Global Dimensions

Global Dimensions

News and notes from across NYU's Campuses and Sites

Thirty Years of Czech-American Relations: A Conference at NYU Prague

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As the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution approaches, NYU Prague took the opportunity to bring together academics, politicians, journalists, diplomats and students to reflect on the friendship between the Czech Republic and America.  Gathered in a stunning Baroque Hall that is part of the Dominican Monastery in Prague’s Old Town, speakers were nostalgic, hopeful, and also trepidatious.  

The conference was organized in cooperation with the Charles University Department of North American Studies and the nonprofit organization that Vaclav Havel founded, Forum 2000.  It was spearheaded by NYU Prague professor Tomáš Klvaňa, a specialist in North American politics who has written several books about America, including The Trump Phenomenon. 

The conference opened with a keynote speech by Jeffrey Gedmin who  lived in Prague in the 1990s as the CEO of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.  He hearkened back to even earlier, when he was a “left-leaning student of the 80s” who travelled to the Soviet block looking for evidence of the ideals of a Communist society.  “I found tyranny, secret police, environmental devastation, economic depression and suffering.” He warned about the American tendency to “not learn history,” noting that today, it is becoming mainstream on the left to say that it’s time to give Marxism a chance… and on the right to revisit the models of Pinochet and Franco to restore family values.  “We have self-inflicted wounds in the USA. … Russia is in decline, but there are Russian experts interested in finding these wounds and dropping poison in them. “ 

This was followed by discussions involving fourteen Czech and American presenters who spoke on two panels: Coming Back Together: An Evaluation of Three  Decades and  Drifting Apart. The Looming Challenges in Transatlantic Relations.  

It’s hard to imagine a more qualified group for this topic.  Speakers included former Czech Ambassadors to the USA, leaders of NATO talks, the former Czech Ministers of Defense and Foreign Affairs, the economic and political advisers to President Havel, career US diplomats, a correspondent from the Voice of America, and more.   A wide array of topics were brought up, but a recurring theme was the importance of allies, not just partnerships that are about transactions. Today, many allyships seem to be under threat in tandem with an isolationist trend sweeping countries around the world.

Of course there was quite a lot of nostalgia when remembering the ups and downs of the transitional years.  Several speakers – both on the panel and in the audience (which included Czechs who have worked for American nonprofits and at the US Embassy) – thanked Americans for the values they brought.  “The USA was instrumental in helping erode the Communist system by supporting civil society – funding nonprofits and educational initiatives. The USA didn’t have to choose to do this,” noted NYU Prague director Jiri Pehe.  Alexandr Vondra, a former Czech Ambassador to the USA who was crucial in the effort to garner support for NATO, emphasized the ongoing importance of the military alliance between the two countries, while former Charge d’Affaires of the U.S. Embassy in the Czech Republic Mary Thompson-Jones focused on cultural exchange and how she believes the two countries understand each other thanks to their “mocking view of authority.”   According to Michael Žantovský, also a former Czech Ambassador to the USA and the current head of the Vaclav Havel Library, the friendship between the two countries has been developing for much, much longer than 30 years: supposedly George Washington’s first girlfriend was Czech, but her father refused to let her marry a poor soldier.  

The conference took place during the NYU Prague fall break, but some students decided to come back to Prague early so they could attend.  One of them was Eli Lenner, a sophomore in Stern. “Learning about the relationship between the two countries from a Czech perspective … developed my understanding of where relations were in the nineties, where they are now, and where they might be in the future.”

As we saw thirty years ago, the future is hard to predict.  “Things can change so quickly – think about how we were thirty years ago, how we were six years ago,”  said Jeffrey Gedmin as he wrapped up his keynote speech. “And imagine where we can be in six years.”

Photo credits Kristýna Sluková

Meet a Global Equity Fellow – Oye Olubowale, NYU Paris

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Oyetunde “Oye” Olubowale is a junior at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She is pursuing an individualized concentration in Global Marketing, Media, and Propaganda. She is also working towards a Minor in Francophone Studies. Oye owes her exposure to diversity and various cultures to her travels to Switzerland, Kenya, Myanmar, Côte d’Ivoire, Rwanda, and Nigeria. As a Nigerian immigrant to the United States and extensive traveller, she is no stranger to culture shock and difference. Oye further developed her understanding of diversity and inclusion at the Wheeler School in Providence, Rhode Island where she served as head of the Black Affinity club and attended national student diversity leadership conferences.

