The Stanford Libraries presents: AABS 2018 at Stanford
The 2018 AABS Conference at Stanford University celebrated two important milestones – the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies (AABS) and the 100th anniversary of independence for the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Want to remember highlights or see what you missed at the 2018 conference at Stanford? Check out our Wakelet summary of #AABS2018 tweets!
A conference dedicated to the centennial of the three Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, aimed at fostering contacts between Baltic and US researchers and students and emphasizing the importance of Baltic studies for international research, is due to commence at Stanford University in California on Friday, June 1.
The three-day programme, to be held on Stanford University campus in northern California from 1-3 June, will feature 130 panels, roundtable discussions and workshops on 15 broad topics. The conference will also include numerous additional events, such as keynote talks by leading Baltic scholars, evening receptions, film screenings, literary readings and exhibits. The full conference programme is now available online.
The conference’s academic sessions – panels, roundtables, and workshops – aim to showcase the latest achievements in Baltic studies. The sessions look into the past of the Baltic countries, focussing on their history, memory and identity, and also to present and future opportunities and challenges, such as issues related to disinformation, regional security and political instability.
Several sessions are dedicated to newest developments in digital humanities and in the field of libraries, museums and archives. “Fake News, Post-Truth and the Baltic Public”, “Baltic Societies, Migration and Freedom of Religion”, “Trauma and Insight: Using Baltic Literature to Teach and Transform” and “E-society and the E-state in the Nordic-Baltic Region” are but a few of the 130 academic sessions that will be held at the conference.
Stanford Libraries is pleased to present "Masters of Our Own Homes: Estonia at 100" traveling exhibit in partnership with the Estonian Museum of Occupations.
"We have always harnessed a great inner power, even in the darkest and most difficult times," President of the Republic of Estonia Kersti Kaljulaid has said of this serendipitous moment in her country's history. "To become masters of our own homes, our own country." The purpose of this traveling exhibit is to commemorate a century since the founding of the Republic of Estonia and to introduce its history, culture, innovation, and, most of all, its people, to the wider world. The exhibit was produced by the Estonian Museum of Occupations.
The exhibit will be open from May 31–June 6 at the Stanford Shopping Center's Center Pavilion. The official opening event of the exhibit will take place on June 2 at 4:00 pm.
The exhibit is open to conference presenters, Stanford affiliates, and general audience. Registration is not required.
Stanford Libraries is pleased to present "The Baltic Way: History and Culture in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania 1918–2018" in partnership with the Hoover Institution Library and Archives. Using photographs, posters, correspondence, and other documents paired with narrative text, the exhibit attempts to explain the complicated history of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in the twentieth century, and considers their prospects and challenges in the twenty-first. The exhibit’s title commemorates the 1989 Baltic Way protest, in which people in all three countries linked hands to demand independence from the USSR. The protest took place on the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the agreement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that ended the first period of independence of the Baltic republics. The Baltic Way also celebratesthe three countries’ uniquely Baltic cultural heritage.
The exhibit, which will run through August 18, 2018, was co-curated by Liisi Esse, Associate Curator for Estonian and Baltic Studies, and David Jacobs, longtime Hoover Institution Archives project archivist, and produced by Special Collections exhibits designer Becky Fischbach. Katrīna Kalniņa and Natasha Porfirenko assisted with research and item selection.
The exhibit will be open every day of the conference during extended hours, from 9:00 am–9:00 pm, in Cecil H. Green Library (557 Escondido Mall, Stanford). The exhibit is open to conference presenters, Stanford affiliates, and general audience. Registration is not required.
Conference registration is now open to general audience (all non-presenting, non-Stanford affiliated attendees). Registration deadlines for general audience are as follows:
Early Registration Deadline: Midnight PST on May 1, 2018.
Late Registration Deadline: Midnight PST on May 15, 2018.
All conference events will have limited capacity. We thus advise registering as soon as possible to secure your attendance.
This roundtable discussion features Baltic foreign ministers Sven Mikser, Edgars Rinkēvičs, and Linas Linkevičius, and is chaired by noted political scientist Dr. Anna Grzymala-Busse, Professor in the Department of Political Science at Stanford. The roundtable is open to public and is co-sponsored by the European Security Initiative at Stanford’s Europe Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
As a wave of populism and political divisiveness seem to be rising elsewhere in Europe, the Baltic republics appear to have escaped these worrisome trends. International interference in elections, anti-democratic sentiments, immigration, and a host of populist and protest parties dominate the political debates in the rest of Europe. Yet while Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are firmly ensconced in Europe, and have certainly experienced political pressure from their neighbors, they appear to have weathered the storm far more robustly. The roundtable thus asks, to what extent one can talk about “Baltic exceptionalism,” and how it could be explained.
RSVP requested, seating is limited.
The organizers of the 2018 AABS Conference at Stanford University are looking for volunteers who are willing to help out with one or more of the following areas:
1. Help with registering/signing in attendees at the registration desk.
2. Help with providing logistical instructions and serving as an on-site contact for all conference attendees at other conference venues.
Volunteers will receive promo codes that they can use when registering for any of the ticketed events of the conference.
Thanks to a generous contribution by Jeff Nelson, Lithuanian Honorary Consul in Virginia, AABS is pleased to offer one $2,500 travel grant to a scholar residing in the Baltic countries, whose proposal has been accepted for inclusion in the Business and Economics Division of the 2018 AABS Conference at Stanford University. The deadline for submitting an application is March 20, 2018.
The Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies is pleased to offer five $1,500 travel grants to scholars and public organization representatives residing outside of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, whose proposals have been accepted for inclusion in the 2018 AABS Conference at Stanford University. The deadline for submitting an application is March 15, 2018.
