Fall 2008 Vol. 18/2 • ISSUE 55 TRANSREGIONAL CENTER FOR DEMOCRATIC STUDIES

CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE • SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA • LATIN AMERICA

The University in Exile’s founding in 1933 as participants, Goldfarb and Elzbieta Matynia tell a haven for ousted professors from Nazi Germany in this issue of the Democracy Seminars initiative bulletinwas embedded in the earnest democratic tradition that the anniversary event helped to spark, an of the original New School for Social Research, initiative that recommitted The New School to founded in 1919 in protest of the suppression the substantive support of the principle of free of free speech at Columbia University. As former intellectual dialogue and formed the academic New School President Jonathan Fanton describes foundation for the present work of TCDS. below, the effort and sacrifices that went into the We are also grateful to have contributions from creation of the University in Exile on the part of former Graduate Faculty Deans Judith both American hosts and furloughed German Friedlander and Ira Katznelson. Friedlander leads scholars—inevitably only dimly aware then of us off with an overview of The New School’s three the true horrors that were to unfold in Europe— historic moments, which she will be detailing in a reflected an extraordinarily principled book she is currently writing. Katznelson’s commitment to defending academic freedom. narrative and personal recollections are taken 1919 and 1933 were followed by a third from his keynote speech at the recent seventy-fifth On this occasion of the University in Exile’s landmark moment in The New School’s history anniversary commemorative conference organized seventy-fifth anniversary, we are pleased and of such commitment in 1984, when the drama of by Social Research. Together all the pieces make proud to present this commemorative issue of the dissident intellectuals in internal exile in Central this issue an interesting narrative ensemble, TCDS Bulletin in its honor. Indeed, we feel that Europe, as Jeffrey Goldfarb describes below, drew telling the story of the University in Exile from TCDS’s own origins and development are directly the engaged sympathy of administration and the perspectives of some of those who have linked to the living ethos of that institution and faculty at their gathering to celebrate the been, and continue to be, involved in making it. University in Exile’s fiftieth anniversary. As direct are thus part of its ongoing story. Brian Bartholomew An Anniversary Celebration Judith Friedlander

ver the course of this academic year edly greatest moment in the history of The States in the early twentieth century: histori- O(2008-2009), The New School is cele- New School, but this came after—and was ans Charles Beard and James Harvey brating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the influenced by—the original founding of The Robinson; philosopher John Dewey; econo- University in Exile, also known until 2005 as New School. There was also a third great mist/social critic Thorstein Veblen. the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social moment in the institution’s history, which Outspoken advocates of academic freedom, Science (GF).1 Today the GF bears the his- took place in the 1980s and early 1990s, they publicly opposed Columbia University’s toric name of the wider institution, which when The New School extended a hand to President, Nicholas Murray Butler, for firing opened its doors in 1919. From the very dissident intellectuals in East and Central professors during World War I who defended beginning, The New School for Social Europe. their right to challenge the war effort while Research defended the rights of intellectuals Established in protest in 1919, the found- American soldiers were fighting overseas. and artists to express themselves freely. The ers of The New School for Social Research Defying the head of the most important heroic role it played later on in the 1930s included some of the most important social institution of higher learning in , and 1940s marks the second and undoubt- scientists and philosophers in the United the founders of The New School created a new kind of university, where college-edu- Graduate Faculty of Political and Social example, introduced gestalt or cognitive psy- cated adults might continue their education Science. Soon other refugee scholars joined chology to American colleagues. The and where professors and students might as well, enhancing the Graduate Faculty’s philosopher Hans Jonas, who joined The exchange ideas freely, without fear of intimi- reputation even further. Together they intro- New School in the 1950s, helped develop dation or of losing their jobs. duced students in New York to the breadth the field of bioethics. Then perhaps most By the mid-1920s, The New School and depth of European traditions in the important of all was the political philosopher enjoyed the reputation of being the quintes- social sciences and philosophy, applying their Hannah Arendt. Widely read in the 1950s sential institution: scholarly disciplines to major issues of politi- and 1960s, her books became central again cosmopolitan and inclusive; progressive and cal, cultural, and economic concern. In the in the 1980s to debates about democracy engaged with the problems of the world. Its 1930s, the welfare state and fascism were on and totalitarianism. During the years of the inspirational director was no typical New everybody’s mind. Solidarity Movement and other dissident Yorker and described himself as a Midwest- Between 1933 and 1945 the Graduate movements in East and Central Europe, ern “pioneer.” An economist and writer, Faculty sponsored over 180 intellectuals and political theorists in the West returned to the Alvin Johnson grew up on a farm in north- artists and their families, providing them writings of Hannah Arendt, while young eastern Nebraska, but, like many residents of with “non-quota” visas and jobs. The vast Polish, Hungarian, and Czech intellectuals New York, he was the child of immigrants. majority of these refugees moved on to other began reading her for the first time. In Johnson’s case, his parents came from institutions in the . Several of The works of other refugee scholars with Denmark. Raised in poverty, he was the first them served as policy advisors for the Roos- ties to The New School continue to have in his family to go to college. evelt Administration during the Second influence as well. Let me single out political While directing The New School, Johnson World War; for example, economist Gerhard theorist Hans Morgenthau and philosophers maintained an active scholarly life and col- Colm, political scientist Arnold Brecht, and Aaron Gurwitsch, Alfred Schutz, and Leo laborated regularly with social scientists in sociologist Hans Speier. Those who remained Strauss. Of great importance too are the Europe. In the late 1920s, he became co- in academic institutions helped transform the works of scholars who taught in French at editor of the Encyclopedia of the Social social sciences and philosophy in the United The New School’s Ecole Libre des Hautes Sciences, a project that gave him the chance States, sometimes at The New School, some- Etudes, Johnson’s second response to the to work closely with colleagues in Germany. times after they had left to join faculties at crisis in Europe. The Ecole Libre opened its These scholars made sure Johnson was fully other universities. doors in 1941. Among those who taught informed about the rising threat of National The work of Max Wertheimer, for there were philosopher Jacques Maritain, lin- Socialism in their country, helping him to grasp the seriousness of the situation long before other intellectuals in the United States had recognized the magnitude of the problem. When Hitler came to power in January 1933, Johnson was ready to move quickly. With the generous support of the Rockefeller Foundation and individual donors he created a University in Exile at The New School, which gave distinguished professors, who had just lost their posts in German universities, new academic appoint- ments in the United States—job offers that came with exit visas for themselves and for members of their families. Most of these pro- fessors were Jews. When the University in Exile opened its doors in October 1933, the faculty consisted of five economists (Karl Brandt, Gerhard Colm, Arthur Feiler, Eduard Heimann, and Emil Lederer), one legal scholar (Hermann Kantorowicz), one psychologist (Max Wert- heimer), one expert in social policy (Frieda Wunderlich), one sociologist (Hans Speier), and one musicologist (Erich von Hornbos- Original faculty of the university in exile, 1933 tel). In 1934 the founding faculty changed Left to right, seated: Emil Lederer, Alvin Johnson, Frieda Wunderlich, and Karl Brandt. the name of their new academic home to the Left to right, standing: Hans Speier, Max Wertheimer, Arthur Feiler, Eduard Heimann, Gerhard Colm, and Erich von Hornbostel.