During her first year at NYU, Oye was a part of the Rubin Poverty and Affluence stream where she researched and wrote about the disparities in the US public education and the barriers to voter access in New York. She also was a volunteer tutor with the New York French American Charter School in Harlem.  At NYU, Oye serves as the treasurer for UndocNYU (formerly known as Dream Team), a student activism club dedicated to advocating for and creating community with undocumented folks at NYU and beyond. As the Paris Global Equity Fellow, Oye hopes to explore media’s relationship with multiculturalism and diverse representation in France.

Meet a Global Equity Fellow – Brian Ruiz, NYU Buenos Aires

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Brian is a rising junior and HEOP student at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study pursuing a concentration on Prison Abolition. Brian wants to focus on how the Prison Industrial Complex affects marginalized communities and groups of color in New York City. In particular, he is interested in the ways in which he can utilize his experience in community organizing, transformative justice, and film-making. Brian seeks to center marginalized communities and groups of color, dismantle the current oppressive carceral system, and create a new system that ensures accountability, healing, and community. Brian is Domincian and a New York resident from Washington Heights, a predominantly Latinx community. He greatly values community as it is essential to forming relationships, trust, and a love for the land.He is a grassroots community organizer who has done work in the South Bronx and Bushwick on anti-carceral, anti-gentrification, and immigration-related topics.

During his time at NYU, Brian has worked with other students to cultivate spaces for inclusive and diverse communities through his work in the HEOP Alternative Break to Puerto Rico, Gallatin Sophomore Student Council, and Gallatin Diversity Council. Brian looks forward to working with many grassroots community organizers, artists, and students in Buenos Aires as to not only create spaces of diversity, inclusion, and belonging, but also confronting and resisting political and social issues as a means of radically transforming our societies and systems.

NYU Madrid Launches MADart Project with Local Artists

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NYU Madrid will breathe some new life into the academic space with the launch of the MADart project. The project brings together four local artists – two photographers and two graffiti artists. These artists will, over a month, guide groups of three to five NYU Madrid students in creating pieces of art that will hang on the hallways of NYU Madrid’s campus. The groups will start working on their pieces the week of 4 November. This is a dynamic and interesting way to refresh the walls of NYU Madrid while allowing students to engage with and learn from the local artistic community. 

NYU Prague Student Lachlan Hyatt Interviews a Former Political Prisoner

Posted on by Martha J Bekink

NYU Prague student Lachlan Hyatt recently interviewed former political prisoner Mirek Kopt. With the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of communism in the Czech Republic approaching, his piece reminds us of the importance of remembering these histories.

The Czech Republic’s Forgotten Prisoners

By Lachlan Hyatt

PRAGUE – On a cold spring day in 1945, Mirek Kopt took a walk with his father to a shooting range near their house on the outskirts of Prague. They had heard that the range was being used for executing German sympathizers, but the field was empty when they arrived. The day was sunny and there was no fighting in the city; occupying Nazi forces had finally been pushed out by the invading Soviet army. Mirek and his father walked through the weeds of the shooting range before coming across two bodies laying side by side. A man and a woman, seemingly husband and wife, had been executed with a bullet to the back of the head earlier that morning.

“This is when a chain reaction started which proved that one totallity was replaced by another,” said Kopt via an interpreter nearly 75 years later, reflecting on the moment when his contempt of of communism first formed. These beliefs would eventually land him six years of hard labor in a political prison camp.

Since the Fall of Communism in the Czech Republic in 1989, stories of those first targeted by the totalitarian regime, like Mirek Kopt, are being lost. The last of the Czech Republic’s political prisoners, which once numbered over 200,000are dying out, and with them so are the memories of the most brutal era under Communist rule.

“There is a real risk that knowledge about the former political prisoners will die with them,” said Dr. Barbara Vann, a professor of  sociology at Loyola University Maryland who has studied this issue, via email. “This subject has not been talked about much even within families of former political prisoners, and it has not received much media attention.”

