July 12-August 2, 1995 organized in collaboration with the International Cultural Center, Cracow, Poland
Work and Life On
Our Cracow Campus: Democracy & Diversity, Summer 1995
During the weeks that Croatia undertook a counter-offensive, in a place where Auschwitz and Birkenau were only an hour away, and in a situation where the rhetoric may very easily have remained only rhetoric, the Democracy and Diversity Summer Graduate Institute in Cracow proved once again to be a stimulating, profound and enlightening academic and social encounter for all, a counterpoint to other events near and far.
Thirty-nine students from all over the region, and some from further afield, attended four courses and one policy workshop over the intensive three-week period. Among their number were Lidia Bialek, a Pole who is the 1995-96 Kalwinska Fellow at the New School, one who was involved with the Solidarity Movement from its inception, and Libora Indruchova, a Czech Junior Professor at the University of Pardubice and the Coordinator of the Gender Studies Center in Prague. Another, Jana Juranova from the Slovak Republic, whose publications include a 1994 book, Menagerie, is the co-editor of Aspekt, a femininst journal she also helped found. The students included Marija Lucic, Natasa Milenkovic and Milica Minic, three women from Belgrade who are active in the women's movement and anti-war movement in Yugoslavia. Then there was Olexander Hryb, a Ukrainian doctoral student at the Graduate School for Social Research in Warsaw and Lviv State University, who is also a former student of the Central European University. Another Pole, Magda Iwanska, a 1995-96 Mellon Democracy Fellow of the New School, is a young assistant professor from Warsaw University interested in public policy which she pursues through vigorous involvement in issues surrounding the disabled, and gay and lesbian communities. Michal Vasecka, another Slovak, will start teaching public policy at Academia Istropolitana this fall, and is the founder and director of the Documentation Center for the Research of Slovak Society. An Estonian, Maaris Rauseep, displays this same passion for academic excellence and social involvement. A psychologist and a sociologist by training, she is also deeply involved in human rights issues, and has been the recipient of several Fellowships from such bodies as the Commission of the European Community, the Democracy Foundation and the Council of Europe.
The courses offered at this year's Institute were both diverse and, at the same time, complementary to one another. Political Scientist David Plotke of the Graduate Faculty, taught "Problems in Democratic Politics Today". His course provided a good introduction to the texts and authors read in political science and sociology as well as a framework from which to view democratic politics today.
A second course, "Theories of Gender in Culture", was taught by Ann Snitow, a member of the Committee for Gender Studies at the Graduate Faculty, and Co-Chair of the Network of East and West Women. Professor Snitow's rare ability to combine theory and practice - itself combined with infectious zest - was a valuable component of the Summer Institute. Her course simultaneously exposed students to the issues and texts in gender studies, and to activities beyond the theory, such as the women's shelters in Cracow and Nowa Huta. As in previous years, it was Professor Snitow's presence that had motivated several male and female students from the region to make the journey to Cracow to study under her.
Claus Offe, Chair of the Political Science Department of Humboldt University, and Ulrich Preuss, Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bremen and Director of the Center for European Legal Policy, co-taught "Institution Building in Post-Communist Societies". The readings included selections of a new book co-written by Claus Offe, Ulrich Preuss, and Jon Elster, yet unpublished, entitled Constitutional Politics and Economic Transformations in Post-Communist Societies.
The Graduate Faculty sociologist Jeffrey Goldfarb taught "Civil Society and the Public Sphere", which many students described as an enlightening experience, providing a deeper understanding of concepts such as civil society, and of the connections between the philosophical underpinings of democracy and their empirical manifestations.
On the heels of her successful public policy workshop last year, Elaine Zimmerman, Executive Director of the Commission on Children for the State of Connecticut, offered another workshop series, this time entitled "Policy as Democracy". The workshop aimed at showing the role of public policy in the process of the formation of democratic institutions and the pitfalls such a process is heir to, and elucidated the manner in which policy can be utilized to bring about social change. The reading materials for the workshop, a series of essays on different policy matters written by experts in the field here in America, is now in the process of being turned by the ECEP into a comprehensive workbook. The idea for this publication was inspired by the success and interest the similar seminar generated at last year's Institute. The seminar once again proved to be very successful, inspiring, for example, a group of Ukrainian students to consider the possible avenues open to them for influencing policies aimed at countering the rising drop-out rates in Ukrainian secondary schools.
