BERT FRAGNER MEMORIAL LECTURE 2022

Walter Posch in conversation with Florian Schwarz & Hessam Habibi Doroh

BETWEEN GREATER KHOROSAN AND THE KHOROSAN PROVINCE

The continuity of Greater Khorasan in the social identity of Iranian Sunnis in Khorasan province

The Persian-speaking Iranian Sunnis of the Khorasan province feel a deep collective resonance with the historical roots of Greater Khorasan in their social identity. Even today, they continue to praise and illustrate the glorious Islamic past through their narratives. This is in contrast to most Iranian Sunnis with a non-Persian-speaking ethnic identity.

Historically Khorasan has long been recognized as the center of Sunni education. This dates back to the Seljuk period and the establishment of Sunni educational institutions such as Nizamiyyeh of Niyshabur. However, the central status of this eastern region of the Islamic world was diminished following the 15^th century – in particular, due to the early 16t^h-century expansion of Shiʿi Islam under the Safavids. Yet the sense or idea of centrality has continued like a thread weaving through the social identity of the Iranian Sunnis in Khorasan and remains reflected in their religious and historical narrations today. This lecture explores this continuity of Greater Khorasan, shows how the historical roots of Khorasan shaped the social identity of Sunnis in the Khorasan province, and investigates transnational identity within the local social identity.

Florian Schwarz, Institute Director Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Iranian Studies.

Walter Posch, Senior Fellow, Institute for Peacekeeping and Conflict Management (IFK), National Defense Academy

Hessam Habibi Doroh, FH Campus Vienna

BERT FRAGNER MEMORIAL LECTURE 2022

The Bert Fragner Lectures highlight current developments in Iran and establish connections between historical classification and contemporary challenges. Inspired by the life’s work of the eminent Austrian Iranist Professor Bert Fragner (1941-2021), they offer a forum for exchange with established and – in the spirit of Bert Fragner’s tireless promotion of young scholars – younger researchers.

ZOOM Live / Facebook Live

Gudrun Harrer im Gespräch mit Emran Feroz

DAS ENDLOSE AFGHANISTAN-DESASTER

Warum wir heute sind, wo wir sind

Seit über einem Jahr wird Afghanistan wieder von den militant-islamistischen Taliban regiert. Wir erinnern uns: Am 15. August 2021 fielen die Extremisten in die Hauptstadt ein, während der letzte Präsident der afghanischen Republik, Ashraf Ghani, ins Ausland flüchtete und die USA und ihre Verbündeten mit ihrem Truppenabzug beschäftigt waren. Doch wie kam es zu jenem schicksalhaften Tag und was hat der „längste Krieg“ der Amerikaner am Hindukusch überhaupt gebracht?

Emran Feroz ist freier Journalist, Kriegsreporter und Autor. Er berichtet seit fast zehn Jahren aus und über Afghanistan und schreibt mitunter für das US-Magazin Forein Policy, CNN, die New York Times, für Profil und den Spiegel. 2021 erschien Feroz‘ Bestseller „Der längste Krieg“, worin er kritisch und detailreich 20 Jahre War on Terror in Afghanistan analysiert. Im selben Jahr wurde Feroz für seine Arbeit mit dem österreichischen Concordia-Preis in der Kategorie Menschenrechte ausgezeichnet.

Gudrun Harrer, Leitende Redakteurin, Der Standard; Lektorin für Moderne Geschichte und Politik des Nahen und Mittleren Ostens an der Universität Wien und an der Diplomatischen Akademie Wien

Emran Feroz: Der längsten Krieg: 20 Jahre War on Terror
Westend, ISBN 3864893283, € 18,50,-

Tessa Szyszkowitz in conversation with Caroline de Gruyter

WHAT’S HABSBURG GOT TO DO WITH IT?

The EU can learn from parallels to the Austrian Empire.

EU expert Caroline de Gruyter surprised many with her new book “Das Habsburgerreich – Inspiration für Europa?”. There is little sympathy left for the Austrian Empire today. But De Gruyter traces striking parallels between old monarchy and new European Union: Like the Empire then, the EU today provides a roof over the heads of many nations and language groups, keeping the bigger ones in check and protecting the smaller ones. Playing for time, avoiding conflict, working on never-ending reforms and finding ugly compromises are key characteristics of both Habsburg and EU governance – muddling through, in short.

Hundred years after the First World War, Europe now faces a similar dilemma as the Habsburgs did then: As an interstitial power squeezed between rivals the EU is constantly challenged. Caroline de Gruyter will discuss parallels and differences: Can cultivating buffer zones outside the external borders help? And: Will the EU as an organisation survive the war in the Ukraine or cease to exist like the Habsburg Empire after WWI?

Caroline de Gruyter is an EU affairs journalist based in Brussels working with the Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad and Foreign Policy as a Europe columnist and correspondent. She is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, her commentary appeared in The Guardian, The New York Times a.o.. She is the author of five books, her latest was translated into German by Leopold Decloedt: “Das Habsburgerreich – Inspiration für Europa?”

Tessa Szyszkowitz is a foreign affairs commentator for Falter and a London correspondent for profil & Cicero. Her last book was Echte Engländer, Britain & Brexit (2018). She is also Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

Alexia Weiss und Daniel Landau im Gespräch

ZERSCHLAGT DAS SCHULSYSTEM … UND BAUT ES NEU!