Sitting in his quaint apartment outside Prague in his leather sandals and sweatpants, Kopt doesn’t at first seem like a rebel. His white hair and liver spots make it hard to imagine him printing dissident pamphlets, beating up Communist party members, and stockpiling weapons used to hijack trains in his youth. As he recounts his time battling the Communist state, though, glimpses of the old resistor show through.

Kopt remembers vividly one day in late autumn in a labor camp when a guard who particularly disliked him poured a bucket of cold water on him as he slept in the concrete solitary confinement cell.“This was not only a matter of health, it was a matter of life and death and to be honest, if I met this man in my life, I would probably take justice into my own hands,” said Kopt, grinning.

The Communist regime in the Czech Republic began shortly after the Soviet Red Army liberated the country from Nazi occupation at the end of WWII. In 1948, the Communist Party pulled off a coup, becoming the only political party. This new regime forged a strong alliance with the Stalinist USSR and other countries of the Communist Bloc. Dissenting political views were punished harshly.

By the early 1950’s, there were over 30 prisons and labor camps across the country. Thousands of Czechs were arrested for any perceived anti-state activity during the most oppressive years of the regime.

“We realized the only way to fight violence is another violence,” said Kopt.

Kopt began printing anti-commuinist leaflets with his friends while still a teenager but was encouraged to partake in more extreme actions by his uncle, who had deep ties into the resistance. Kopt soon became a member of the Ostriz resistance organization, a group made up primarily by outlawed dissident Boy Scouts. By 1953, Kopt had established his own conspiratorial group. In 1954, Kopt was falsely connected to the murder of a policeman by members of his old Boy Scout troop and was sentenced to ten years of hard labor.

“When I was being investigated, the congress told me they were going to hang me, but I didn’t think much of it because it was a war,” said Kopt. “I didn’t stress out about that, it’s just how things were.”

Kopt was sent to mining camps in the mountains northwest of Prague, less than 10 miles of the East German border. This region, known as the “Jachymov Hell” contained over 12 seperate labor camps and held over a third of the Czech Republic’s political prisoners at this time. The prisoners here would work in shifts, mining uranium to be used by the Soviet Union 24 hours a day everyday of the week. Prisoners toiled in the mines with little training and safety regulations, working to meet quotas so they could receive rations. On the surface, prisoners were abused by armed guards and forced to endure the cold weather of the mountains.

By 1960, the harsh methods of the Czech Communist regime were relaxed and thousands of prisoners were granted amnesty, emptying many camps. Kopt believes the release of these prisoners was an important part of the fight against the Communist regime, which would continue for almost another 30 years.

“The fact remains that when the Communists released thousands of people from prisons and lagers, basically started the erosion of the system,” said Kopt. “Because the civil society didn’t have any clue how many people are being held in jails and lagers for political reasons. Their ideas of who we were was distorted.”

Now, most of the political prisoners have passed away.

“Most of my friends from the lagers are dead now – I think we are three still alive today,” said Kopt.

Many former political prisoners died from cancer after being exposed to extreme levels of radiation from the uranium mining. One camp that processed uranium ore led to so many deaths of prisoners it is now known as “The Red Tower of Death”. Political prisoners were released but never truly escaped the camps. Stigmatized by the state, many struggled to find reliable work and housing and only received small reparations in 2004.  

The struggle to preserve the stories of political prisoners has become more challenging in recent years as many Czechs wish to distance themselves from the troubles of the past.

“They are not getting enough information on the recent past and they do not even know where to get this information,” said Kopt regarding Czechs’ views of the past.

Efforts to preserve the legacies of former political prisoners have faltered in recent years. The Confederation of Political Prisoners of the Czech Republic (KPV CR), an organization started to connect former political prisoners, has been facing conflict as more and more of their members pass away. Disagreements emerged when some leaders of the group wanted it dissolved and others want it continued by family members of former prisoners. Troubles in the leadership of the KPV CR reach a point this summer where a guardian of the organization had to be appointed by a Czech court. Because of the inner conflicts, much of the documentation concerning political prisoners have been lost.

With the stories of former political prisoners being forgotten, some in the Czech Republic worry that an oversimplified or inaccurate understanding of history will persist. One such person is Dan Zdarek, a member of the PoliticalPrisoners.EU NGO that runs educational tours of the Jachymov labor camps.