These four seminars and the public policy workshop drew students from far and wide, and kept them quite busy! Accentuating the presence of students from the Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Estonia, and Armenia, were a Mexican, a Spaniard, a Chilean, and several Americans. On any given day, all could be found reading their thick course materials or discussing the issues raised that day in class, with coffee generally close by. Though only three weeks long, the Institute was serious, intensive, and equally stimulating for faculty and students all semester. The reading packets disappeared more quickly than the ice-cream cones served at lunch on the hottest days, when even the pleasantness of being atop a forested hill couldn't keep the heat away. Mariela Czoprej, a Polish student at Warsaw University explained that this was not surprising. "We don't have access to the newest materials on say democratic theory or nationalism", she remarked.
The students also benefited from a number of extraordinary guest lectures during their stay. Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz read selections of his poetry and reflected on a life of art and politics. Adam Michnik, Editor-in-Chief of Gazeta Wyborcza and quintessential engaged public intellectual, delivered a lecture concerned with the future prospects for post-Communist Poland which he entitled "A Rebellion Against Sociology". He explained that, "the selfless defense of democracy is a rebellion against sociology, because democracy is a system which allows its challengers to destroy it". Shlomo Avineri, the Herbert Samuel Professor of Political Science at Hebrew University and former Director-General of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, gave a memorable lecture on the influence of East and Central Europe on the political and social life of contemporary Israel. His lecture was later reported in the August 1 issue of Gazeta Wyborcza, a daily newspaper with one of the largest circulation in Europe. Gazeta Wyborcza, incidentally also published a report on the Cracow Summer Institute in a separate edition. We were also invited to attend lectures by Konstanty Gebert, who is one of the leaders of the Jewish community in Warsaw, and a scholar, writer and correspondent from Sarajevo of Gazeta Wyborcza, given at the Cracow Jewish Center and organized by New York University's Study Abroad Program. The first explored the history of Jews in Poland since World War II, while the second discussed the situation in present day Yugoslavia from the unique perspective of the Jewish population in Sarajevo. At a roundtable entitled "The Future of Central European Roots", Jacek Purchla, the Director of the International Cultural Center - our partner in Cracow, traced the development of the idea of Central Europe. As a complement to this lecture, the historian and former Polish Consul General of Austria Emile Briggs delivered his thoughts on the concept of "Mitteleuropa" and its applicability to the present situation. Cynthia Mueller, the Director of Admissions of the Graduate Faculty of the New School spent one evening with students sharing her knowledge of American institutions of higher learning and the various paths open to those students who are interested in pursuing graduate work this side of the Atlantic.
Several guests visited the Institute just to sit in on classes, meet students, and talk with the faculty. Maura Kealey, now a Parisian, who, along with Cynthia Epstein taught the first gender studies course at Berkeley in the early 1970s, spent a week with us, attending classes, and being engaged deep in conversation, taking in the readings, and the view of the Tatra Mountains from the terrace of Przegorzaly Castle, which we called home. Other visitors to the Democracy and Diversity Institute included Carol Tegen of the Open Society Institute in New York, Merrill Oates, Director of the Curriculum Resource Center, and Mindy Roseman, Associate Director of the Project on Gender and Culture, both of the Central European University. The distinguished feminist and legal theorist from UCLA and Humboldt University, Francis Olsen, was a guest lecturer in Ann Snitow's class.
In addition to the classes and lectures, students were invited to a reception hosted by the International Cultural Center and by the German, Austrian and American Consuls General. They were given tours of the historic city of Cracow with its Jagiellonian University founded in 1364, the historic Jewish quarter of Kazimierz and the Wieliczka Salt Mines, an economic mainstay of the region visited by Nicholas Copernicus and Emperor Franz Josef, and famous for its dazzling underground sculptures carved out of the salt deposits. Students also undertook a trip to the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps.
