Events This Week

"Russia’s Post-Soviet Landscape" 1219 IAB, 12:00pm (Wednesday)

Join the Harriman Institute for a talk by Susan Richards (Author of Lost and Found in Russia). After the fall of communism Susan Richards started chronicling the lives and careers of a group of Russians living far from the capital. She revisited them repeatedly over the course of 16 years, observing the way in which the larger forces unleashed in Russia's politics and economy were being reflected or resisted in their own life decisions, and those of the communities around them. She reflects on what she saw and what it might tell us about the changed nature of Russia today.

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"Illicit Indicators and the Contested Politics of Numbers" 1501 SIPA, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM (Wednesday)

International policies on issues such as human trafficking, drug smuggling and armed conflict depend upon accurate measures and statistics of these "hidden" problems. Yet, reliable statistics or data regarding these practices are often in short supply, subject to politicization and even deliberate misrepresentation. Exaggerating the numbers of victims of an armed conflict, inflating the value of the transnational drug trade or downplaying patterns of domestic violence are commonplace practices adopted by states and international officials to serve political agendas. This panel on Illicit Numbers, comprised of distinguished scholars and practitioners, will investigate the dangers of using problematic statistics and dubious measures in the formulation and conduct of public policy.

Participants: Peter Andreas (Professor, Department of Political Science, Brown University. Co-Editor of Sex, Drugs and Body Counts: The Politics of Numbers in Global Crime and Conflict (Cornell University Press 2010), Elizabeth Eagen (Program Officer, Human Rights Data Initiative, Human Rights and Governance Grants | Information Program, Open Society Foundations), Sally Merry (Professor of Anthropology and Law and Society, New York University and President-elect of the American Ethnological Society), Lara Nettelfield (Post-Doctoral Fellow, Harriman Institute, Columbia University, and contributor to Sex, Drugs and Body Counts)

This event is part of the “Human Rights in the Post-Communist World: Strategies and Outcomes ” series (Harriman Core Project 2010-2011). This event is free and open to the public. No Tickets, no reservations required. Seating is on a first come, first served basis.

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"Gender Equality and Women’s Rights in Georgia: Opportunities and Challenges" 1219 SIPA, 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM (Thursday)

Join the Harriman Institute and the Program in Economic and Political Development (EPD) for a talk by Rusudan Kervalishvili, Deputy Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia Chair of Gender Council

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"Imagining Mazeppa: From Byron to Broadway to Hollywood" 1219 SIPA, 7:00 PM (Thursday)

Mazeppa as a Tatar prince? As an American Indian maiden? Sophia Loren as Mazeppa? Mazeppa on Bonanza? Alexander Motyl, Catharine Nepomnyashchy, Vasyl Lopukh, and Vasyl Makhno take you on a romp through unusual historical representations of the famed Ukrainian Hetman-from the Romantics to 19th-century American and British theatre and dime novels to 20th-century Hollywood Westerns and Broadway musicals. The evening will consist of readings, music, slides, and film. If you think you know Ivan Mazepa-think again.

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Brestskaya Krepost' (Brest Fortress) Hamilton 717, 8:00 PM (Thursday)

Join RIA and watch this movie in honor of Defender of the Fatherland Day. The holiday celebrates people who are serving or were serving in the Russian Armed Forces (both men and women), but nationally it has also more recently come to include the celebration of men as a whole, and to act as a counterpart of International Women's Day on March 8. Brestskaya Krepost' is a war drama set during the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, in which Russian troops held on to a border stronghold for nine days. Here is the link for the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B11CLxzhqPg (133 minutes long). There will be English subtitles!!