“If people just accept the simple picture of things, that it’s just a place of injustice, then they don’t have a clear idea of what that represents and what that means to communism,” said Zdarek

“Communism is something that’s alive in the minds of everyone living in the Czech Republic because they are the ones whose parents and grandparents lived in the communist system.”

As the 30th anniversary of the Fall of Communism in the Czech Republic approaches, the dissenters of the 70’s and 80’s, like the Czech Republic’s first president, Vaclav Havel, have been celebrated for their anti-Communist effots. For those who faced threats of execution and toiled in the uranium mines, this attention can seem misguided.

“The older prisoners think the dissidents got all the attention, when in reality, their experiences were nothing compared to what they themselves experienced as political prisoners,”  said Dr. Vann.

The surviving political prisoners in the Czech Republic today still try to meet up and share their experiences. Events are held annually in Jachymov and around the country, but the number of attendees is getting smaller each year and the events receive little attention from the media. Radiation levels in the Jachymov camps remain high. After decades struggling against the old regime, Kopt can now only sit and observe the nation he fought to make.

“I think it’s a bit of Havel’s fault because we kind of abandoned our mission,” said Kopt. “Our president is basically an agent of Moscow,” referring to pro-Russian Czech president Milos Zeman. “Former Communists still have a lot of advantages in society than regular citizens. But justice needs to be seen in some way, ” he added.

Though the effects of his six years in prison still linger, Kopt is determined to share his stories and make the most of his freedom. He has published books about his time as a rebel and helps give tours of the Jachymov camps he was once imprisoned in, hoping to pass on the memories of his struggle to new generations of Czechs.

“I have my literature and my radio, that’s all I need,” said Kopt walking past a messy watercolor painting posted on his refrigerator.  “And my grandson.”

NYU Berlin, NYU Florence, NYU Prague Collaborate on Conference – Never-ending History – How did we get to 2019 from 1989?

Posted on by Martha J Bekink

On October 16 and 17, 2019, NYU Berlin hosted a remarkable gathering of scholars that was both reflective and forward-thinking. The gathering being hosted in Berlin was meaningful as this year marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Directors from NYU Berlin, NYU Florence, and NYU Prague collaborated in making the occasion, organising the conference, Never-ending History: How did we get to 2019 from 1989?.  This conference provided prominent thinkers to an opportunity to gather and consider a range of issues that have occupied academic and public debates, as well as the people who had lived on either side of the “Iron Curtain” and who became active or passive participants in the establishment of a ‘new’ European and global “post-communist” East. While the conference considered the global dimensions and significance of 1989, Never-ending History also addressed legacies of continuity and change in Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic in politics, economics, and culture. 

Professor Larry Wolff, NYU Professor of History and NYU Florence C0-Director, gave the keynote address, entitled Everyday Ecstasy: Revisiting 1989 in Sober Perspective and Double Exposure. His inspiring and interesting talk set the stage for the engaging presentations and provocative dialogues that ensued over the two days of this gathering. 

The impressive contributors and panels considered a wide range of topics that were organised into four lively panels: Internationalism, Nationalism, and Identity Formation in Post-1989 Europe; Aufarbeitung? Historicizing East Germany; Redrawing Europe; and Artists as Chroniclers and Storytellers of Political Change. These panel presentations and discussions considered issues as diverse as the successes and failures of liberal democracy and market economy in former Communist/Socialist countries and visions of citizenship and nationality, the impact of the transitions on women and minority groups and media, arts, and culture in post-Communist societies, the resurgence (or continuity) of authoritarianism and nationalism and changing concepts of grassroots democracy / social movements in an age of populism and social media.

NYU Professor of History Mary Nolan delivered an inspiring closing keynote address. Professor Nolan’s impressive scholarship is focused on Europe and America in the Twentieth Century, the Cold War, the history of Human Rights, the global economy in the twentieth century, modern German history, and European women’s history. Her closing keynote, Women and Gender Politics since 1989, was a stirring commentary on how women, gender, and politics have featured in political and social debates Europe over the last thirty years.