2 Fall 2008

guist Roman Jakobson, and anthropologist into Warsaw and Budapest to provide partici- subscriptions and back volume sets of Eng- Claude Lévi-Strauss. French Structuralism pants in the seminars with readings that were lish-language scholarly, professional and was born at The New School. still banned by the Communist regimes. At current events journals.” It currently provides A half-century after Alvin Johnson Michnik’s request the seminars opened with 6,000 gratis and reduced-cost subscriptions founded the University in Exile, The New the works of Hannah Arendt. After 1989 the per year to approximately 300 libraries in School renewed its commitment to academic Democracy Seminars came out of hiding and over 30 countries around the world: in East freedom and human rights by lending members in New York expanded the network and Central Europe, the former Soviet support to young intellectuals in Poland and to include dissident intellectuals from twelve Union, parts of Africa (Ghana and Nigeria), Hungary who were fighting for political more countries in the region, many of whom Asia (Indonesia and Vietnam), and in Cuba. change in their countries. On April 25, have become academic leaders, politicians, As we celebrate today the seventy-fifth 1984, as The New School celebrated the fif- and public intellectuals in their countries. As anniversary of the founding of the University tieth anniversary of the University in Exile, readers of the TCDS Bulletin know, Michnik in Exile, then, let us also celebrate the third The New School’s new president, Jonathan today is Editor-in-Chief of Gazeta Wyborzca, great moment in the history of The New Fanton, gave the Polish dissident Adam Poland’s largest newspaper, and has become School and salute the people who played Michnik an honorary doctorate in absentia. one of the most influential political com- critical roles in renewing the institution’s Although poorly known in the United States mentators in the world on East and Central commitments to academic freedom and at the time, Michnik was greatly admired as Europe. human rights: Jonathan Fanton, President of a political hero in Europe for the role he was In 1990 the Graduate Faculty created the The New School from 1982-1999, and his playing as an intellectual spokesman for Soli- East and Central Europe Program, appoint- first dean, Ira Katznelson. Together they gave darity. ing Elzbieta Matynia its director. A the Graduate Faculty strong academic direc- On the actual day of the ceremony, sociologist and political dissident, she came tion at a time when its future was in serious Michnik was in prison for the fifth time. The to The New School from Poland in 1980 on jeopardy. They were greatly assisted in this Nobel Laureate poet Czeslaw Milosz repre- a post-doctoral fellowship and then remained effort by many colleagues, in particular Pro- sented him at the event and read a in the U.S. when martial law was declared. fessors Jeffrey Goldfarb, Andrew Arato, Arien translation of a letter Michnik had written a Under Professor Matynia’s leadership the Mack, Aristide Zolberg, Richard Bernstein, few months earlier to General Czeslaw Kiszc- program recruited students from East and Agnes Heller, Elzbieta Matynia, and William zak, Poland’s Minister of the Interior, in Central Europe interested in comparing the Hirst, whose research interests helped build which he rejected the general’s offer to free challenges faced by new democracies in the strong ties to dissident intellectuals, first in him if he went into exile. As quoted in The former Communist countries with those of East and Central Europe, then in other parts New York Times, Michnik’s defiant statement the older democracies. After Mandela was of the world. Thanks to Elzbieta Matynia’s fell “like a tornado” upon the audience.2 elected President of South Africa the remarkable leadership, and the scholarly The following fall Michnik was released program expanded its geographical reach and achievements of members of the faculty, The from jail, as part of a general amnesty, and a became known as the Transregional Center New School for Social Research has become small group from The New School went to for Democratic Studies, creating, in the in recent years a major center for the study Warsaw to repeat the ceremony and present process, a wide range of opportunities for of democracy, both in New York and in him his honorary degree in person. After the young professors, graduate students, and special summer institutes in Cracow and ceremony, which officials in Warsaw tried public intellectuals from East and Central Cape Town. Over the years the Transregional unsuccessfully to disrupt, Michnik asked The Europe, the former Soviet Union, parts of Center has recruited to The New School tal- New School to strengthen its commitment Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the United ented students from East and Central to the struggle of dissident intellectuals in States to study together, in the U.S. and Europe, southern Africa, Asia, and Latin Communist Europe. He proposed that The abroad. America, the large majority of whom have New School sponsor an international In 1990 the GF also created the Journal returned home after finishing their studies seminar on democratic theory with branches Donation Project, under the leadership of and established themselves as intellectual and in Warsaw, Budapest, and New York. Arien Mack, Marrow Professor of Psychology political leaders in their countries. Michnik volunteered to lead the seminar in and Editor of Social Research. According to Warsaw and recommended the Hungarian Professor Mack, György Bence suggested the Judith Friedlander is currently serving as Direc- philosopher and dissident György Bence to idea to her when he and some of his col- tor of Academic Programs at the Roosevelt organize the one in Budapest and New leagues visited The New School from House Institute for Public Policy, Hunter School sociologist Jeffrey Goldfarb the one in Budapest that year. Eighteen years later the College (City University of New York). From New York. Journal Donation Project is still going strong 1993-2000 she was Dean of the Graduate Thus began the Democracy Seminars— and it describes its mission in the following Faculty of Political and Social Science and and they continued underground until 1989, way: to rebuild “major research and teaching Eberstadt Professor of Anthropology at The New even after Michnik was arrested again and libraries in countries that have fallen victim School. She is currently writing a book on the sent back to prison. As agreed, New School to political and economic deprivation, and history of The New School from 1919 to the colleagues arranged to smuggle publications often both, through the provision of current early years of the twenty-first century. Notes continued on page 7