The preliminary conference program, featuring four keynote sessions, grad student luncheon, open-air celebration of Baltic culture, screening of “Ashes in the snow” and other special events, can be found on the conference website. The Program Committee expects to be able to share the full conference program in spring 2018.
Conference registration is open to all presenting participants (presenters, discussants, chairs). Registration is also open to all Stanford affiliates. Early registration deadline for presenters and Stanford affiliates is March 1, 2018, and late registration deadline is May 1, 2018. General registration (all non-presenting, non-Stanford affiliated attendees) will open on April 1 and close on May 15, 2018.
BAFF is pleased to support the 2018 Conference of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies (AABS) at Stanford by offering travel grants to Baltic citizens residing in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, whose proposals for papers, posters, panels, roundtable discussions, or workshop sessions are accepted for inclusion. The deadline for submitting an application is February 1, 2018.
The Stanford University Libraries will be hosting a conference at Stanford University that will celebrate two important milestones – the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies (AABS) and the 100th anniversary of independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Estonian World is a media partner of the 2018 AABS conference at Stanford University: The 100th Anniversary of Baltic Independence.
Dr. Nils Muižnieks was elected to serve as the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights from April 2012 through March 2018. He has held several governmental positions and has published extensively on human rights, racism, and Baltic and international affairs.
Dr. Norman M. Naimark is the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies at Stanford University, a Professor of History and (by courtesy) of German Studies, and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies.
Dr. Agnia Grigas is an energy and political risk expert and the author of three critically acclaimed books: “The New Geopolitics of Natural Gas” (2017), "Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire" (2016), and "The Politics of Energy and Memory between the Baltic States and Russia"(2013).
Dr. Lauri Mälksoo is a Professor of International Law at University of Tartu. He has published several books and numerous articles on the international legal status of the Baltic States, history and theory of international law, and Russia’s concept of international law.
January 15, 2018
April 1, 2018
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May 15, 2018
Dr. Nils Muižnieks was elected to serve as the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights from April 2012 through March 2018.
Prior to becoming Commissioner, he held a number of leadership positions, including chair of the Council of Europe’s independent racism-monitoring body, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (2010-2012); director of the University of Latvia’s Advanced Social and Political Research Institute (2005-2012); Minister of Social Integration in the Latvian government (2002-2004); and director of the NGO Latvian Center for Human Rights and Ethnic Studies (1994-2012).
Dr. Muižnieks has published widely on human rights, racism, and Baltic and international affairs. He is a Latvian national who was educated in the United States, where he received a BA in politics summa cum laude from Princeton University and an MA and PhD in political science from the University of California at Berkeley.
Dr. Norman M. Naimark is the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies at Stanford University, a Professor of History and (by courtesy) of German Studies, and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies.
Naimark is interested in modern Eastern European and Russian history and his research focuses on Soviet policies and actions in Europe after World War II and on genocide and ethnic cleansing in the twentieth century. Having completed his recent book, Genocide: A World History (2016, Oxford University Press), which presents the entire history of genocide in a single comprehensive but concise volume, Naimark is turning his attention to his other major research interest: the postwar history of Europe and, in particular, the period from the end of WWII to 1948/49. He is currently working on a book manuscript that builds upon earlier work in which he examines what happens in Europe after war and genocide.
Naimark has served in and chaired major professional committees that foster research and exchanges with the successor states of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. He also serves on the editorial boards of a number of leading journals in the field. He has held numerous research grants and won scholarly awards.
Dr. Agnia Grigas is an energy and political risk expert based in Washington DC. She specializes in energy and foreign policy of the U.S. and Eurasia including Europe, Russia, China, the states of the former Soviet Union, and the Baltic States. She is the author of three critically acclaimed books: The New Geopolitics of Natural Gas (Harvard UP, 2017), Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire (Yale UP, 2016), and The Politics of Energy and Memory between the Baltic States and Russia (Ashgate 2013).
She is a nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington D.C. and at the McKinnon Center for Global Affairs at Occidental College in Los Angeles. She has fifteen years of experience as a business development and political risk advisor for corporations and government agencies. Previously she also served as an energy and economic advisor to the Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs (2008-2009).
Grigas started her career in investment banking as a financial analyst at JPMorgan and subsequently worked for the global risk consultancy Eurasia Group. Grigas holds a Master’s and Doctorate in International Relations from the University of Oxford and a BA in Economics and Political Science from Columbia University. An experienced communicator on screen, in print, and in person she frequently writes and comments in the media including CNN, Reuters, Bloomberg, Forbes, Newsweek, Foreign Policy, and The Hill among others.
Dr. Lauri Mälksoo has been a Professor of International Law at the University of Tartu since 2009. He is a graduate of the University of Tartu (1998), has studied at Georgetown University (LL.M., 1999), Humboldt University Berlin (Dr. iur., 2002) and been a post-doctoral researcher at NYU (2004-2005) and Tokyo University (2006-2007) as well as a fellow at NYU (2013-2014). He was the main organizer of the 4th Research Forum of the European Society of International Law in 2011. Dr. Mälksoo currently serves as Fellow at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC.
Dr. Mälksoo has published books and articles on the international legal status of the Baltic States, history and theory of international law and Russia’s concept of international law. His monograph, Russian Approaches to International Law (Oxford UP, 2015) won the honorable mention of the Marshall Shulman Book Prize in 2016. Most recently, he co-edited with Wolfgang Benedek a book, Russia and the European Court of Human Rights: the Strasbourg Effect (Cambridge UP, 2017).
Dr. Mälksoo is a member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences since 2013 and an associate member of the Institut de Droit International since 2015.
