To open the first, biennial Ukrainian Studies Hub conference "Revolutions of Hope: Resilience and Recovery in Ukraine," join Archbishop Borys Gudziak, president of Ukrainian Catholic University, as he engages with Rory Finnin, professor of Ukrainian studies at the University of Cambridge and recipient of the 2024 Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies, on ways to cultivate hope in Ukraine. This event is part of the 2024-25 Notre Dame Forum “What do we owe each other?” and also looks ahead to the recently announced 2025-26 Notre Dame Forum theme “Cultivating Hope.” Opening remarks will be offered by Notre Dame President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., and a panel of distinguished guests:Ambassador Oksana MarkarovaUkraine Mission to the U.S.Bishop Kevin RhodesBishop of the Fort Wayne-South Bend DioceseTaras DobkoRector of Ukrainian Catholic UniversityThis event is open to the public and part of the wider Ukrainian Studies Hub Conference (March 6-8, 2025), organized by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies and co-sponsors across the University. Anyone may register to attend panel discussions at no cost, and other plenary sessions and cultural events will be open to the public without registration. See the full schedule and register for the conferenceOriginally published at nanovic.nd.edu.

The Ukrainian Studies Hub will host its first conference on March 6–8, 2025. This conference will feature academic discussions, lectures, and presentations centered around Ukraine and Ukrainian studies. For more information about this conference, please visit the conference page. Learn more about the conference The conference will convene leading academics, policymakers, faith leaders, and artists to examine how hope has shaped Ukraine through pivotal historical moments, including its independence in 1991, the Russian aggression of 2014, and the full-scale invasion, which began in 2022 and continues. Keynote speakers include:Ambassador Oksana Markarova, Ukraine Mission to the U.S.Archbishop Borys Gudziak, president of Ukrainian Catholic University and Metropolitan-Archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia;Rory Finnin, professor of Ukrainian studies, University of Cambridge, and recipient of the Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies in 2024;Olesya Kromeychuk, director, Ukrainian Institute London; andSerhii Plokhii, professor of Ukrainian history, Harvard University.For a complete list of panelists and speakers, view the conference schedule. The conference is supported and co-sponsored by:Department of German, Slavic, and Eurasian Studies;Kellogg Institute for International Studies;Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies;Notre Dame Democracy Initiative;Notre Dame Global;Office of the President at Notre Dame;Raclin Murphy Museum of Art; andUkrainian Catholic University.Originally published at nanovic.nd.edu.

The Ukrainian Studies Hub will host its first conference on March 6–8, 2025. This conference will feature academic discussions, lectures, and presentations centered around Ukraine and Ukrainian studies. For more information about this conference, please visit the conference page. Learn more about the conference The conference will convene leading academics, policymakers, faith leaders, and artists to examine how hope has shaped Ukraine through pivotal historical moments, including its independence in 1991, the Russian aggression of 2014, and the full-scale invasion, which began in 2022 and continues. Keynote speakers include:Ambassador Oksana Markarova, Ukraine Mission to the U.S.Archbishop Borys Gudziak, president of Ukrainian Catholic University and Metropolitan-Archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia;Rory Finnin, professor of Ukrainian studies, University of Cambridge, and recipient of the Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies in 2024;Olesya Kromeychuk, director, Ukrainian Institute London; andSerhii Plokhii, professor of Ukrainian history, Harvard University.For a complete list of panelists and speakers, view the conference schedule. The conference is supported and co-sponsored by:Department of German, Slavic, and Eurasian Studies;Kellogg Institute for International Studies;Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies;Notre Dame Democracy Initiative;Notre Dame Global;Office of the President at Notre Dame;Raclin Murphy Museum of Art; andUkrainian Catholic University.Originally published at nanovic.nd.edu.

