UCLA Center for European and Eurasian Studies

Globalization is probably the most often used term in social sciences nowadays. Several colleagues, however, maintain that there is nothing new in globalization. The entire early modern and modern history were periods of permanent development of globalization, especially after the discoveries, building colonial empires, later railroads, and establishing laissez-fair system an the international gold standard. The world, no doubt about it, became more international, if you want global all the time.

This paper focuses on the use of demonstrative ten in modification of proper nouns, in examples such as ty Liblice or ta Praha. This is a topic that has eluded systematic study in the past, due to the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient sample size for a phenomenon that occurs sporadically and primarily in spoken speech. Occasional examples can be found in literary stylizations of dialogue, but generally at wide intervals that prevent efficient searches. In addition, literary stylizations do not necessarily reflect natural spoken language (Gammelgaard 1997, Bermel 2000, and others). The Czech National Corpus provides a remedy to these issues, with its three purely oral corpora (Oral2006, PMK and BMK) that represent both a variety of spoken situation types, and speakers with a variety of demographical features (age, level of education, region of residence). Oral2006 alone contains over 2000 examples of ten + proper noun (in various declensional and gendered forms), while PMK and BMK contribute approximately a thousand.1 In this study I address two main issues: 1) the basic functions of demonstrative modified proper nouns, and 2) the combinatorial possibilities of demonstrative modified proper nouns with other spoken features.

In the last fifteen years to twenty years there has been an extraordinary upsurge of interest in Jewish history in Germany. For a long time attention was focused almost entirely on questions of persecution, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust; but since the 1980s there has been more wide-ranging and also more intensive preoccupation with Jewish history. However, this applies only to a very limited extent to the Jewish communities in Germany, which have now grown again. At least half the present members are Russian immigrants who have arrived in the past twenty years; only a few members are still connected through their family background to German-Jewish history of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The new interest in Jewish history stems very largely from educated non-Jews - in Germany they are the main audience for the public events and publications on this theme, and most of the scholars, writers, journalists and cultural managers working in this field are also recruited from this group. Not only in the USA but also in Germany, though on a much smaller scale, the number of professorships and institutes for Jewish history and culture has risen considerably, and students’ interest in these subjects continues to grow. The workshops for doctoral candidates in German-Jewish history spanning several days which I conducted on behalf of the Leo Baeck Institute from 1991 to 1999 were attended by a total of 133 doctoral candidates from 45 German and 12 foreign universities. These included - with neighbouring disciplines taken into account - almost 110 dissertation projects in the field of modern German-Jewish history. This work is now being continued, no less successfully, by Michael Brenner, Professor of Jewish History and Culture at Munich University.

In this paper we will discuss the following question: can the international movement of Berbers be considered a Diaspora? We will first look at the meaning of the concept Diaspora, then at the history, geographical dispersion of Berbers and the current political context in Morocco. After that we discuss some results of a study on new trends among Moroccan associations in the Netherlands and on the Berber associations (Kraal & van Heelsum, 2002). The outcomes show that the number of associations that publicly bare the designation Berber and that are engaged mainly in Berber issues is evidently on the increase in the Netherlands. But identity issues seem to be more important to the members than political ones. We will subsequently describe the activities of the Berber associations throughout Europe and their transnational ties. In conclusion we will examine weather the concept of Diaspora fits to the situation of the Berbers.

The author uses the term “constructing victimhood” to characterize this specific relation, an expression that might sound awkward in the context of Nazi victimization since terms like ‘construction’ or ‘production,’ when used to describe social, cultural and political phenomena, tend to convey the notion that something is invented or even fabricated, therefore not a given reality. It is of course not my intention to leave this impression since there is no doubt about the true nature of Nazi persecution. But instead, she uses the term in an attempt at capturing developments and phenomena of the immediate post-war era that testify to grappling with the extraordinary character of Nazi crimes.

Closer co-operation is possible in two variants, the quasi official "enhanced co-operation" INSIDE the EU treaty and institutions, and the one OUTSIDE the EU and according to treaties established under international law. Their feasibility, utility, and compatibility with basic principles of European integration are examined, and both variants are found to need improvement as to feasibility and to modus operandi.

Such improvements are shown to conflict with compatibility, especially in the case of enhanced co-operation. The Constitutional treaty is a useful indicator for the manner in which this dilemma could be solved: Closer co-operation outside the treaty would be conceded a more legitimate role as an instrument of member states wanting to deepen integration among themselves.

A review of Michael Mann's, UCLA, Sociology, newly published book on FASCISM, see also Michael Mann's report.

Regula Ludi examines whether the successful resolution of Holocaust restitution claims is a landmark in establishing accountability for past wrongdoing and extending universal jurisdiction to the corporate realm. Focusing on the unique historical circumstances surrounding the successful legal battles, she asks how they affected our understanding of moral and political obligations associated with the Nazi past, and what implications their successful resolution has for future human rights campaigns

Fascism was probably the most important political ideology created during the 20th century. In the inter-war period it dominated half of Europe and threatened to overwhelm the other half. It also influenced many countries across the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and South Africa. In Asia, for example, its influence was probably strongest on the Chinese Kuomintang, Japanese militarists and Hindu nationalists. My book Fascists (Cambridge University Press, 2004) is based on research on fascists where they were strongest, in six European countries -- Austria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Romania and Spain. In the book I ask the question, why did fascism rise to such prominence? And I answer it looking at the men and women who became fascists: who were they, what did they believe in, and how did they act?

Can the concept of ecstasy explain some of the rationale of dictatorships, and more specifically of fascism? And can the concept of ecstasy be connected to manipulation? These are the two central questions I would like to raise and explore in this paper, although there are also other questions that will emerge in my discussion which I hope will help clarify the relationship between ecstasy and manipulation

How do we explain effects like enthusiasm, fanaticism, collective violence or fraternization, appearances often described during festivals or mass gatherings? Even if we consider the fact, that enthusiastic organizers or observers often invented or exaggerated such collective feelings and even, if we study sources critically and sceptically, we would still have to deal with the problem that the talking about collective emotions is indeed important for the study of public celebrations and other mass gatherings.