Eleonory Gilburd

, one of the preeminent prizes for European studies, is awarded annually to the best book in European studies that transcends a focus on any one country, state or people to stimulate new ways of thinking about contemporary Europe as a whole. This year’s cycle of the award considered humanities books published in 2017 or 2018.

“To See Paris and Die” received high praise from the final jury:

“A masterly and engrossing performance, ‘To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture’ reveals just how ambiguous the Soviet Russian relationship was with Western people and art. In her remarkable and stunningly comprehensive work of scholarship, Eleonory Gilburd has the pulse of the people at her fingertips as she deftly counterpoints the ‘thaw’ of the 1930s with those of the 1950s and ’60s.

“From the long view of Soviet national politics in the international arena, Gilburd cuts to definable cultural sectors such as popular music and cinema, book publishing, and translation delivering the texture of experience during this period. Events such as foreign art exhibitions, book fairs, or the French and Italian film weeks allow Gilburd to track fashions and debates at the micro-level of individual responses, as well as through the usual introductions and pamphlets. Gilburd also offers a range of colorful vignettes of government disapproval, such as the story of Kruschev sleeping through much of a Fellini film at the Moscow Film Festival.

“Well-structured and jauntily written, ‘To See Paris and Die’ succeeds because of its panoptic brio, audacious look at popular responses to cultural forms, accessible style, and a sustained sense that, within its pages, the destiny of Europe is at stake.”

Gilburd is an . Her work focuses on the history of modern Russia and the Soviet Union, with a particular interest in Soviet culture, society and their international context. She will visit Notre Dame during the fall semester of 2020 to accept the prize, deliver a public lecture and meet with students and faculty.

The final jury also awarded inaugural Laura Shannon Prize Silver Medals for the first time in prize history. One went to Thomas Crow, the Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art and associate provost for the arts at New York University, for his book “Restoration: The Fall of Napoleon in the Course of European Art, 1812-1820,” published by .

The second Laura Shannon Prize Silver Medal was awarded to Eric Calderwood, associate professor in the Program in Comparative and World Literature at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, for his book “Colonial al-Andalus: Spain and the Making of Modern Moroccan Culture,” published by The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

To See Paris and Die

The jury for this year’s prize consisted of an accomplished group of scholars: Dudley Andrew, the R. Selden Rose Professor of Film and Comparative Literature, Yale University; JoAnn DellaNeva, professor of Romance languages and literatures and academic director of Notre Dame’s London Global Gateway, University of Notre Dame; Lydia Goehr, professor of philosophy, Columbia University; Michael Jennings, the Class of 1900 Professor of Modern Languages and professor of German, Princeton University; and Declan Kiberd, the Donald and Marilyn Keough Professor of Irish 91��Ƶ, University of Notre Dame.

The Laura Shannon Prize is made possible through a generous endowment from Michael and Laura Shannon of Houston, Texas. Laura serves on the Nanovic Institute’s Advisory Board, and Michael, a 1958 Notre Dame graduate, serves on Notre Dame’s Graduate 91��Ƶ and Research Advisory Council.

for its 2021 cycle. European studies books published in 2018 or 2019 are eligible for nomination, with nominations due Jan. 31, 2020.

The Nanovic Institute for European 91��Ƶ at the University of Notre Dame is committed to enriching the intellectual culture of Notre Dame by creating an integrated, interdisciplinary home for students and faculty to explore the evolving ideas, cultures, beliefs and institutions that shape Europe today. The institute is an integral part of Notre Dame’s . For additional information about the Nanovic Institute and the Laura Shannon Prize, visit .

The Nanovic Washington Policy Forum, an opportunity for high-level dialogue among experts most closely connected to contemporary global affairs issues, is a new signature event held annually during the Nanovic Institute’s Seminar for Transnational European 91��Ƶ in Washington, D.C. Daniel Mulhall, ambassador of Ireland to the United States, and Andrew McCormick, Northern Ireland civil service director general for international relations, will provide the Irish perspective on Brexit for the forum panel.��

Ireland and Northern Ireland have enjoyed a seamless border since 1998. Should Brexit occur, the risk of a hard border returns, and with it renewed instability in Ireland.