While it is hard to distill two days of dynamic conversation into themes, NYU Prague Director Jiri Pehe, noted  the discussions suggested that “there seem to be similar developments in all post-communist countries, which seems to suggest that we need to look for most answers to what is now going on in the region in the era before 1989.” NYU Berlin Director Gabriella Etmektsoglou described the conclusions being drawn, by Mary Nolan and others, as “path-breaking work”.

NYU Abu Dhabi Researchers Release New Date Palm Genome Sequence

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Researchers at NYU Abu Dhabi’s Center for Genomics and Systems Biology and the UAEU Khalifa Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, working with other institutions, have developed an improved assembly of the genome for the date palm using long-read sequencing technology. This improvement over the current versions of the genome will help advance further research, and also inform the propagation practices of this essential MENA region food source.

In addition, the researchers have identified the genes and mutations that lead to color change and the levels of major sugars in date palm fruit, including the genes for the enzyme invertase that breaks down sucrose into glucose and fructose. The mapping of these fruit color and sugar genes was conducted using genome-wide association studies (GWAS).  GWAS has been used for mapping important disease genes in humans, and this is the first time it has been applied to date palms.

While date palms (Phoenix dactylifera) are one of the earliest domesticated tree crops in the world and remain a major fruit crop in North Africa and the Middle East, few genomic resources exist. This, combined with long generation times, has limited evolutionary genomic studies of this perennial species.

Researchers report they have produced an improved genome assembly for date palms that is 18 percent larger and more contiguous than existing genome assemblies. This long-read genome sequence assembly, coupled with access to two large, mature date palm orchards in the United Arab Emirates, allowed them to conduct genome-wide association mapping in this species. 

As a result, they successfully mapped the previously-identified sex determination locus and genes for both fruit color and sugar level polymorphisms. Their findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.

“As we face challenges in food security for the future, we will need to continue to study the genome of food crops like date palm to help us in our struggle to provide food security in the world,” said Silver Professor of Biology at New York University and lead scientist on the paper Michael Purugganan. “Our progress in expanding the genome of the date palm is finally unlocking some of the secrets that explain how this tree species has continued to thrive in varied, challenging ecosystems.”

Global Collaboration

The sequencing of the date palm genome and the first GWAS mapping in this fruit tree was an international effort led by NYUAD and KCGEB, and also included researchers in the US, Switzerland, France, UK, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico.

This story comes to us from NYU Abu Dhabi. For more details and a video about this research, see here.

NYU Washington, DC and the Irish Network DC Partner on Dynamic Program – Northern Ireland Peace on the Eve of Brexit: Resilience & Reconciliation Through Art & Storytelling

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NYU Washington, DC and the Irish Network DC recently launched a three-part collaboration entitled Northern Ireland Peace on the Eve of Brexit: Resilience & Reconciliation Through Art & Storytelling. This programming is an exploration featuring music, film, and discussions, supported by a two-week art installation examining conflict and cooperation during the Troubles and since.

The 30-year social, religious, tribal, and economic conflict known as the Troubles came to a formal end with the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998, but now Brexit threatens that fragile peace. Through film, music, art, storytelling and special guests, NYU Washington, DC and the Irish Network DC will explore the complex progress of healing a divided society. A visual art exhibit will showcase art about the conflict and its legacy and will run from October 16-30, 2019. All events will be at New York University’s Constance Milstein and Family Global Academic Center located in downtown D.C. 

The program was launched with “Good Vibrations” Film Screening and Discussion on 17 October.

Set in the 1970s, the film “Good Vibrations” looks at the life of Terri Hooley, who is considered Northern Ireland’s “godfather of punk.” Due to the sectarian violence in Belfast at the time, the city basically shut down in the evenings. This was not much fun for the teens looking for something to do. Hooley began arranging punk music shows, set up a record label and shop called Good Vibrations, and ‘discovered’ the band The Undertones. The punk community became a way to rebel against the sectarianism and violence that was prevalent. 

