NEWS
&
THINGS I HAVE DONE
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Proche-Orient 1918-1939: les malentendus de l'humanitarisme
11è Rencontres Recherche et Création - Histoire(s) en mouvement - 8 juillet 2024
En attente de justice Sur le rivage de Troie, une reine devenue esclave pleure son fils assassiné et demande justice. Si la colère peut apparaître comme un sentiment universel, sa signification varie selon les contextes : entre raison, déraison, colère divine ou vengeance mêlée de désespoir comme celle d’Hécube. Les représentations de la nuit de noces dans la France du XIXe siècle font penser à Polyxène, fille d’Hécube sacrifiée sur le tombeau d’Achille : dans les fictions romantiques comme dans les imaginaires, les jeunes filles seraient condamnées à un destin tragique. L’analyse sociologique des conditions de la domesticité dans la société contemporaine met en évidence les rapports de domination et les tentatives de la déjouer. L’analyse des actions humanitaires au Proche-Orient entre 1918 et 1939, et des processus de réconciliation dans les Balkans ou dans la région des Grands Lacs en Afrique, montre comment les mémoires et les récits s’affrontent. Les sacrifices et les morts tragiques du théâtre antique interrogent le cycle de la violence, tout autant que la réparation et la justice.
Why history matters in today's world – with Davide Rodogno and Carolyn Biltoft
United Nations Library & Archives Geneva
In this rich conversation with Professors Davide Rodogno and Carloyn Biltoft, we delve into a world of meaning making and examine the depth and breadth that history offers for policymaking. Davide Rodogno is professor of International History and Politics and the Head of the Interdisciplinary Master Programme at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. He specializes in researching international organizations and philanthropic foundations, and transnational networks and movements since the 19th century. Carolyn Biltoft is associate professor of international history and politics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. Her works fuses the tools of world history, intellectual history, cultural studies and critical theory. She is interested broadly in the dynamic interactions between globalising structures and infrastructures and diverse beliefs, emotions, concepts and human life-worlds.
Dialogue
Les monuments font débat
« Notre étude avait pour objet de faire un point sommaire sur l’espace public genevois, et les statues et autres monuments qui pourraient être problématiques pour les habitant·e·s et visiteur·euse·s de la ville. Nous examinons l’inaction ainsi que le déboulonnement, en passant par des solutions intermédiaires comme la contextualisation, le doublement ou encore la requalification d’un espace public donné. Nous n’avons pas pris position, ce n’est pas à nous de le faire. En revanche, nous insistons particulièrement sur l’importance de la participation citoyenne, les processus participatifs, créatifs et, surtout, inclusifs. En tant qu’enseignants et éducateurs, nous voudrions souligner l’importance de l’éducation, de l’histoire du racisme, du colonialisme et de l’impérialisme avec ses répercussions et spécificités suisses. »
La Guerra nella Storia del Fascismo, I Regimi d’Occupazione, Fondazione Gramsci, Roma, 27-29 October 2022.
My presentation starts at 1:29 and lasts 20 minutes.
Music, Racism, History and the Struggle for Rights,
Montreux Jazz Festival, 11 July 2022.
A 2011 video, in which I explain what I was teaching and researching back then (in French)... the Graduate Institute is bilingual!
A 2016 video in which I present the International History Department of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland where I work and served as Head of Department (2014-2017)
Presentation of the study during the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights, Geneva, March 2022
Our study is available here in PDF format, for free
https://www.geneve.ch/sites/default/files/2022-03/monuments-heritage-raciste-colonial-espace-public-etude-2022-ville-geneve.pdf
With Mahmoud Mohamedou, co-authors of Temps, Espaces et Histoire. Monuments et Héritage Raciste et Colonial dans l'Espace Public Genevois: Etat des lieux Historique, 2022ith
Interview of Max Richter and Yulia Mahr All Human Beings, March 2021
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Interview of Aïssa Maïga, FIFDH, March 2022 - with Paroma Ghose for Utopia3
«Loin d’être militant, l’antiracisme est une question de démocratie»
Dans une actualité dominée cette année par la pandémie, une autre question s’est frayé un passage avec l’affaire George Floyd: le racisme. Pour les professeurs Mohamedou et Rodogno, loin d’être un problème ponctuel, il est l’une des forces structurantes des relations internationales
29 December 2020
https://www.letemps.ch/monde/loin-detre-militant-lantiracisme-une-question-democratie
Quand l'art s'approprie de la Shoah - Faut Pas Croire -RTS
16 October 2021,
https://avisdexperts.ch/videos/view/13717
“A horrific photo of a drowned Syrian child”: Humanitarian photography and NGO media strategies in historical perspective
This article, co-written with Heide Fehrenbach, is a historical examination of the use of photography in the informational and fundraising strategies of humanitarian organizations. Drawing on archival research and recent scholarship, it shows that the figure of the dead or suffering child has been a centrepiece of humanitarian campaigns for over a century and suggests that in earlier eras too, such photos, under certain conditions, could “go viral” and achieve iconic status. Opening with last year's photo campaign involving the case of 3-year-old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi, whose body washed up on a Turkish beach near Bodrum in early September 2015, the article draws on select historical examples to explore continuities and ruptures in the narrative framing and emotional address of photos depicting dead or suffering children, and in the ethically and politically charged decisions by NGO actors and the media to publish and distribute such images. We propose that today, as in the past, the relationship between media and humanitarian NGOs remains symbiotic despite contemporary claims about the revolutionary role of new visual technologies and social media.
The Individual and the Group: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention at 70. Philippe Sands QC, Professor of Law, University College and the Group gave this conference in December 2018. My colleague, professor of International Law, Paola Gaeta, chaired it. The conference closed “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at Seventy: Historical and Juridical Perspectives”, a symposium co-organised by the department of International History of the Graduate Institute and the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. This was part of the activities related to the FNS research project, The Myth of Homogeneity, mentioned above.
PROMOTING HUMAN RIGHTS, TOLERANCE AND NON-DISCRIMINATION: ROLE OF EDUCATION UNESCO AND ODIHR
International workshop for policymakers “The role of education in addressing anti-Semitism, 16 December 2019.
In June 2020, the Foundation organised an electronic dialogue on the theme of major European challenges in 2020. Find all the videos.
Pat Cox, President of the Foundation and former President of the European Parliament, moderated this dialogue to which the following personalities contributed: Péter Balázs (professeur, Université d’Europe centrale, ancien membre de la Commission européenne, ancien ministre des affaires étrangères de Hongrie, Vienne); Nicolas Baverez (historien, économiste et éditorialiste au Point et au Figaro, Paris); Davide Rodogno (professeur, Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement, Genève); Anna Stünzi (présidente du think tank suisse de politique étrangère foraus, Berne); Bruno Tertrais (directeur adjoint de la Fondation pour la recherche stratégique, Paris); Laurent Warlouzet (professeur, Sorbonne Université, Paris).
Among the themes discussed were: the major European challenges over the last century, the accumulation of European crises, including the recent coronavirus crisis and its political, economic and social consequences, the challenges of European institutional governance, demographic factors, migration, climate issues, Europe in a global system where multilateralism is being questioned, security issues.
An interview on Swiss television
(in French) on Italian politician Matteo Salvini,
early August 2019.
How to bear witness to horror?
A video of a conference held at the Graduate Institute with photojournalist Don McCullin, on 24 April 2017.
I introduced and interviewed McCullin together with Le Temps journalist Lisbeth Koutchoumoff.
Transnational Encounters: Hosting and Remembering Twentieth-Century Foreign War Volunteers
Nir Arielli, Davide Rodogno,
Introduction,
Journal of Modern European History