Nermin AllamKellogg Visiting FellowAssociate Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University-Newark Allam's project examines how women’s participation in the 2011 Egyptian uprising has influenced their gender consciousness and feminist subjectivities in the afterlife of activism. The uprising, she argues, was an affective encounter that created affective attachments to gender equality and women’s bodily rights. Drawing from the literature on gender and the consequences of social movements, she shows how women’s encounters with gender-based violence in protests and exposures to new social and political networks influenced their personal and professional lives. Building on semistructured interviews with women protestors, she focuses on two examples from women’s biographies: women’s decision to remove the hijab-headscarf and to move out of the family, and the decision by some protestors to change their careers and work in the area of women’s rights. This book project is the first to document the afterlife of women’s engagement in the 2011 uprising. It expands understanding of movement’s impacts on participants following defeated protests and under nondemocratic regimes. More information here

Helen Zia by Bob Siang, BHP San Francisco. Photo provided.The Asian American Distinguished Speaker Series honors innovative, creative, and effective Asian American leaders and celebrates their contributions, especially as the visibility of Asian American leadership and success is often overlooked. This year, the Liu Institute will present "Helen Zia: A Life at the Intersection of Activism, Writing, and History" on Wednesday, March 19, 2025, at 5 p.m. in the Smith Ballroom, Morris Inn. Jennifer Huynh, assistant professor of American Studies, will moderate the event, which is free and open to the public. Helen Zia is a writer, journalist and Fulbright Scholar who has been a trailblazing activist on issues ranging from human rights to countering gender and hate violence and homophobia. Her role in the national Asian American civil rights movement against anti-Asian violence and racism began after the racially motivated killing of 27-year-old Vincent Chin in Detroit in 1982. After a judge sentenced Chin's attackers to probation, Zia helped organize and lead a coalition of Asian Americans to stand up for justice and equality in the case. Her efforts are documented in the Academy-award-nominated PBS film “Who Killed Vincent Chin?” Zia is the founder of the Vincent Chin Institute, which works to build multiracial solidarity against hate. Zia is also an advocate for marriage equality and LGBTQ+ rights. In 2010, she testified as a witness in the federal case on marriage equality decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Her 2008 marriage to Lia Shigemura was featured in The New York Times. The daughter of Chinese immigrants, Zia grew up in New Jersey. After graduating in Princeton’s first coeducational class, she quit medical school to work as a construction laborer, autoworker, and community organizer until she discovered her life’s work as a journalist and writer. Her 2019 book, "Last Boat out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese who Fled Mao's Revolution," was an NPR best book and shortlisted for a national PEN America award, while her first book, "Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People," published in 2000, is a foundational textbook in schools across the country. Zia served as executive editor of the iconic Ms. magazine, a feminist publication for which, among other stories, Zia went undercover in a New York garment factory to expose sweatshop conditions. Zia received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of San Francisco and an honorary Doctor of Laws from the City University of New York Law School for bringing important matters of law and civil rights into public view. In 2023, Hunter College in New York City named its first Helen Zia Distinguished Lecturer in Asian American Studies.Jennifer Huynh, assistant professor of American Studies and Liu Institute faculty fellow, will moderate the event.Zia was one of 79 people in North America who carried the 2008 Olympic torch in San Francisco, the only site in North America passed on the way to Beijing, China. She stated in an op-ed:"There is another vision: that a peaceful and better world is possible through friendly engagement and mutual understanding, not violent confrontation and polarization. It's an Olympic message, a possible dream that our global civilization and everyone who is a part of it can aspire to - and for which I am proud to carry a torch."The lecture is sponsored by the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies with the Department of American Studies, the Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics, and Democracy, and the Klau Institute for Civil and Human Rights at the University of Notre Dame. Originally published at asia.nd.edu.

The Kroc Institute has selected The Honorable Emilce Cuda as the featured speaker for the 26th Annual Dialogues on Nonviolence, Religion, and Peace. As Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America at the Holy See, Cuda is a renowned international speaker who has published extensively on moral social theology, democracy and Catholicism in liberal contexts, theology of the people and culture in a Latin American context, economic migration, the socio-environmental ecological crisis, and more. Cuda is a member of the research team, “The future work of labor after Laudato si,” at the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) and the Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church (CTEWC). She received a Ph.D. in theology from the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina and specializes in social moral theology. Lunch and conversation will follow this lecture in C103, Hesburgh Center for International Studies. The Dialogues on Nonviolence, Religion, and Peace, which began in 1999, were established through a gift to the Kroc Institute from Mrs. Anne Marie Yoder and her family. Each year, the Kroc Institute invites a leading thinker, writer, scholar, and/or peace advocate to deliver a lecture related to nonviolence, religion, and peace. Following the lecture, audience members join in informal dialogue and discussion with the speaker and with each other. Originally published at kroc.nd.edu.