On 24 October, NYU Washington, DC will host “Alternative Ulster” Acoustic Performance and Discussion” featuring a performance by guitarist. Henry Cluney. Henry Cluney grew up in Belfast and was a founding member of the Belfast punk band Stiff Little Fingers. The band, comprised of Catholics and Protestants, wrote about the situation in their country. Some of their songs include “Tin Soldiers”, “Suspect Device”, “Wasted Life” and “Alternative Ulster”. Henry will tell stories about his songs, living through the Troubles and, with his guitar, perform some of those songs. Joing Henry for a discussion after his performance is Niall Stanage, Associate Editor and White House Columnist for, The Hill. Henry will be available to sign autographs and chat after the show.

The third and final program co-hosted by NYU Washington, DC and the Irish Network DC will take place on 30 October and features an evening discussion and stories about life in Northern Ireland, the peace process and Brexit. Entitled Looking Ahead: Beyond the Toubles and Brexit, to Protecting the Peace, the event is a fitting conclusion to this dynamic program.

Guest speakers for the evening include Margery Myers, Widow of Robert P.Myers, Jr. (US Consul General Aug. 1986 – April 1989) and Aideen Gilmore, formerly with Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) in Belfast. The keynote speaker is the Irish Ambassador to the United States, Daniel Mulhall, who will talk about the role of the arts in Ireland, Peace Process and what Brexit may bring.

NYU London Professor’s Research on Using the Immune System as a Defence Against Cancer

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NYU London Professor Valerie Wells is a senior co-author of an internationally important scientific paper published in the British Journal of Cancer where she and her co-authors report that betaGBP, a naturally occurring molecule and a component of the immune system, can not only successfully target and kill cancer cells but can also encourage immunity against cancer resurgence. 

The work on beta-GBP began at King’s College London where, together with Professor Livio Mallucci, Professor Wells discovered the anti-oncogenic properties of beta-GBP. This discovery provides for a novel immunotherapeutic approach based on one natural molecule that combines the properties of a tumour suppressor and an activator of procedures necessary for the long term protection against cancer recurrences. It is an integral part of a natural cancer surveillance process transposed to therapeutic use, a strategy that could secure long term protection by instating a state of cancer specific immunosurveillance. 

As a natural component of the anti-cancer immune network, unlike pharmacological inducers which carry associated toxicity and uncertainty, beta-GBP has no harmful properties; it is a physiological molecule and as such already suitable, ideally, for clinical trials.

Translation of beta-GBP to the clinic could open a new therapeutic opportunity to safely combine direct killing of cancer cells and the activation of the immune system to prevent recurrences, and would represent a major step forward in the management of cancer. 

In addition to her cutting-edge research, Professor Wells has “an interest in student education and the opportunity for science students to study abroad as part of their undergraduate learning, and an interest in American academic life”.  She has been teaching Principles of Biology I and II at NYU London since 2002. Professor Wells finds teaching at NYU London rewarding. “The combination of research and teaching is most both enjoyable and valuable; the commitment of NYU students to their studies, their ideas and their discussion together with their interest in relating their studies to the wider context gives the teaching an interesting and stimulating atmosphere. Also the integration of some aspects of the research into the teaching can give students some awareness of current developments in some fields and an insight into a career in research. It is also enjoyable to hear how students have progressed when they make contact with news of their successes later their careers.”

We applaud her discovery and this publication and look forward to learning about what will come next for Professor Wells and the rich contribution she makes to the NYU London academic community. You can read the paper here. 

A Half Century in Paris: A Look into the Past and a Glimpse of the Future

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NYU Paris 50th Anniversary announcement.

To celebrate its 50th anniversary last month, NYU Paris held a day of commemorative events designed both to provide a view into the past, and to ponder the site’s future, including the potential for new academic opportunities and collaborations. The event brought together key figures involved with different phases of the site’s growth, current and past faculty, students, and staff as well as colleagues from American universities with programs in France,  including the American University in Paris, the University of Chicago, Brown University, and Columbia University. 

Linda Mills, Vice Chancellor and Senior Vice Provost for Global Programs and University Life, kicked off the day by acknowledging the site’s history, and linking the past to the present. “As the second oldest site in NYU’s global network, NYU Paris has been a defining feature of our global identity and has become a key element of what makes NYU the leading global institution it is today,” said Mills. “NYU Paris is a beautiful expression of what the world needs – one that is inextricably tied to its environment, steeped in its host city’s culture and context, offering unparalleled academic and scholarly experiences to a wide range of faculty and students.”