One evening was set aside for a roundtable on regional affairs in which each group of students from the region presented the current state of affairs in its country. Students appreciated this chance to exchange information and discuss issues which were both specific to each country and relevant in a much wider context. Emile Danielian, a student at the American University of Armenia, commented wryly that "after the presentation of the Armenian contingent the audience had a slight idea of my country and what is going on there now." Another wrote of the Institute that she "enjoyed particularly the roundtable at the end, that gave me precious data about [the various countries]. For me, Armenia or the Ukraine will forever be associated with the faces and names of real people. Thanks to your school, I am now in the possession of knowledge about the realities and mentalities in eighteen countries all over the world."
Mona Simu, a Romanian student at the University of Bucharest described her experiences of the Summer Institute vividly. "The opportunity to communicate," she wrote later, "with people around the world, that the Cracow school offered me, was very important. I think that events like summer schools which gather people from many countries turn nowadays into true schools for tolerance and respect among people, and the Cracow Institute was one of them. I've reinforced my belief that cultural differences are not barriers to communication, that the problems we deal with in our countries (in this corner of Europe) are most alike, that people think almost the same way. And then I suddenly perceived myself not only as a Romanian, but also as a free member of the international community." Similarly, when asked about the Institute, Michal Kowalski, a student at the Graduate School for Social Research in Warsaw, and a faculty member at Warsaw University, expressed a similarly favorable opinion. "It is very difficult", he said, "to describe and to evaluate such an excellent program as this one. Everything was at the highest level - courses and classes, professors and participants, discussions and the so-called social events, accommodation and food. Even the weather reached the level." Suzana Stular, a Slovenian student, expressed similar praise about the Institute. She generously noted that, "I have to admit that all the years of my studies probably didn't give me so much as these three weeks in Cracow did, for both my knowledge and my personal development."
The degree of cross-cultural exchange and collective learning was at times astonishing, and at times bordered on the astonishingly comical. Picture if you will, one evening when, over Kurdish food around a table in Cracow, sat Adam Michnik, a Pole, being interviewed by Barbara Falk, a Canadian student from York University, and Jana Juranova, a Slovak. Listening to the interview, conducted in French, since this was the language shared by Michnik and Falk, and in Polish, since Juranova understood Polish but not French, were others from all corners of the world. Elzbieta Matynia, the Polish-born American Director of the East and Central Europe Program, Michal Vasecka, another Slovakian student, translating the Polish for an Americanized German, Ina Breuer, and myself, an Anglo-Sri Lankan from New York. The topic of conversation was transitions to democracy. Some nights later, in an evening spent exchanging personal and national biographies by singing songs under a star-filled night, a Chilean and a Spaniard burst into an English pop song and were immediately joined by three Yugoslavs from Belgrade.
To try to do justice to conveying the impact the Institute had on its participants is difficult, particularly since sincerity is an easy thing to misinterpret. Yet, one thing above all stands out as emblematic. When asked later to describe her workshop, Elaine Zimmerman sent us a quotation of Vaclav Havel's thoughts on hope, which she thought would communicate the aims of her workshop. For us all, Havel's thoughts also encompass the very spirit of the entire Institute:
Either we have hope within us, or we don't. It is a dimension of the soul and is not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. Hope in this deep and powerful sense is not the same as joy that things are going well or a willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed... It is hope, above all, which gives strength to live and continually try new things.
Curriculum and Student
Demographics
The Student Body
The institute was comprised of 38 students from 17 countries, 19 cities, and 23 different institutions. There were 3 from the U.S.A., 3 Armenians (1 from the American University of Armenia and the other 2 from Yerevan State University), 1 Canadian, 1 Chilean, 1 Croat, 1 Estonian, 3 Hungarians, 1 Mexican, 4 Poles, 4 Romanians (3 from Bucharest, and 1 from Cluj), 2 Russians (1 from Samara and 1 from Moscow who is attending the GSSR in Warsaw), 4 Slovaks (1 of whom teaches in Prague), 1 Slovenian, 1 Spaniard, 5 Ukrainians (4 from Kiev and one who is attending the GSSR in Warsaw), and 3 Yugoslavs. Their fields of study ranged from sociology, political science, political philosophy, gender studies, and psychology to media studies, journalism, and public policy. Most of them, along with working toward their degrees, are also very active in various aspects of public life in their countries. One participant, for example, works on human rights issues. We also had journal editors, a public policy analyst, and members of political organizations and public opinion research centers.