3 * this institution, to celebrate the contribu- The University in Exile tions of its members—and a generation of Jonathan Fanton émigrés—to this country and to scholarship around the world, and finally to reaffirm The New School’s commitment to honor *From President Fanton’s speech at the Graduate stirring words still. In 1933, they carried that legacy with a revitalized Graduate Faculty’s fiftieth anniversary convocation, April overtones which may be lost today. Faculty that includes once more the tall trees 25, 1984. Jonathan F. Fanton, The University Alvin Johnson and his colleagues could and Civil Society (New York: The New School for of international intellectual life. Further, not possibly have imagined the monstrosi- Social Research, 1995), pp. 95-98. through the honorary degrees we confer ties that were to follow during the next today, we recognize the continuing role of dozen years. But they perceived, however half century ago, as darkness enveloped The New School in nourishing and protect- dimly, that the gates of hell were swinging political, intellectual, and religious ing those who risk all in defense of A open across the Atlantic. And on this side, freedom in Europe, ten distinguished intellectual freedom and human and civil America was at the very bottom of the Great German scholars accepted the invitation of rights. As Alvin Johnson wrote, “In extend- Depression, torn by economic and social New School President Alvin Johnson to ing its hospitality to a group of German uncertainties of every kind. Yet Johnson and leave their native land and establish a Uni- professors who have been displaced, The the New School Trustees were willing to versity in Exile in New York City. They New School conceives of itself as acting in pledge material and social resources to the came largely from the University of Frank- the capacity of a representative of American cause of academic freedom, freedom of furt, the Kiel Institute for World Economics, institutions, in the first instance, and ulti- thought, and freedom of expression. and the Berlin Hochschule. All but two were mately, of American democracy.” Let us It was also the threat to intellectual students of economics, political science, or reaffirm today our role as a representative freedom that moved the ten scholars to sociology. In that first academic year, 1933- American institution—one that has made a accept the invitation from The New School. 1934, eight lecture courses and seven difference. Even more savage threats were foreshad- seminars were conducted. Those ten scholars Why do we make so much of the Univer- owed, to be sure, but they were virtually were the first of over 170 intellectuals from sity in Exile? Why has the special tie unbelievable. It was not for sheer survival throughout Europe who escaped totalitarian between The New School and German but for those freedoms that the scholars left oppression and found safety at the Univer- scholarship remained vital for 50 years? home, family, and friends, and the comfort sity in Exile. This rescue effort inspired Recall that the University in Exile started of their native language, to settle at this similar action by many American institu- with only ten émigrés and through all its young and still untested institution. tions, resulting in the emigration of years only thirty more taught there. To be Alvin Johnson grasped the larger signifi- thousands of European scholars to these sure, through The New School many more cance of the rescue mission and saw it as a shores. Since that small beginning, more were helped to find positions in the United natural expression of our central purpose. As than 1,000 scholars have taught at the Grad- States at well-established institutions like the the first Graduate Faculty catalogue uate Faculty; over 50,000 students have University of Chicago, Yale, Harvard, and observed: attended; and 7,000 have earned graduate the University of California. The New School is under obligation to express degrees. Since the founding of the Massachusetts by work and by act its own faith in the value The University in Exile forever changed Bay Colony in 1630, Americans have of academic liberty. Without freedom of The New School for the better. Because of believed in the efficacy of the “city upon the inquiry and teaching in the higher educational the Graduate Faculty The New School hill,” the symbolic power of small examples institutions there can be no intellectual became a university, a university which still to inspire hope among the oppressed. The freedom in society at large; and without intel- more closely resembles a European collo- University in Exile was a twentieth-century lectual freedom the democratic system under quium than an American one. But the equivalent, a symbol of the enduring com- which we live cannot long endure. transforming effect of the University in Exile mitment of Western society to the values of on The New School went beyond mere form That message spoke not only to condi- academic freedom, human rights, political to the substance of what was taught and tions in Europe but to fears in America that liberty, equality, and justice. studied and to the kind of institution this economic depression would unravel the The second observation relates to the was to be—then and today. social and political fabric of this society. In first. Most of the émigrés were dispersed The catalogue of that first year articulated the fall of 1933 democracy faced a double across the American landscape. For all their the new institution’s central values in its test: totalitarian repression abroad and inter- brilliance and accomplishment, they were concluding words: “It goes without saying nal despair and collapse at home. The peripheral to the institutions that took them that every professor in the Graduate Faculty American and European scholars gathered in. Only The New School found virtue in will be absolutely untrammeled, teaching here placed their faith in intellectual freedom the clustering of émigrés; only The New freely and fearlessly and what he believes to and social research as a response to both. School appreciated the beneficial potential be the truth.” The irony of that phrase “it So the occasion today is meant to recall of their influence on American scholarship; goes without saying” is inescapable. They are the special circumstances and purposes of only The New School respected and encour-

4 Fall 2008 university-in-exile award aged the folkways of different cultures; and In 1999, The New School began conferring the University-in-Exile Award to honor individuals only The New School placed them at the and groups who have made outstanding contributions to the protection and promotion of democ- heart of the university. racy and human rights. Recipients of the award for each year it has been conferred are as follows: Finally, the very term “University in Exile”—so monumental a name for so -1999- modest an enterprise—conveys the true ambition and meaning of that historic emi- Galina Starovoitova. A major figure in Russia’s pro-democracy movement at the time, member gration. A university transcends lecture halls, of the Duma, presidential candidate, Visiting Professor at our Graduate Faculty, and a close laboratories, and even libraries. It is not associate of TCDS. The citation read in part: “Radiating commitment to a peaceful and dem- defined by geography or confined to a par- ocratic Russia, generously cooperating with the new nations emerging as its neighbors, you ticular place. A university is a community of boldly challenge the resurgent evil of ethnic bigotry. Your service to humankind is passionate thinking, study, discourse and collaboration and principled, true to your vibrant democratic vision, and true to yourself. The New School which rises above disciplines, methods, lan- takes pride in conferring upon you the University in Exile Award.” The award was conferred guages, and nationalities. The University in posthumously, as Galina had been gunned down in the lobby of her St. Petersburg apartment Exile reminds us that we are all part of that building in November 1998. greater community, of one university. It can be removed from one locale to exile in -2000- another, but it can never be exiled from our hearts and minds. Dogu Ergil. Turkish human rights activist and member of the Faculty of Political Science at That was the message brought to The Ankara University whose work has addressed Turkish-Kurdish relations and reconciliation, New School by Thomas Mann when he among other issues. spoke at a dinner for the University in Exile in 1937. He recalled that the Nazis had Yuri Kochiyama. Japanese-American human rights activist who has worked on behalf of such removed from the wall of the University of causes as the defense of political prisoners’ rights, nuclear disarmament, and reparations to Heidelberg a plaque bearing the inscription Japanese-Americans interned during World War II. “to the living spirit.” Of course, the “living spirit” was the tradition of free and unfet- -2003- tered inquiry that had thrived for so long in the German university system. Because of Saad Eddin Ibrahim. Egyptian sociologist and prominent human rights activist who has the University in Exile, Mann said, the several times been convicted and jailed for his criticism of the Egyptian government. removal of the plaque would have no effect. The “living spirit” would be preserved in -2004- America through the émigré scholars at The New School…. Ami Ayalon and Sari Nusseibeh. Two non-despairing men, Ayalon, retired commander of the Israeli navy, and Nusseibeh, President of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, together formed Jonathan F. Fanton was President of The “The People’s Voice,” a broad-based grassroots campaign that proposes a Middle East compro- New School from 1982-1999. Since 1999 mise based on the “two states for two peoples” formula. he has served as President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. -2005-