In attendance were several individuals who have played critical roles in the establishment and operation of NYU Paris over the past 50 years: Tom Bishop, professor of French Literature, Thought and Culture, and a driving force in the creation of NYU Paris; Judith Miller, professor of French Literature, who served as Director of the NYU Center in Paris from 1998 to 2003; Benoît Bolduc, also a professor of French Literature, and the Director of NYU Paris from 2015 – 2018; and the current site director, Alfred Galichon, professor of Economics and Mathematics

 
NYU Paris is a beautiful expression of what the world needs - one that is inextricably tied to its environment, steeped in its host city’s culture and context, offering unparalleled academic and scholarly experiences to a wide range of faculty and students Linda Mills

Recalling the early history of the site, talks during the opening panel focused on memories and reflections on the founding of NYU Paris in 1969, at a time when it was less common to cross an international border while pursuing a degree – and talk of establishing NYU’s global network was still some 40 years away.  Miller, Bolduc, and Galichon, traced the academic roots of the site in the study of French language and culture. 

NYU Paris opened its doors during a “glorious time for French studies, “ said Miller, “many post-war thinkers had not yet been translated to English,” so it was important to understand French. “Knowledge has since shifted from the philosophical terrain to a way of thinking that acknowledges global and digital interactions.” Reflecting this expansion, during her tenure as site director, NYU Paris opened its Anglophone program, “welcoming students who were not French majors but became French minors.”  On the experience of learning a new language and culture in situ, Miller explained, “you learn from a “different” world around you, and have to figure out how to live with it.” 

The panelists emphasized the importance of shaping the minds of global citizens engaging in the local terrain. “We’re sending students to Paris, not the moon,” said Bolduc  “and we need to ensure our academic programming reflects the unique nature of that experience.” Shedding light on current academic and cultural initiatives, Galichon detailed “the expanding academic opportunities at the site, including course offerings that have resulted in new populations of students being drawn to the study of the French language. A good example is computer science students who have traditionally been less likely to even take a course in France. As a result of earning credits for their major in Paris, some computer science students have found that their immersive experiences in France have sparked new interests, with some choosing to complete minors in French. And the number of these types of students is increasing.” 

 

In a panel later in the day,The Next 50 Years of NYU Paris: What’s Next?, Sana Odeh, Clinical Professor of Computer Science, explained that “Paris’ position as a hub for mathematical and scientific inquiry, combined with the flourishing entrepreneurial culture draws global talent and has created a range of opportunities. Studying in a world capital with an inspiring environment, and taking [Computer Science] special topics and high-level courses makes NYU Paris a wonderful location for computer science students.” 

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Chandrika-Tandon
NYU Trustee and President’s Global Council Chair Chandrika Tandon performs at the celebration.

Galichon also highlighted upcoming initiatives in store for NYU Paris. “In collaboration with colleagues in the French department, and following the masterclass format developed for doctoral students, a new set of masterclasses are on the horizon,” he said, accompanied by panelists who included Phillip Usher, Associate Professor and Department Chair, French Literature, Thought and Culture, François Noudelmann, Professor of French Literature and Director of the Center for French Language and Cultures, and Linda Mills. “French faculty from New York will come once per year,” said Usher, “to deliver short-term intensive courses related to their research. The topics will rotate each semester and the first course will cover cinema, myth, and politics. Increasing engagement with the broader community, enrollment will be opened up to local PhD students from French universities.” 

In conjunction with the celebration, photos that are only rarely viewed outside of the archives were on full display, including those documenting the student experience, staff over the years, and trips taken by the NYU Paris community. The exhibit also included shots of NYU Paris literary events and avant garde activities featuring Eugène Ionesco, and other well known French writers and politicians.The exhibition also included student works, including student-shot videos captured on iPhones in an experimental film class.

The day ended with a cocktail reception at Hotel des Arts et Métiers, which included guests such as NYU President Andrew Hamilton, Gene Jarrett, Dean of the College of Arts and Science, Jeffrey Lehman, Vice Chancellor, NYU Shanghai, Antonio Merlo, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science, and NYU Trustee and President’s Global Council Chair Chandrika Tandon.