Die Unzufriedenheit mit dem Schulsystem ist groß: Kinder sind unter- oder überfordert, Eltern beklagen zu großen Druck und ein zu hohes Lernpensum. Lehrer*innen wollen unterrichten, sehen aber, dass sie manche Schüler*innen nicht erreichen oder zu wenig Unterrichtszeit für sie haben, um ihnen das zu vermitteln, was sie brauchen. Direktor*innen sind frustriert vom ständig steigenden Administrationsaufwand. Also wie weiter? „Die Notwendigkeit zur Veränderung an Schulen könnte man nutzen, um nicht nur wieder ein kleines Reförmchen anzugehen, sondern das Bildungswesen neu zu konzipieren.“ meint Alexia Weiss. Im Gespräch mit dem Bildungsexperten  und -aktivisten Daniel Landau präsentiert sie ihre Überlegungen und Vorschläge.

Alexia Weiss hat an der Universität Wien Germanistik studiert und eine Journalismusausbildung gemacht.

Seit 1993 ist sie journalistisch tätig. Derzeit ist sie Redakteurin des jüdischen Magazins Wina, schreibt als freie Journalistin für gewerkschaftliche Medien wie Kompetenz oder Arbeit & Wirtschaft, fallweise auch für andere Magazine und Zeitungen. Ihr erster Roman „Haschems Lasso“ erschien 2009, 2011 das Kinderbuch „Dinah und Levi. Wie jüdische Kinder feiern (Annette Betz Verlag), 2014 ihr zweiter Roman „Endlosschleife“.

Mit „Jude ist kein Schimpfwort“ (Verlag Kremayr & Scheriau) legt sie im Frühjahr 2021 ein sehr persönlich gehaltenes Sachbuch vor. Ihre Streitschrift „Zerschlagt das Schulsystem … und baut es neu!“ ist seit August erhältlich (Kremayr & Scheriau, ISBN: 978-3-218-01353-6)

Daniel Landau absolvierte Ausbildungen zum Dirigenten, Magister der Betriebswirtschaftslehre und Diplompädagogen für Musik und Mathematik. Er war Mittelschul- und AHS-Lehrer, ist künstlerisch u.a. als Regisseur und Dirigent tätig (ua mit seinem Orchester „Live your charity“), und er ist Gründer zahlreicher Bildungsinitiativen, darunter das Bildungsvolksbegehren, zukunft.bildung sowie jedesK!ND. Aktuell ist er Bildungskoordinator der Bundesregierung, zuständig für die jungen ukrainischen Schutzsuchenden.

In Zusammenarbeit mit Kremayr&Scheriau

Eva Nowotny in conversation with Jeffrey Sachs
US FOREIGN POLICY AFTER THE MID TERM ELECTIONS

Against a background of an international climate of heightened tensions, an unprecedented act of military aggression by Russia against Ukraine, many unresolved issues in the US relationship to China, the Mid Term Election of November 2022 has altered the domestic political landscape in the US.  Foreign policy mainly is in the domain of the President. Nevertheless, the question whether and to what extent the outcome of the election can impact on foreign policy in general and on the President’s capability to shape it needs to be explored

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world-renowned economics professor, bestselling author, innovative educator, and global leader in sustainable development. He serves as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. He is also President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development, and an SDG Advocate for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. From 2001-18, Sachs served as Special Advisor to UN Secretaries-General Kofi Annan (2001-7), Ban Ki-moon (2008-16), and António Guterres (2017-18). Sachs has authored and edited numerous books, most recently A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism (2018), and The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions (2020).

Eva Nowotny, Board Member of Bruno Kreisky Forum, Amb. ret., Chair of the Vienna University Board

YouTube Premiere „Aus Kreiskys Wohnzimmer“

Robert Misik in conversation with Justin Gest

MAJORITY MINORITY

How do societies respond to great demographic change? This question lingers over the contemporary politics of the United States and other countries where persistent immigration has altered populations and may soon produce a majority minority milestone, where the original ethnic or religious majority loses its numerical advantage to one or more foreign-origin minority groups. Until now, most of our knowledge about large-scale responses to demographic change has been based on studies of individual people’s reactions, which tend to be instinctively defensive and intolerant. We know little about why and how these habits are sometimes tempered to promote more successful coexistence.
To anticipate and inform future responses to demographic change, Justin Gest looks to the past. In Majority Minority, Gest wields historical analysis and interview-based fieldwork inside six of the world’s few societies that have already experienced a majority minority transition to understand what factors produce different social outcomes. Gest concludes that, rather than yield to people’s prejudices, states hold great power to shape public responses and perceptions of demographic change through political institutions and the rhetoric of leaders. Through subsequent survey research, Gest also identifies novel ways that leaders can leverage nationalist sentiment to reduce the appeal of nativism—by framing immigration and demographic change in terms of the national interest. Grounded in rich narratives and surprising survey findings, Majority Minority reveals that this contentious milestone and its accompanying identity politics are ultimately subject to unifying or divisive governance.

Justin Gest is an Associate Professor of Policy and Government at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. He is the author of six books, primarily on the politics of immigration and demographic change—all from Oxford University Press or Cambridge University Press.

Robert Misik, Author and Journalist