Division of Social Studies Events

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Economic Sanctions: (How) Do They Work?

Anna Miromanova, PhD
Assistant Professor of Economics, Lewis & Clark College

Friday, October 3, 2025
12–1 pm

Hegeman 204A
Economic sanctions have emerged as a central tool of international trade regulation in a context of increasing conflict geostrategic rivalries. Dr. Miromanova has published extensively on the topic in US and international journals. Her research provides a quantitative assessment of the effects of economic sanctions on trade performance, economic growth and health outcomes. In this Q&A conversation moderated by Youssef Ait Benasser, Dr. Miromanova will share her findings about the effectiveness of economic sanctions, their externalities on the public and their prospect as a tool of international trade policy.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].

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Global Indigenism Film Screening

Monday, October 6, 2025
8–9:30 pm

Weis Cinema
Join us for a screening of two recent documentaries about Indigenous peoples in Siberia and Northern Europe. 8-9:30 PM on Monday, October 6, Weis Cinema. 

Where Russia Ends (2024, dir. Oleksiy Radynski)

In the late 1980s, a team of Ukrainian filmmakers made several expeditions to the remote corners of Siberia. In 2022, during Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, previously unknown footage from these trips was discovered in Kyiv. This valuable find becomes the starting point for the film essay about Russian imperialism, environmental destruction and oppression of the Indigenous population in Russian colonies.


The Sami Song of Survival (2025, dir. iara lee, Cultures of Resistance Films) 

The documentary tells the story of the Indigenous Sami people of Northern Europe—who live in a territory spanning parts of today’s Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia—and how they have used artistic resistance and organized protest in their struggle for survival. As they preserve ways of life built around reindeer herding, fishing, and a living tradition of shamanistic religious ritual, while also making space for the vibrant creativity of a new generation that is reinventing past cultural practices, Sami communities are proving that existence is resistance.Sponsored by: Anthropology Program; Center for Indigenous Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].

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Navigating Toward an Ocean of Peace Amid Nuclear Legacies

A Talk with the President of French Polynesia, Moetai Brotherson

Friday, October 10, 2025
1:30–3 pm

Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium
As the prospects of deep sea mining increase in the region, French Polynesia bears the weight of nuclear testing and unfinished decolonization in the Pacific.  Its journey illustrates the quest for justice, resilience, and lasting peace across the region. 
President Brotherson is from Tahiti. He has a degree in computer science and has  held various offices in the region since 2001. In 2007 he published a novel, Le Roi Absent (“The Absent King”). In 2010 he participated in the O Tahiti Nui Freedom expedition, which sailed a single-hulled Polynesian outrigger canoe from Tahiti to Shangha. French Polynesia is an autonomous overseas collectivity of France.  He has been president since 2023.Sponsored by: Human Rights Program; Human Rights Project; Politics Program.

For more information, call 845-758-7127, or e-mail [email protected].

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Ukrainian Song Demo and Workshop

With trio Zozulka: Willa Roberts ('99), Eva Salina, and Maria Sonevytsky

Monday, October 20, 2025
11 am – 12:30 pm

Bard Chapel
All are welcome to sing and to listen!
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].

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From Homeplace to White Space: Black Experiences with Racial Neighborhood Change

Shani Adia Evans, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Rice University

Monday, October 20, 2025
5–6:30 pm

Olin Humanities, Room 102
For most of the twentieth century, Albina was the only majority Black area in Portland, Oregon. Between 1990 and 2010, Albina gentrified and became majority-white. This talk will look at how longtime Black Portland residents experienced and responded to the loss of Portland’s historically Black place.Sponsored by: Anthropology Program; Architecture Program; Bard Prison Initiative; Center for Civic Engagement; Economics Program; Environmental and Urban Studies Program; Human Rights Program; Sociology Program.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].

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Environmental Studies Presents Reading Series from Bard Staff

Gidon Eshel's New Book: Planetary Eating: The Hidden Links Between your Plate and our Cosmic Neighborhood

Friday, October 24, 2025
4:15–5:15 pm

Campus Center North 101

For more information, call 845-758-6822.

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Corporate Social Responsibility for War Crimes in Sudan: A Witness Perspective on the Lundin Oil Trial

John Ryle, Legrand Ramsey Professor of Anthropology, in conversation with Peter Rosenblum, Professor of International Law and Human Rights

Tuesday, October 28, 2025
5:30–7 pm

Olin Humanities, Room 203
The Human Rights Project Presents: Corporate Social Responsibility for War Crimes in Sudan: A Witness Perspective on the Lundin Oil Trial.

In most of the world the human rights movement is under threat or in retreat. In Sweden, however, the government has launched a large-scale criminal prosecution of the directors of a Swedish oil exploration company, Lundin Oil, for complicity in war crimes.

Ian Lundin and his colleague Alex Schneiter stand accused of involvement in violent displacement and killing of civilians in a remote area of South Sudan during the 1983-2005 civil war ("Oil Billionaire Ian Lundin Risks Jail was the headline in Bloomberg News). According to an article in Politico, it is the first time since the Nuremberg trials that senior executives of a large company have been arraigned for war crimes. The trial, which began in 2023 and is due to end next year, is the longest and costliest in Swedish history.

The directors of Lundin Oil are accused of aiding Sudan government military forces in a campaign of forced displacement in their concession area. The prosecution alleges that Lundin requested security for their exploration operations from the government of Sudan, aware that this would involve violent displacement of civilians. 

Professor John Ryle is a specialist in Sudan with field experience in the oil zone, and was called to testify in July 2025 in the District court in Stockholm. He will describe the experience of testifying – and being cross-examined by the defense  – with clips from field video recordings that were played in court. Other topics to be discussed include the wider effect of oil exploration on the communities in the oil zone, and the global importance of the Lundin case in bringing to account corporate interests working in natural resource extraction, including reference to some other recent cases: the attempts under the US Alien Tort Statute to hold US oil companies to account in Sudan and Nigeria, civil prosecutions of Shell Oil in the Netherlands, and cases in France against TotalEnergies regarding the company's operations in Mozambique.Sponsored by: Africana Studies Program; Anthropology Program; Human Rights Program; Human Rights Project.

For more information, call 720-635-8882, or e-mail [email protected].

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Bard NYC Chace Lecture
Framing Equality: The Politics of Gay Marriage Wars

Omar Encarnacion and Ari Shaw

Thursday, October 30, 2025
6 pm

Bard NYC - First Floor, 292 N 8th St, Brooklyn, NY
This James Chace Memorial lecture is named in honor of the late director of the BGIA program and will mark the publication of Professor Omar Encarnación’s book Framing Equality: The Politics of Gay Marriage Wars (OUP 2025). It is the first cross-national comparative study of the global struggle for same-sex marriage. Drawing upon the cases of the US, Spain, and Brazil, it explains why this struggle varied with respect to the backlash and the legacy for LGBTQ equality. This event will include an in depth discussion between Professor Encarnación and Dr. Ari Shaw about the framing of a gay marriage campaign and the prominence of transnationalism in gay rights activism.
For more information, call 845-758-6822.