The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Human rights organization founded in 1977 to locate and return to their families children abducted during the Argentine “National Reorganization Process” of 1976-83. It has thus far located 87 of an estimated 500 lost children.

-2007-

Shirin Ebadi. Iranian lawyer and human rights activist, and the first Iranian to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her work especially on behalf of the rights of women and children.

-2008-

Wanda Nowicka. Feminist and human rights activist, Nowicka is an outspoken advocate of women’s sexual and reproductive health rights in Poland. ASTRA, the organization she founded and directs, monitors the commitments to this crucial aspect of women’s health and rights nationally and internationally.

5 organize one in New York, and we would Remembering the University in Internal invite György Bence to do the same in Buda- pest and Vaclav Havel in Prague. In the end, Exile of East and Central Europe because of much tougher political condi- tions, the Prague branch never got off the JEFFREY C. GOLDFARB ground. But in fact from 1985 to 1989 meetings were held in the other branches, pril 25, 1984, was one of the turning The future, which is now our more recent records of the proceedings were exchanged, Apoints in my life, and in the life of The past, involved a very serious New School and The New School supported the alterna- New School for Social Research. I spent the engagement in the democratic oppositions in tive academic and intellectual culture in a day as the host and guide of Czeslaw Milosz. Central Europe and in the making of the variety of different ways. The occasion was the commemoration of the new democracies around the old Soviet bloc. There was an understanding that the situ- fiftieth anniversary of the University in Exile. It began a few months after the April festivi- ation, while similar, was still strikingly Milosz was there to accept an honorary ties. Michnik had been released from prison, different from the thirties. Repression and degree on behalf of Adam Michnik, the and a few months later The New School cel- suffering were of a different order. The goal Polish democratic activist and political ebrated its fiftieth anniversary in Berlin. was to help sustain academic freedom and thinker, who then sat in a prison cell for the Jonathan Fanton, President of The New political independence in the very place of exact reasons we were honoring him. As a School, proposed that he and I take a side repression, not to provide the possibilities of creative independent intellectual, he spoke trip to Warsaw to give Michnik his degree in exile. Exile, as Michnik’s letter revealed, rep- his mind freely in opposition to a totalitarian person after the Berlin festivities. We went resented the defeat of critical alternatives, not regime, offering critical insights into its logic and gave him his degree on December 10, their survival. and its vulnerabilities, illuminating alterna- International Human Rights Day. We saw It was at this time that a series of Hungar- tive ways of acting politically with dignity. how important the degree was to Michnik ian dissident scholars visited to teach at the In prison, Michnik embodied the ideals and to the democratic opposition. It gave Graduate Faculty, including Bence, Janos Kis of The New School for Social Research. At them a sense that a larger world knew about and András Kovács, and then returned to the ceremony, Milosz read excerpts from their struggles, and that they were taken seri- Budapest and their independent circles. Michnik’s famous letter to General Kiszczak, ously both as activists and as critical thinkers. Fanton, Ira Katznelson, the Dean of the the Polish Minister of the Interior, in which It confirmed for them that they had col- Graduate Faculty, and I made a series of trips Michnik refuses an offered exile “on the leagues beyond their confinement. This to Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary in Riviera.” He denounces the Polish General proved to be more than metaphoric. support of the alternative academic life. as a swine for even imagining that he, The ceremony in which the degree was Arien Mack developed the Journal Donation Michnik, would leave his internal exile in a conferred included the leading lights of inde- Project. Regular dinners were arranged by prison cell for the comforts of the West. His pendent Poland: Jacek Kuron, Bronislaw Fanton for members of the broader New resolute commitment to intellectual freedom Geremek, and the host, Edward Lipinski, School community to discuss developments and political independence moved the among many others. The people who would with leading scholars and public leaders from audience, vividly linking as it did a lead Poland in the first years after 1989 were the region. Special issues of Social Research contemporary struggle with the ideals of the there. It was, in a sense, a meeting of the dedicated to the situation there were pub- University in Exile. University in Internal Exile. lished. And a group of distinguished Milosz read Michnik’s words as if they The next day, after we met with Jan Jozef colleagues engaged in the critical analysis of were his own, and his reading of them “fell Lipski, the distinguished historian, at his “the other Europe” were recruited to our like a tornado” on the commemoration, as hospital bed, Michnik turned to me and pro- faculty. Agnes Heller, Ferenc Feher, José the report in The New York Times the next posed a common project, as he put it, “now Casanova, and Elzbieta Matynia joined day put it. The Polish Nobel Poet clearly was that we are New School colleagues.” By then, Andrew Arato and me to make up a core of committed to the young man. He also felt we had talked about common friends from engaged researchers and theorists who devel- very much connected to our celebration. He Hungary and Czechoslovakia. We had dis- oped critical works on the previously existing privately told me that he felt like he was cussed the struggle for social justice in Chile socialist order. coming back to our University—that he had against the anti-Communist dictator. We had We developed an avenue of mutual felt like a colleague of The New School in shared our passion for the writings of exchange with our colleagues, first in the the forties in Nazi occupied Poland, when he Hannah Arendt, and our commitment to Democracy Seminars, then through the East translated a book by Jacques Maritain, who critical thinking beyond ideological cliches. and Central Europe Program, later in the was then in exile at The New School. Milosz He then suggested that we run a joint inter- expanded Transregional Center for Demo- connected the first decade of the University national seminar on related topics, read cratic Studies. We learned from them at least in Exile with what was yet to come. As books in common, starting with Arendt’s as much as they learned from us. And we Hannah Arendt would put it, he was think- The Origins of Totalitarianism. He would developed among ourselves a set of concerns ing “between past and future.” organize a discussion in Warsaw. I would that was nurtured in our engagement in the

