas Shares Stories from her Field Research with UChicago News |
Dr. Marisa Casillas, Assistant Professor at the Department of Comparative Human Development and a CISSR 23-24 faculty fellow, was among many scholars who traveled this summer. Dr. Casillas studies children’s language acquisition and language use in Mexico. Doing interactive work with children in Mexico, Dr. Casillas notes that there is an observable narrowing of vocabulary more recently which sees an increase in use of English and incorporation of English words into everyday speech by teens and migrant workers.
This reverse trend is likely due to the spread of English through popular culture among spanish-speaking societies. These changes also exhibit the overall increasing multicultural texture of the global society and the use of language to create meaning and build community. Read the full profile about research overseas including other UChicago scholars at UChicago News here.
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New Book by Asst. Prof. Terman Examines the Effect of Human Rights Abuse in The Geopolitics of Shaming: When Human Rights Pressure Works
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Dr. Rochelle Layla Terman, an Assistant Professor of Political Science, and CISSR 2020 Book Fellow, wrote a newly released book from Princeton University Press titled The Geopolitics of Shaming: When Human Rights Pressure Works—and When It Backfires, draws upon research analyzing the dynamics of interstate censure. According to Prof. Terman states exhibit less willingness when it comes to reprimanding their geopolitical friends and allies and employ a visibly lighter tone when they have to. On the other hand, reprimands issued by allies have more credibility in terms of the severity of the problem. Prof. Terman argues that reprimanding spans a broad group of diplomatic strategy and political tools that could be used to change public opinion. Accordingly, in cases where there is an adversarial relationship between the country issuing the reprimand might actually prove to be counterproductive, with serious backlash, denial, or even the ramping up of the reprimanded abuses alleged by the reprimanding country.
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Prof. Monika Nalepa at Global Forum 2023 "Disparity in Punishment for Authoritarian Crimes" |
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Monika Nalepa, Professor of Political Science, a Pearson Faculty Affiliate at the Harris School of Public Policy and CISSR Faculty Fellow delivered a flash talk at the Pearson Global Forum on October 20th. Following an introduction by Ogela Bednarek (a 2023 Pearson Global Fellow), Nalepa discussed discrepancies in accountability in transnational settings between leaders and the rank-and-file members who execute their orders. Using the new Global Transnational Justice Dataset, she shared a surprising discovery: severe transnational justice directed at leaders actually makes them more repressive.
To learn more about her working paper 'Dependence on Agents of Repression and Regime Survival: a Transnational Justice Perspective' watch the youtube video above.
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