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Since its establishment in 2000, Centre for Advanced Study (CAS) has implemented 23 international interdisciplinary research projects and supported 350 Fellows from over 29 countries, and 68 universities across Europe, and the USA.
Along with its institutional website, the Centre maintains 3 academic online portals. At the core of CAS activities in 2019 was its fellowship program Advanced Academia, hosting 12 Bulgarian fellows and 5 international fellows from United Kingdom, Nigeria, Poland and France. Additionally, the Gerda Henkel Fellowship Program awarded in 2019 two five-month fellowships to scholars from Moldova and Turkey.
The program “How to Teach Europe in the 21st Century?”, supported by the Robert Bosch Foundation and the Porticus Foundation, involves 6 scholars from Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and Moldova, while the project “Does Monastic Economy Matter? Religious Patterns of Economic Behavior” (supported by the Center for Governance and Culture in Europe (GCE), University of St. Gallen, Switzerland) involves a network of 37 associated scholars and academics from Bulgaria, Greece, France, Romania, Austria, Albania, Serbia and the USA.
The fellowship awarded for a third year in a row under the Fellowship Program for Artists and Architects (supported by Landis & Gyr Foundation, Zug, Switzerland) was bestowed in 2019 to the Bulgarian theatre critic, Dr. Angelina Georgieva (lecturer at the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts in Sofia).
The Advanced Academia Public Lecture Series is another valuable social platform for publicizing and advertising the intellectual output of CAS. The 9th consecutive sequence of the CAS Public Lectures started on 13 March 2019 and was held on a weekly basis (Wednesdays, at 6 p.m.) at the Sofia City Library from March through May, 2019. The format of the public presentations comprised a 45-minute lecture followed by a 45-minute discussion session. So far, these events have gained much popularity and attention among scholars from various universities, researchers from human and social science institutes and other academic institutions in Sofia. The platform of the Public Lecture Series is largely appreciated by the younger fellows, since for most of them it was their first chance to speak to an audience outside of their faculty.
CAS Discussion Series “Policies of the Rule of Law” explores the principles of the rule of law through the prism of various fields of study – law, political science, history and psychology. Related issues are discussed from the point of view of constitutional theory, as well as from the angle of recent developments taking place in Europe. Within the framework of this series CAS organized in 2019 a workshop featuring a lecture by Assoc. Prof. Martin Belov (Sofia University), who spoke on “Challenges to the Rule of Law and Democracy Engendered by Globalization”.
CAS also hosted a guest lecture on the topic “Ephemeral Liveliness in Medieval Art: Gold Relief, Chant, and the Eucharistic Rite”, convened by Prof. Bissera Pencheva (Department of Art & Art History at Stanford University, USA). This lecture was co-organized with the kind support of Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.
CAS convened an international workshop on: “Recent Research on the Greater War in Eastern Europe (1912-1923)”, with the participation of Prof. Robert Gerwarth and Dr. William Mulligan (UCD Centre for War Studies, Dublin).
The other scholars who made presentations at the workshop were former CAS fellows: Dr. Martin Valkov (Sofia University), Dr. Spiros Tsoutsoumpis (Wolverhampton University, UK), Dr. Dmitar Tasic (University of Hradec Králové, Czech Republic), and current CAS fellows Dr. Andrei Cusko (State University of Moldova), and Dr. John-Paul Newman (Maynooth University, Ireland).
The third Workshop of the CAS project “Does Monastic Economy Matter? Religious Patterns of Economic Behaviour” will take place in October 2019. The key-note speaker, Professor Kostis Smyrtis (Arts and Science Department, New York University), will deliver a public lecture on the topic “The Great Byzantine Monastery: A Success Story”.
The volume “Ageing under Socialism”, an output of the CAS Discussion Series “Existential Policies under Socialism”, is due to be published by the end of the year.