Faculty
The Faculty came from the Graduate Faculty (GF) of the New School for Social Research, Humboldt University in Berlin, and the University of Bremen. This year's Institute curriculum was designed and taught by GF Professors David Plotke (Associate Professor of Political Science), Jeffrey Goldfarb (Professor of Sociology), and Ann Snitow (Professor, Committee on Gender Studies, and Co-Chair of the Network for East-West Women), Claus Offe (distinguished sociologist, Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science of Humboldt University) and Ulrich Preuss (Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bremen, and Director of the Center for European Legal Policy). A policy workshop (see below) was led by Elaine Zimmerman, Executive Director of the Commission on Children for the State of Connecticut, who has over twenty years of extensive experience in the design and implementation of national and state legislative initiatives.
Curriculum
Four principle seminars were conducted for twelve two-hour sessions each: Civil Society and the Public Sphere; Institution-Building in Post-Communist Societies; Problems in Democratic Politics Today; and Theories of Gender in Culture. Their descriptions are as follows:
Civil Society and the Public Sphere
Professor Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, Department of Sociology, The
Graduate Faculty
In this course, the problems of an independent civil society and its relationship with public life will be explored. Such issues as the constitution of the public sphere, the nature of freedom and authority, the meaning of politics, and their relationship with civic life will be examined. The major texts will include Hannah Arendt's Between Past and Future and The Origins of Totalitarianism and Jürgen Habermas' The Structural Transformations of the Public Sphere.
Institutions-Building in Post-Communist Societies
Professor Claus Offe, Department of Political Science, Humboldt
University
Professor Ulrich Preuss, The Faculty of Public Law, University
of Bremen
In this course we study the prospects for and the constraints on the construction and consolidation of a democratic order in post-communist societies of East and Central Europe. The focus will be on an analysis of the political order (constitution-making, political regimes, and relevant institutional actors), marketization of the economy, and the interactions between these main elements of the transitional process.
Problems in Democratic Politics Today
Professor David Plotke, Department of Political Science, The
Graduate Faculty
We will examine the basic problems in democratic theory and practice. After the end of Communism and the Cold War, problems in long-established democracies and in post-communist countries where democratic institutions are new overlap enough to make possible a common discussion. What forms of representation and participation are desirable? What are the roles of interest groups, social movements, and civic associations? What sort of political and cultural agreement can sustain democratic practices (given the reality of national, ethnic, religious, and racial diversity in most countries)? We will consider these and other questions as they now appear in North America and Europe.
Theories of Gender in Culture
Professor Ann Snitow, Committee on Gender Studies and Feminist
Theory, The Graduate Faculty
For a variety of reasons, among them the recent development of a women's movement in the U.S. and Western Europe, gender is becoming less of a social given and more of a social question. For the first time in this century, theorists are giving serious consideration to male and female as key variables in experience. The result has been an extraordinary proliferation of feminisms and reactions, many of which we will introduce and explore.
Each participant received all necessary reading materials, which included books and carefully selected articles relevant to the teaching of the course. Similar "curriculum packets" will be made available to faculty and scholars throughout the region to assist in the designing and implementation of new courses into the curriculum of the respective institutions.
Special Workshop
on Public Policy
Following the success of the Workshop on Public Policy arranged last year, Elaine Zimmerman, the leader of the workshop led another, this time entitled "Policy as Democracy". Approximately 20 - 25 students attended the meetings that took place on successive evenings. Here is a brief description of the Workshop:
Policy As Democracy
Elaine Zimmerman, Executive Director,
Commission on Children, State of Connecticut General Assembly
Public policy can protect, provide and enhance opportunity and access for people. It can be a major vehicle of democratic change for a nation. However, people must understand how to think about policy - how to design it and ensure its implementation. Like anything in power, if it not done well, it can become the opposite of its intent.
In this workshop we will explore different kinds of policy, ranging from education to economic development to anti-discrimination. The workshop will be divided into two sections: In the first section we will describe policy and offer a range of issue examples, including those concerning family and child; education; health; economic development; discrimination and violence; poverty and its implications; and neighboring and community. In the second section we will discuss the skills needed to implement policy.