6 Fall 2008

An Anniversary Celebration continued from page 3 Notes 1Most important, Arien Mack, Editor of Social Research, organized a conference in late October that paid tribute to The New School’s history: “Free Inquiry at Risk: Universities in Dangerous Times.” It opened with a keynote address by former GF Dean Ira Katznelson: “Liberty and Fear: Reflections on The New School’s Founding Moments (1919 and 1933).” The papers pre- sented at the conference will be published this coming summer in Social Research (Vol. 76, no. 2). Arien Mack has organized a similar program Czeslaw Milosz, with Elzbieta Matynia, speaking at a that will take place in Berlin in February 2009. At TCDS Democracy & Diversity Institute in Krakow, Poland this later event The New School will give Chan- cellor Angela Merkel an honorary doctoral degree. 2 region but reached beyond it. These concerns my future—it seemed then that it would be The New York Times, April 26, 1984, p. 1. It was the late Robert Heilbroner, Norman Thomas were presented to the faculty and students a momentary pleasure. But from our meeting Professor of Economics at the GF, who had of The New School and to the broader came the Democracy Seminars, first as a described the letter’s impact upon the gathering academic community, within our disciplines small semi-clandestine activity, but after the in such terms. and in more public forums. In this setting, changes of 1989, as a much larger network, the intellectual substance of the initiative developed all over the former Soviet bloc, by Bibliography developed. Major works were informed by then, under the able leadership of Elzbieta Coser, Lewis. Refugee Scholars in America: the transregional intellectual exchanges: Matynia as an activity of the East and Their Impact and their Experience (New Haven: Andrew Arato and Jean Cohen’s work on Central Europe Program. Next came the Press, 1984). Fanton, Jonathan F. The University and Civil civil society, José Casanova’s studies of the many other endeavors of the Transregional Society, 2 vols. (New York: The New School for role of religion in contemporary politics, Center for Democratic Studies, the gem of Social Research/New School University, 1995, Agnes Heller and Ferenc Feher’s development which has been the Democracy and Diversity 2002). of a post-Marxist social and political theory Institute in Krakow. And there, the annual Goldfarb, Jeffrey C. After the Fall: The Pursuit and critical appraisal of the post-modern extra-curricular highlights of this very special of Democracy in Central Europe (New York: Basic Books, 1993[1992]). condition, Elzbieta Matynia’s early work on summer school were for many years a lecture Johnson, Alvin. Pioneer’s Progress (Lincoln: performative democracy, Ira Katznelson’s by and public conversation with Adam University of Nebraska Press, 1960). examination of liberalism in the contempo- Michnik and a poetry reading by and con- Loyer, Emmanuelle. Paris à New York: Intellec- rary political world (presented as a letter to versation with Czeslaw Milosz, who was by tuels et artistes français en exil 1940-1947 (Paris: Adam Michnik), and my analysis of prob- then primarily living in Krakow. Each year Pluriel, 2005). Katznelson, Ira. Liberalism’s Crooked Circle: lems of political culture in Central Europe the great tradition of the University in Exile Letters to Adam Michnik (Princeton: Princeton and the United States, among others. These was kept alive and was extended in this New University Press, 1996). were all independent works, but somehow School outpost. Each year, in a sense, the Krohn, Claus-Dieter. Intellectuals in Exile: informed by each other. Together they con- excitement of April 25, 1984, was repeated. Refugee Scholars and The New School for Social tributed to the continuing vitality of the As I have spent my “summer vacations” in Research, trans. R. Kimber (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993[1987]). tradition of the University in Exile, linking Krakow and the rest of the year in New York, Matynia, Elzbieta, ed. Grappling with Democ- American and European scholarship (now in I have come to appreciate how much the racy: Deliberations on Post-Communist Societies, a Europe that was centered further east). critical spirit of the University in Exile is very 1990-1995 (Prague: Sociologické Nakladatelství, When I spent the day with Czeslaw much alive and has shaped my life, and the 1996). Milosz, I was moved. This was a man whose lives of my colleagues and students. We are a Mehlman, Jeffrey. Emigré New York: French Intellectuals in Wartime Manhattan, 1940- 1944 poetry I had enjoyed and admired, whose part of a distinctive academic tradition. It (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, classic essay, The Captive Mind, was crucial shapes not only our memories, but also our 2000). to my education as a student of politics and imaginations. A pressing challenge that I feel Rutkoff, Peter, and William Scott. New School: culture and a critic of ideology and its temp- I have, indeed, that we have, is to pass this A History of The New School for Social Research tations. It was a great honor to spend some on, to keep the tradition alive. (New York: The Free Press, 1986). Zolberg, Aristide. “The Ecole Libre at The time with him and to have a sense of his New School.” Social Research, Vol. 65/4, Winter commitment to the institution around which Jeffrey C. Goldfarb is Michael E. Gellert 1998, pp. 921-955. I was building my life. That a little piece of Professor of Sociology at The New School his past was going to be an important part of for Social Research.

