Current International Visitors: 2012-2013

Maha Abdel-Rahman is a Lecturer in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge, and an Egyptian academic and activist. She holds a PhD from the Dutch Institute of Social Studies. While at Stanford, she will research the relationship between social movements and civil society in Egypt, and will give seminars based on her book project, On Protest Movements and Uprisings: Egypt’s Permanent Revolution. She was nominated by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.

Mohamed Adhikari is an Associate Professor in the Historical Studies Department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He will explore the relationship between European settler colonialism and genocide in hunter-gatherer societies, and will bring to campus a comparative perspective on genocide, race, identity and language. His latest publication, The Anatomy of a South African Genocide: The Extermination of the Cape San Peoples (2010) was the first to deal with the topic of genocide in the South African context. He will also present from his edited book, Invariably Genocide?: When Hunter-gatherers and Commercial Stock Farmers Clash, due for publication in 2013. He was nominated by the Center for African Studies.

Denis Lacorne is a prominent French public intellectual and Professor of Political Science at CERI (Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales) Sciences Po in Paris. Lacorne will give presentations on French and American notions of religious toleration, deriving from his latest book on US and French secularism which demonstrates that, despite some striking similarities between US secularism and French laïcité, the secularization of French society has followed a different path from that of American society. He was nominated by the French Culture Workshop and the History Department.

Nuray Mert is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Istanbul University. She is a political observer and contributor to Turkey’s major newspapers (Milliyet and Hûrriyet Daily News), one of the few contemporary Turkish public intellectuals with an academic background and a journalist’s investigative mind. An outspoken critic on sensitive issues in the Turkish context such as rights of minorities (the Kurdish Question), freedom of religion and of press, she will lecture on the geopolitical implications of the Arab Spring for Turkey and the Middle East, and on Turkey’s accession to the European Union in light of the financial crisis of the Euro-zone. She was nominated by the Mediterranean Studies Forum.

Nikos Papandreou was born in Berkeley, California, went to high school in Canada, studied economics and political science at Yale, and earned a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton. After Greek military service and a few years at the World Bank, he quit the world of economics and received an MFA in creative writing (1994) and turned to writing on a more full-time basis. He is the author of seven books and numerous published essays, articles and short stories.

Himanshu Prabha Ray is an historian of Ancient India at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, where she works in the fields of ancient India and maritime archaeology. During her residency, she will discuss and finalize her current book project, Return of the Buddha: Ancient Symbols for Modern India, as well as her research on the creation of a public discourse around Buddhism in the colonial and post-colonial period in India. The Buddha, in her account, is not statically located in history, but rather contested within settings of colonialism, post-colonialism and nation-building. She was nominated by the Classics Department, with the support of the Department of Religious Studies, the Center for South Asia, the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies, and the Archaeology Center.

Te Maire Tau is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. His work explores the role of myth in Maori culture, the resolution of boundaries between the Maori and the New Zealand government, and where tribal/indigenous knowledge systems fit within the wider philosophy of knowledge. During his residency, he will examine how Pacific peoples adapted western knowledge systems, not just with regard to western technology but in more theoretical areas such as the pre-Socratic philosophers and the 19th century scientists. He will also focus on the migration of traditions from the Tahitian-Marquesas Island group to the outer lying island of Polynesia (New Zealand, Hawaii). He was nominated by the Woods Institute for the Environment.