Because of the interest in and importance of the subject generated last year, we asked Elaine Zimmerman to prepare a "manual," which includes an introduction to general concepts in policy making, chapters written on specific policy issues such as education, the environment, and children by American policy experts in those areas, and sample source materials on policies already enacted in the U.S. An extensive bibliography is also attached. This manual was available to the Institute participants as well as other individuals, groups, and institutions in the region. This Workbook will be published this coming fall.
Requirements
During this year's institute, each student was required to take two courses, although in some cases we agreed to let them audit a third one. The classes were conducted in seminar style, with some lecturing. This approach demanded of the students a careful reading of the texts and constant preparedness, and facilitated an intense interaction with the Professors and other members of the seminars. It also helped to develop - something we think has become a trademark of our Institute - a close working relationship with the Professors, and encouraged discussions that went well beyond the time and place set up for the regular seminars: on the terrace cafe of Przegorzaly Castle, in walks through the forest, during trips to town, and even at the swimming hole. Often, one could overhear voices - in a variety of accents - coming up the hill to the castle in fervent debates over the day's topics.
All of the participants were also required to write a 4-5 page academic essay, as well as an "impression paper" of their thoughts on the Institute. We ourselves will be reporting on the Institute in the next issue of our quarterly Bulletin. Participants who completed the requirements of the Institute were issued an Institute Certificate.
Extra-Curricular
Events
W were not only immersed in the seminars, but also had a rather extensive program of extracurricular roundtables, field trips, and lectures. Among these were:
Roundtables:
A roundtable on regional affairs was led by groups of students from each country. The specific social and political problems of respective countries were introduced and discussed.
At a roundtable entitled "The Future of Central European Roots", Jacek Purchla, the Director of the International Cultural Center in Cracow and Professor at Jagiellonian University, traced the development of the idea of East and Central Europe. Historian and former Consul General of Austria in Cracow Emile Briggs reflected on the concept of "Mitteleuropa" and its applicability to the present situation.
Lectures:
Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz read selections of his poetry and reflected on a life of art and politics.
Adam Michnik, Editor-in-Chief of Gazeta Wyborcza and a former member of the Polish Parliament, delivered a talk on the future prospects for post-Communist Poland.
Shlomo Avineri, the Herbert Samuel Professor of Political Science at Hebrew University and the former Director-General of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, gave a remarkable lecture on the role of East and Central Europe on the political and social life of contemporary Israel.
Konstanty Gebert, writer and journalist, gave two lectures. The first explored the history of Jews in Poland since World War II, while the second discussed the situation in present day Yugoslavia from the unique perspective of the Jewish population in Sarajevo.
Meetings:
Cynthia Mueller, Director of Admissions, The Graduate Faculty, met with students to talk about the admissions processes within the American university system.
Merrill Oates, Director of the Curriculum Resource Center, and Mindy Roseman, Associate Director of the Project on Gender and Culture, both at the Central European University met with both the staff, faculty and students to discuss curriculum reform
Field Trips:
Tour of the Medieval City of Cracow;
Wieliczka Salt Mines--tour of the 800-year old underground salt
mine in Wieliczka near Cracow;
Auschwitz and Birkenau--guided tour through the museum and grounds
of the largest German concentration and death camps in Europe;
Jagiellonian University--a visit and tour of Collegium Maius,
the oldest (14th century) part of the university.
FUTURE PLANS
Through the correspondence with the growing number of Cracow alumni and contacts with the institutions of higher education in the region, we are continuously assured that the Democracy and Diversity Institute is making an important contribution to the intellectual and professional development of the younger generation of East and Central European scholars and future policy makers. As we are hoping to organize the Institute again next summer, we look forward to collaborating with our established partners in the region and to welcoming more students from hitherto underrepresented countries (e.g., Albania, Bosnia-Hercegovina, the eastern part of Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, the Asian parts of the former U.S.S.R. such as Kyrgyzstan or Uzbekistan, and from South Africa).
During the last
few days of the Institute some fairly rich video material was
shot by the documentary filmmaker Richard W. Adams. This video
material is currently in production. Those interested in receiving
a copy of the video should contact the East and Central Europe
Program of the New School for Social Research.