7 record of the early seminars, there remain The Democracy Seminars some bits of correspondence, as well as some Our Flying University: Warsaw, Budapest, New York* reports from the discussions. The major challenges—apart from Michnik’s frequent ELZBIETA MATYNIA imprisonments—were problems with com- munication. That was a time—mostly in *Adapted from Elzbieta Matynia, Performative tion, and of the whole alternative culture it Poland, and less so in Hungary—when mail Democracy (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2009). nurtured, was provided by underground was frequently searched, and movement in periodicals that came out of the same milieu and out by people who could serve as couri- ne of the semiclandestine seminars as the Democracy Seminars—periodicals ers or liaisons was limited. The letters that that Michnik initiated in the late O like Krytyka or Res Publica in Warsaw, and have survived at The New School reflect the 1980s was called the Democracy Seminars. Beszelo in Budapest. It became the practice early efforts to find the most appropriate It was a project at once modest and ambi- of these journals, as with the Democracy format and focus for the seminars. tious, proposed by Michnik in Warsaw, and Seminars, to keep in touch with each other, Like almost everything that Michnik envi- extended to New York and Budapest to introducing each other’s ideas and present- sioned, the initiative thrived and took on a provide an opportunity for a sustained and ing each other’s authors. In that way the life of its own. The earnest dialogue taking uninhibited discussion of democratic theory respective fields of discourse widened, along place in private apartments in Warsaw and and the prospects for democratization. with a significantly widening and more Budapest and in New York—despite the When I look at that initiative now—and diversified public. exchange of brief summaries of the discus- I was a member of the small New York The Democracy Seminars were different sions—had a fleeting quality. There were no seminar that met for a few years—openly, from other projects in the region in that professional ambitions at stake, no selfish of course—in the Wolff Conference Room they included an American partner, for motives coming into play. It was clear that at The New School for Social Research—I whom, despite fundamentally similar values, participation in the Democracy Seminars do see it as one instance of those alternative the same books and concepts, considered would not advance academic careers or activities outside the official structures of under very different political and cultural make political heroes or public celebrities of the state that added to the thickness of the conditions, had a very different resonance. any members; there would be no books pro- pre-1989 democratic opposition in both For the Americans, the seminars offered an duced, no public presentations, or articles in Poland and Hungary. Excited about our opportunity to discuss central aspects of official or unofficial journals; nor was partic- exchanges, we did not think back then their own normative tradition with people ipation a substitute for political activity. It about this. Yet the Democracy Seminars, who had had profoundly different political was simply to be a shared deliberation by which in the pre-Internet and pre-fax era experiences. The exception in all this was a engaged intellectuals on problems concern- brought together independently minded very important bridge provided by the ing political and civic engagement in their intellectuals in Warsaw and Budapest and works of Hannah Arendt, writings deeply respective societies. linked them with their colleagues in New permeated with European history and phi- York, have earned a modest place in the losophy, yet ultimately unimaginable Elzbieta Matynia is Associate Professor of Soci- history of the democratic opposition in the without the author’s intimate exposure to ology and Liberal Studies at The New School region. Michnik remembers, American culture and politics. for Social Research and Director of TCDS. The most exciting In apartments filled with cigarette smoke, in illegal self-education groups, thing for us in New we argued endlessly about everything: York was the very on the phenomenon of totalitarianism, opening of these pas- on the condition of an intellectual sageways, through caught up in politics, on what it meant which we all experi- to be a Jew after the Holocaust, on the enced each other’s dynamics of the internal transforma- terms, semantic tion of the communist system, on fields, moral and parliamentary democracy and the political concerns, market economy, and on a process of and ultimately got transformation of the communist dic- insights into the tatorship that was itself full of traps and new dangers. confusing nature of modern European But these deliberations were rarely docu- dictatorships. mented, as they were conducted verbally Though no one ever and necessarily “off the record.” The main thought of preserv- documentation of the democratic opposi- ing a complete Elzbieta Matynia with Adam Michnik the New School, 2000

8 Fall 2008

Remaining a Refuge

75 years ago, recognizing the danger Hitler presented to democracy and the civilized world, The New School created The University in Exile as a haven for scholars and artists whose very lives were threat- ened by National Socialism. Then as today, our university recognized the impact losing a whole generation of social scientists, philosophers, historians, and other great minds would have on the world. We are honored this year to host two University in Exile Scholars, Muwafaq Hamid, a translator for the American Army from Iraq, and Befekadu Degefe, a renowned economist from Ethiopia. These brave men spoke and acted freely for what they believed to be right and as a result placed themselves in grave danger in their homelands. The New School will remain a refuge for those whose very existence is put at risk by authoritarian rule, religious and ethnic hatred, or physical threats that aim to silence their voices.

—, President, The New School

Bob Kerrey

TCDS alumni VOICES Fall 2008 EVENTS Promoting the Value of International with foundations, corporations, and govern- Social Research Conference Explores Education: Jonah Kokodyniak ment agencies to foster mutual Contemporary Fate of University in understanding among students and scholars Exile’s Core Values While it has been more than six years through programs that reach people in more since I worked at the Transregional Center than 175 countries each year. With 20 To explore contemporary challenges to for Democratic Studies and participated in offices around the world, the goals of IIE’s the core university values of academic one of its Democracy & Diversity Institutes programs include: freedom and institutional autonomy, an in Krakow, those experiences—and the • Strengthening and linking institutions of apropos theme also to mark the occasion of values of TCDS and The New School—had higher learning globally and increasing the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Univer- a profound impact on the career path I have access to international educational oppor- sity in Exile that established the journal, followed since receiving my MA from the tunities—for students in the United States Social Research held a conference at The Graduate Faculty. and other countries. New School from October 29-31: “Free Through TCDS, I gained an understand- • Building leadership skills and enhancing Inquiry at Risk: Universities in Dangerous ing of the value and importance of the capacity of individuals and organiza- Times.” We are grateful to Arien Mack, international educational experiences and tions—especially in the developing Editor and Marrow Professor of Psychology, the unique, cross-cultural dialogues that world—to address local and global chal- and to Cara Schlesinger, Managing Editor, emerge within them. During the Institute I lenges. for their permission and assistance in allow- attended, students from over thirty countries • Rescuing threatened scholars and advanc- ing us to print the excerpt from Ira in Africa, Asia, North America and Europe ing academic freedom through the Scholar Katznelson’s keynote speech at the event that came together to learn about and discuss Rescue Fund, which provides support and appears below (page 10). For the full speech, critical issues like ethnic conflict, gender, safe haven to persecuted scholars around as well as the entire conference proceedings, globalization, and the role of international the globe and involves a partnership with look out for the Summer 2009 issue of institutions. Many of the participants had The New School for Social Research. Social Research (Volume 76, Number 2). their first opportunity to openly express My commitment to these programs—and their opinions about these issues, while to international education as a whole—was many of us from the west learned of their undoubtedly inspired by my involvement regional histories, challenges and perspec- with TCDS. I hope that, as a result of my tives for the first time. current work, I am helping to create educa- This past summer, after a number of years tional opportunities that have as significant with an organization that educates students an impact on their participants as TCDS in New York City high schools about foreign had on me. policy issues, I began a new role in the stra- —Jonah Kokodyniak, Krakow ’01 tegic development office at the Institute of Director of Institutional Giving, IIE International Education (IIE), which works