David O’Sullivan, former European Union ambassador to the United States, said in his , “Brexit is the worst thing that could have happened to Ireland from the point of view of Northern Ireland, because the entire success of the Good Friday agreement was predicated on joint membership in the European Union.”

Against the backdrop of the United Kingdom’s pledge to withdraw from the EU on Oct. 31, the Nanovic Institute and Keough-Naughton Institute will convene five experts to discuss Brexit’s impact on Ireland, the United States’ role in facilitating peace in Northern Ireland, steps the U.S. might take to safeguard that legacy, and the challenges it may face in the process.

The panel will also include U.S. policy perspectives from New York Congressman Peter King, co-chair of the Friends of Ireland Caucus; Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, member of the U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee; and Amanda Sloat, a Robert Bosch senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution. Thomas Wright, director of the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings, will serve as the forum moderator.

“We are delighted to launch our new Nanovic Washington Policy Forum at the Keough 91��Ƶ of Global Affairs’ Washington office,” said William Collins Donahue, director of the Nanovic Institute. “The experts we are convening for the inaugural forum hail from both sides of the Atlantic and demonstrate that Brexit is a European issue with far-reaching, global implications.” 

Maura Policelli, executive director of the Keough 91��Ƶ’s office in Washington, D.C., and associate professor of the practice, said, “Events such as the Nanovic Washington Policy Forum illustrate that the Keough 91��Ƶ of Global Affairs is poised to offer lasting and meaningful contributions to the global policy arena. The inaugural forum comes at a pivotal time in global affairs, and we are honored to host this accomplished panel at our Washington office.”

The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. For more information, visit .��

Contact: Colleen Sharkey, assistant director of media relations, 574-631-9958,

His lecture, “Europe and the United States: Friends and Allies, or Rivals?” is free and open to the public. O’Sullivan will discuss the complexities that challenge and provide opportunities for American-European relations.��

“, I am delighted he is now able to come to Notre Dame to share his perspectives with faculty and students,” said , director of the Nanovic Institute for European 91��Ƶ and the Rev. John J. Cavanaugh, C.S.C., Professor of the Humanities at the University of Notre Dame. “He brings singular clarity and eloquence to a complex set of issues.”

The Nanovic Forum brings European leaders from a variety of academic, cultural and professional fields to Notre Dame to discuss issues of major importance in Europe today. The forum was established in 2011 through the support of Robert and Elizabeth Nanovic.

David O’Sullivan has extensive and distinguished experience as a diplomat. He was appointed as the EU ambassador to the United States from 2014 until 2019 and as secretary general of the European Commission from June 2000 to November 2005. He also served as head of cabinet of the Commission to President Romano Prodi and director general for education and training.

A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, O’Sullivan holds honorary doctorates from his alma mater and from the Dublin Institute of Technology. He serves as a visiting professor at the European College of Parma. O’Sullivan has extensive social and employment policy experience, as well as a rich background in economics. In June 2014, he was awarded the EU Transatlantic Business Award by the American Chamber of Commerce.

“The Nanovic Forum, thanks to the ongoing generosity of Bob and Liz Nanovic, offers a valuable opportunity for the institute to connect with Europe and to reflect on the complexities of contemporary issues,” Donahue said. “Ambassador O’Sullivan will also engage with students and faculty in various smaller settings — over meals and coffee, and in several classes. The real genius of the Nanovic Forum is its ability to ignite conversations in multiple places all over campus.”

Past speakers in the Nanovic Forum have included Rolf-Dieter Heuer, former director general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN); Horst Koehler, former president of Germany; Lord Patten of Barnes, chancellor of the University of Oxford; Hanna Suchocka, former prime minister of Poland; Margarethe von Trotta, filmmaker; and other eminent professionals in education, government and law.