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The New Europe College (NEC) is an independent Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences founded in 1994 by Professor Andrei Pleşu. NEC started as an institutional venue for Romanian scholars, but since the early 2000s extended its programs to regional and international candidates. The Institute hosts each year about 30 Romanian and international fellows. It also acts as a host institution for research projects in which international teams of scholars focus on specific topics. NEC currently hosts two ERC projects: a Consolidator Grant (2015–2020), led by historian Constanţa Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, and a Starting Grant (2018–2023) awarded to art historian Ada Hajdu, both NEC alumnae.
The “Center for Governance and Culture in Europe” of the University of St. Gallen (GCE) has developed a long and fruitful academic partnership with NEC. The main activities have been organized in 2019 as a result of this cooperation.
In 2019, the NEC celebrated its 25th anniversary with four major events: a lecture evening with the rector of the National Music University in Bucharest, the violinist Diana Mos and the rector of the New Europe College, the pianist and musicologist Valentina Sandu-Dediu; a conference with Edhem Eldem, Professor at Department of History, University of Arts and Sciences, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul; a conference with H.E. Emil Hurezeanu, Romania's ambassador to Germany; and a public discussion entitled “Liberal Democracy Under Pressure: European and Domestic Issues” with Dieter Grimm, former rector of the Berlin Research College and Dirk Lehmkuhl, professor of political science at the Center for Governance and Culture at the University of St. Gallen.
Between 28 February and 2 March 2019, NEC hosted an “Intensive Winter Course in Modern Research Methods”, a three-day workshop organized in partnership with the GCE within the framework of the Pontica Magna Fellowship Program (supported by the Volkswagen Stiftung). Three distinguished guests lectured on modern research methods and tools in front of an audience of about two dozen scholars with various academic interests, ranging from medieval studies to contemporary history and from anthropology to economics. The three lecturers were: Dr Sandra King-Savic (University of St. Gallen) on “Qualitative data collection”, Dr Susanne Friese (ATLAS-ti) on “Qualitative Data Analysis with ATLAS-ti” and Dr Mario Diani (University of Trento) on “Network Analysis (Ucinet)”. The latter two lectures included practical training in the use of software. For the ATLAS-ti, an in-depth session allowed participants to devote additional time and thus familiarize themselves with a powerful instrument for qualitative data analysis. Participants – NEC fellows and guests from partner institutions in Switzerland (St. Gallen, Bern) and the post-Soviet countries – gained new knowledge and practical skills.
NEC is currently hosting the project “Bukovina as a Contact Zone”, part of the “Transcultural Contact Zones in Ukraine” research initiative, funded by the GCE. The project aims at exploring, with a bottom-up approach and a comparative perspective, present-day societal perceptions, identificational and attitudinal trends, attachments and loyalties existing on the two sides of the Ukrainian–Romanian border in the region of Bukovina at the level of the two most relevant minority groups: 1. those who self-identify as Romanians, live in the northern part of Bukovina, and are citizens of Ukraine and 2. those who self-identify as Ukrainians, live in the southern part of Bukovina, and are citizens of Romania. The analytical design of this research endeavor is based upon mixed-method research, which combines both quantitative and qualitative instruments. From a quantitative perspective, this study explores and centralizes the findings of surveys simultaneously conducted on both sides of the border. From a qualitative perspective, it includes semi-structured expert interviews to obtain in-depth insights into societal attachments and attitudes in the region. The two research fellows involved in this project are Dr Nadiia Bureiko and Dr Teodor Lucian Moga. In June 2019, Dr Bureiko presented her research in front of the NEC fellows and the project benefited from their input and feed-back.
Last but not least, in December 2019 NEC hosted an international workshop entitled “Making the borders of contemporary Ukraine”, financially supported by the GCE. This workshop aimed to discuss the historical context and the differing perspectives surrounding the formation of Ukraine’s contemporary borders. The workshop was organized by Dr Olena Palko (Birkbeck College, University of London) and Dr Constantin Ardeleanu (The Lower Danube University of Galați and, New Europe College), and the participants’ contributions will be included in a collective volume published by McGill University Press.
Through its fellows, alumni, associated researchers and academic staff, NEC has continued to act as a reliable academic partner of the GCE, with which it works together in several scholarly projects relevant for the history, present and future of Eastern Europe and Europe as a whole.
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