9 Liberty and Fear: Reflections on The New School’s Founding Moments (1919 and 1933)* IRA KATZNELSON

*From Professor Katznelson’s keynote address given the Graduate Faculty at a moment of susceptible to the blandishments of National at the conference, “Free Inquiry at Risk: Universities transition, opportunity, and growth. I Socialism. in Dangerous Times,” on October 29, 2008. The arrived in the 1983-84 academic year. The One of the grand opportunities I entire talk will be available in the Summer 2009 issue of Social Research (vol. 76, no. 2) devoted to distance of a half-century from the founding experienced as Dean was the chance the conference. made it impossible for me to know the to address the two fiftieth-anniversary earliest members of the faculty—with one celebrations that marked the 1933-34 am grateful for the honor, and pleasure, exception, the sociologist Hans Speier, the founding of the University in Exile. Some Iof having been asked to speak at this youngest and last surviving founder of the of us in this room will recollect those felicitous occasion. I am thankful for the University in Exile, who had been a member gatherings convened by Jonathan Fanton continuing vitality of The New School, of the Graduate Faculty from 1933 to in April and December 1984 at the First and for the ways it has wrestled with the 1942 before serving in the Office of War Presbyterian Church, just down the street consequences of unfreedom, fear, and Information and the State Department’s on Fifth Avenue, and in Berlin’s striking insecurity. From the start, it has advanced Occupied Areas Division. Professor Speier Staatsbibliothek, in the large hall named John Milton’s ringing affirmation of 1643: kindly conveyed a sense of what the first for Otto Braun, the social democrat “Give me liberty to know, to utter, and to decade had been like. I also benefited who served as Prime Minister of Prussia argue freely according to conscience, above from conversations with members of the from 1920 to 1932, and who himself all liberties,” and it has tried to emulate second and third waves of émigré faculty emigrated to Switzerland in 1933 when Thomas Huxley’s call, when he was installed and students who shared their histories Hitler came to power. The New York as Rector of Aberdeen University in 1874, and expertise with warmth and generosity. gathering awarded the Doctor of Humane that “Universities should be places in which These colleagues included the Austrian Letters degree to Hans Speier and to six thought is free from all fetters, and in which jurist and political scientist Erich Hula, who exceptional contributors to human rights, all sources of knowledge and all aids of arrived soon after the 1938 Anschluss; and including South Africa’s Helen Suzman, learning should be accessible to all comers, the Stuttgart-born Adolph Lowe, a veteran The Maryknoll Sisters for their courageous without distinction of creed or country, of the First World War who joined the work in Central America, and Poland’s riches or poverty.” Graduate Faculty as Professor of Economics Adam Michnik. Erich Hula and Adolph This singular university has touched and as the Director of a new Institute Lowe served as Honorary Marshals. The many lives through its active values. It for World Affairs in 1940, having come Berlin ceremony and commemorative certainly has touched mine, offering the from the University of Manchester where seminar included a memorable talk by special privilege of serving as Dean of he first had found refuge. I also enjoyed Jürgen Habermas on German academic conversations with the Italian culture and the impact of the absence New School student Franco of a once vibrant Jewish intellectual and Modigliani, who completed cultural presence, and a moving account of his Ph.D. under Jacob personal and scholarly duress and renewal Marschak’s supervision in by Aristide Zolberg, the first holder of The 1944, and was awarded the New School’s University in Exile Chair, Nobel Prize in Economics in awarded by the City of Berlin. 1985; and with Hans Jonas, The Berlin commemoration’s highlight who served as Alvin Johnson was an address by Richard Von Weizsäcker, Professor of Philosophy at who received an honorary degree for his the Graduate Faculty from commitment, as the citation said, “to the 1955 to 1976, and who first ideals exemplified by the University in Exile: had met Hannah Arendt the freedom of intellectual inquiry, the when they both were graduate defense of human rights, and the pursuit of students of Edmund Husserl international understanding as an avenue and Martin Heidegger in toward peace.” His diplomat father, Ernst, Marburg in the mid-1920s, had been a member of the Nazi Party, before Heidegger reminded had held honorary rank in the SS, had Ira Katznelson speaking at the New the world in 1933 that even been a key figure in the 1938 negotiations School in October 2008 the greatest of minds was at Munich, and had served as German