The at the University of Notre Dame is committed to creating an interdisciplinary home for students and faculty to explore the evolving ideas, cultures, beliefs, societies and institutions that shape Europe today. The institute is an integral part of Notre Dame’s.

A complete list of the Nanovic Forum series and a video archive of the past lectures are available .

The Laura Shannon Prize, one of the preeminent prizes for European studies, is awarded each year to the best book in European studies that transcends a focus on any one country, state or people to stimulate new ways of thinking about contemporary Europe as a whole. This year’s cycle of the award considered books in history and social sciences published in 2016 or 2017.

Examining the intercommunal violence in a community on the border of Bosnia and Croatia, “Violence as a Generative Force” received high praise by the jury: “Restrained, humane, and beautifully written, and drawing intelligently on ethnography, psychology, and genocide studies, ‘Violence as a Generative Force’ deserves to be read not only by Europeanists but by anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of mass violence.”

Bergholz shows violence was less a consequence of than a catalyst to ethnic identification and polarization. It was “generative” both in that it took on a dynamic of its own, and in that it could cement — and even fix in memory — ethnic identities that had been much more fluid and contingent.��

In this study, Bergholz asks us to think again about the sources, processes and consequences of ethnic violence. When and why do neighbors turn on neighbors? From a careful reading of disparate and challenging sources, Bergholz reconstructs a series of massacres and reprisals that took place in 1941 in the region of Kulen Vakuf in northwest Bosnia and that left many hundreds of men, women and children dead. This was intimate violence: men shot, mutilated or cut the throats of people they often knew; they tossed their bodies into pits or rivers or burned them alive; they stole everything worth stealing and then razed houses and farms. But at each stage of his often disturbing story, Bergholz shows how contingency, local relations and even personal choice affected the course of events: We see how killings could begin when local hoodlums or opportunists were suddenly granted authority and guns; how opportunities for score-settling or looting led others to join in; how fears of reprisals or a desire for vengeance could escalate violence; how the presence or absence of a few particularly respected or determined individuals could tip the balance of who lived or died.��

is associate professor of history at Concordia University in Montreal, where he holds the James M. Stanford Professorship in Genocide and Human Rights 91��Ƶ. His work focuses on microhistorical approaches to the history of modern Europe with an emphasis on the local dynamics of nationalism, intercommunal violence and historical memory. He will visit Notre Dame during the fall semester to accept the prize, deliver a public lecture and meet with students and faculty.

The Shannon Prize jury also awarded honorable mention to both , Dunbar-Van Cleve Professor in Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, for his book “,” and to , Jane K. Sather Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley, for his book “”; both books are published by Princeton University Press.

The jury for this year’s prize consisted of Ruth Abbey, professor of political science, University of Notre Dame; Jeffrey J. Anderson, Graf Goltz Professor and Director of the BMW Center for German and European 91��Ƶ, Georgetown University; Alexander Martin, professor of history, University of Notre Dame; John Merriman, Charles Seymour Professor of History, Yale University; and Susan G. Pedersen, Gouverneur Morris Professor of History, Columbia University.

Now in its 10th anniversary cycle, the Laura Shannon Prize is made possible through an endowment from Michael and Laura Shannon of Houston, Texas. Laura serves on the Nanovic Institute’s Advisory Board and Michael, class of 1958, serves on Notre Dame’s Graduate 91��Ƶ and Research Advisory Council.

The Nanovic Institute for European 91��Ƶ at the University of Notre Dame is committed to enriching the intellectual culture of Notre Dame by creating an integrated, interdisciplinary home for students and faculty to explore the evolving ideas, cultures, beliefs and institutions that shape Europe today. The institute is an integral part of Notre Dame’s . For additional information about the Nanovic Institute and the Laura Shannon Prize, visit .