10 Fall 2008

Ambassador to the Vatican just as Rome’s TCDS alumni NEWS SMOKI MUSARAJ (Cape Town 2001) is a PhD Jews were being deported. In 1947, he was student in Anthropology at the NSSR and is sentenced to seven years for war crimes GBEMISOLA ADEOTI (Cape Town 2002) is currently doing fieldwork in Albania. Her associated with the deportation of French Senior Lecturer in the English Department of project, “When and What Is Corruption? A Case Jews. So it was particularly moving to hear Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Nigeria. He Study from Postsocialist Albania,” received the National Science Foundation Cultural Anthro- his son, the new President of the Federal is one of the winners of the 2008-09 competition pology Dissertation Grant and the International Republic, pay homage to The New School’s for the British Academy Visiting Scholars’ Fellowship, and is putting finishing touches on Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Social legacy of courage and resistance. That talk, his next book entitled, Voices Offstage: Nigerian Science Research Council. and Berlin’s gift of the University in Exile Dramatists on Democratisation. Chair, signaled a salute—sadly, a belated DAVID NIETO-RASIŃSKI (Krakow 2005) one—‘To the Living Spirit,’ the inscription LAURA BALBUENA-GONZALEZ (Krakow 2004) recently received his PhD from the University of the Nazis had removed from the great has published two articles (also delivering them Wroclaw, Poland. He works at the University of lecture hall at Heidelberg University, and as lectures in different cities of Peru): “Public Wroclaw’s Institute of International Studies and which Thomas Mann, who had come to Interest, Health and Gender Perspective” and is Director of the Center for Spanish Language and Iberoamerican Culture in Wroclaw. New York in 1937 to celebrate the start of “Health and Maternal Mortality.” She is currently living and working on her dissertation in Lima, the Graduate Faculty’s fifth year, suggested ISAACK OTIENO Peru. (Cape Town 2001) was should become the institution’s motto recently appointed Director of the CIDA Demo- “to indicate that the living spirit, driven JONATHAN FAULL (Cape Town 2003), formerly cratic Governance Fund, a five-year civil society from Germany, has found a home in this the Africa Coordinator of our Democracy & based fund for Kenya with an annual budget of country.” Diversity Institute in Cape Town, left his position CAD $5 million. And so it did. Here we are this evening, at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa VERÓNICA PERERA (NSST 2000) completed gathered again to recall and honor this (IDASA) to pursue a Master in Public Policy her PhD at the NSSR and was recently appointed stirring history at a conference sponsored by degree at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Gover- nance. Assistant Professor of Sociology at Purchase Social Research, the journal announced in College, the State University of New York. the very first public document proclaiming JULIE FRATRIK (Cape Town 2002), our Program MICHELE RUITERS “the establishment of the Graduate Faculty Coordinator since 2003, recently moved on to (Cape Town 2006) started of Political and Social Science in The become the new Director of the Center for at the Development Bank of Southern Africa as a New School [that] has arisen out of the Global Exchange at the New York Institute of Senior Researcher in Regional Integration in reorganization of German university life Technology. Julie will be responsible for devel- October 2008. In 2006, she obtained her PhD in under the National Socialist Revolution,” in oping all of NYIT’s global education programs to Political Science from Rutgers University and is now looking for her next intellectual challenge. circumstances where “scores of professors of promote both student and faculty exchange among its campuses in Bahrain, Canada, China, international reputation have been dismissed GREGOR SOKOL (Krakow 2003, NSST 2004) Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and the U.S. or given indefinitely prolonged furloughs received a dissertation research grant from the We are very happy she has found a great position from their teaching duties.” That statement Wenner-Gren foundation to do fieldwork on the that will allow her to grow further—and we will talked of the obligation The New School “Medicalization of Affects in Post-Socialist miss you, Julie! had seized “to offer temporary or permanent Poland,” an ethnographic study of the increase of hospitality to scholars who have been ANNA HARUTYUNYAN (Krakow 2004) is a PhD affective disorders during and following the trans- deprived of the opportunity of functioning student at the Freie Universität Berlin Institute of formation. Ethnology, with part of her doctoral dissertation by the political requirements, real or ANDRIS SPRUDS (Krakow 1997) received his focusing on Polish Armenians, specifically in the imaginary, of any country,” and it spoke of doctoral degree in Political Science from Jagiello- Krakow community. On a more personal note, the scale of that task at a time, at the start nian University in Krakow in 2005, and is an she and 2003 Krakow alumnus, Tigran Zakaryan, of the Third Reich, when “the hundreds of Associate Professor at Riga Stradins University in were recently married. Congratulations! able scholars who have been displaced from Latvia and Deputy Director of the Latvian Insti- the German universities represent a priceless RAMADAN ILAZI (Krakow 2008) has established tute of International Affairs. He is also a proud resource of all civilization.” This indeed SPEAK UP!, a non-profit organization in Kosovo father to his son Patrik, born in Krakow in 2005. was a rare act, unique at the time, when that works to strengthen public scrutiny of the MYRA WATERBURY (Krakow 1998) presented a the expulsion and repression of scholars government’s work in order to ensure efficient paper, “Bridging the Divide: Towards a Compar- and responsive governance. Their website is www. from German universities was greeted with ative Framework for Understanding External fol-08.org. indifference by university faculties, boards, Kin-State and Migrant Sending-State Diaspora and administrators in the United States…. MATTHIAS LEHMPHUL (Krakow 2006) is editor Politics,” at a workshop on Diaspora and Trans- for the Berlin newsportal, www.zoomer.de, and nationalism organized by IMISCOE and the Ira Katznelson was Dean of the Graduate also writes for the bi-national journal of interna- European University Institute. The paper will be Faculty from 1983-1989 and is now Ruggles tional politics, WeltTrends (www.welttrends.de). published as a chapter in a forthcoming edited Professor of Political Science and History at He graduated from the University of Potsdam in volume by Amsterdam University Press. Columbia University. 2007, writing on “European Migration Policy.”

11 Transregional Center for Democratic Studies 80 Fifth Avenue, Room 517 New York, NY 10011

TCDS Bulletin | Fall 2008

Transregional Center for Democratic Studies Phone: 212.229.5580 Fax: 212.229.5894 Email: [email protected] www.newschool.edu/tcds

Elzbieta Matynia, Director Amy Sodaro, Program Coordinator Brian Bartholomew, Editor, TCDS Bulletin

The activities of TCDS are made possible by the support of the Evens Foundation, the Kosciusko Foundation, the Salus Mundi Foundation, national Soros foundations, the Aso Tavitian Foundation, and The New School.

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Announcements Ninth Annual Democracy & Diversity Institute Gender and Democracy, Profs. Elzbieta Matynia, Department of Sociology Cape Town, South Africa & Liberal Studies, The New School for Social Research, and Shireen January 6-22, 2009 Hassim, Department of Political Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, In an intensive program offering the equivalent of a full semester of Johannesburg graduate study, an international body of civic-minded junior scholars and Democracy and Africanism, Prof. Hylton White, Department of activists will examine critical issues of challenges to democracy and democ- Anthropology, The New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang ratization as they manifest themselves in Southern Africa and beyond. College The New School for Liberal Arts, and guest speakers The following core seminars will be offered this year: Shifting Power in the Global Economy: Rethinking Development Strategies, Democracies & Boundaries - Conflicts about Membership, Borders, and Profs. William Milberg, Department of Economics, The New School for Diversity, Prof. David Plotke, Department of Political Science, The New Social Research, and Stephen Gelb, Executive Director, The EDGE Institute, School for Social Research Johannesburg; and Development Studies, University of the Witwatersrand

TCDS Launches Next Democracy & Diversity to facilitate intellectual and experiential insights into a momentous experi- Summer Institute on Transnational and Transatlantic ment now under way: the peaceful and democratic construction of what may become, in some form, the United States of Europe. In an increas- Challenges to Democracy in Wroclaw, Poland ingly interdependent world fraught with violent conflicts, wars, and (July 9-26, 2009) ethnic and religious tensions, we believe it vital to understand the past and present lessons involved in this extraordinary experiment in democratic Located between Berlin, Prague and Warsaw, and saturated with the and transnational institution building. history and memory of these three distinct cultures that it has been a part of, Wroclaw (formerly Breslau) is a beautiful and booming city that Wroclaw, with its culture of borderlands, TCDS’s network of distinguished uniquely conveys both the challenges and the promise of a united Europe. and dedicated collaborators, and The New School’s reputation stemming Building on the achievements of our Krakow Institute (1991-2008), our from our long-term engagement in the region promise a strong and new three-week transatlantic laboratory in Wroclaw will offer a full semes- innovative program on the New Europe—one that would reflect our ter’s worth of studies in politics, culture, and society under the working ongoing commitment to critical inquiry and dialogue as paths to title: “The New World Meets the New Europe.” The program is designed improvement of the human condition.