Event Archive: 2018-2019

Ruthless, Militant, Round: On Melville and the Aesthetics of Radical Democracy with Jennifer Greiman, Associate Professor of English at Wake Forest University

Wednesday, February 6th, 2019
Devlin 101
4:30pm-6:00pm

Hosted by the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy, with support from the English Department

Jennifer Greiman is Associate Professor of English at Wake Forest University; she is the author of Democracy’s Spectacle: Sovereignty and Public Life in Antebellum American Writing (Fordham University Press, 2010) and the co-editor, with Paul Stasi, of The Last Western: Deadwood and the End of American Empire (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013).  She is also the co-editor, with Kir Kuiken, of a special issue of the journal Postmodern Culture on the work of Etienne Balibar, “The Citizen Subject Revisited” (2013).  Selections from her current book project, Melville’s Ruthless Democracy, have appeared in The New Cambridge Companion to Herman Melville, J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-century Americanists, and Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies.

Clough Distinguished Lecture in Jurisprudence: Professor Alexander Somek (University of Vienna)

Monday, February 11th, 2019
Barat House
5:00pm

Alexander Somek is Professur für Rechtsphilosophie und Methodenlehre der Rechtswissenschaften (Professor of Philosophy and Methodology of Law) at the University of Vienna and a a Global Affiliated Professor of Law at Iowa.  From 2003 to 2015, he was a tenured member of the Iowa Law faculty, holding the Charles E. Floete Chair in Law. 

Professor Somek is a prolific scholar in the fields of jurisprudence, EU law, comparative constitutional law, and public international law.  He has been a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin), a LAPA fellow and visiting professor at Princeton University, and a visiting professor at the London School of Economics.

For more information about Professor Somek, click here.

Climate change: Science, Impacts, and Solutions: Dr. Phillip Duffy (Woods Hole Research Center)

Tuesday, February 19th, 2019
5:30 p.m. | Higgins 310

Dr. Duffy is a physicist who has devoted his career to the use of science in addressing climate change. He frequently speaks on climate issues to public and specialized audiences, including philanthropic funders and professional investors. He also frequently engages policymakers, including delegates at the United Nations climate conferences, and the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology where he testified in 2018. Dr. Duffy is frequently quoted by outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, Science, the Boston Globe, NPR, CNN, and MSNBC. He has served on committees of the National Academy of Sciences and has advised state and local policymakers. Dr Duffy is particularly interested in working with diverse groups to address climate change, and has formed a coalition with Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, the Archbishop of Boston, to organize faith leaders and scientists dedicated to addressing climate change.

Prior to joining WHRC, Dr. Duffy served as a Senior Advisor in the White House National Science and Technology Council, and as a Senior Policy Analyst in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. In these roles he was involved in international climate negotiations, domestic and international climate policy, and coordination of US global change research. Before joining the White House, Dr. Duffy was Chief Scientist for Climate Central, an organization dedicated to increasing public understanding and awareness of climate change. Dr. Duffy has held senior research positions with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and visiting positions at the Carnegie Institution for Science and the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. He has a bachelor’s degree from Harvard and a Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford.

Consent, Coercion and Democracy:
Trade & Foreign Relations in the Trump Era

Thursday, March 14th, 2019
4:30 PM
Barat House, Boston College Law School

Frank J. Garcia joined the BC Law faculty in 2001. He had been an associate professor at the Florida State University College of Law since 1993. He has served as a Visiting Professor at a number of schools around the world including the University of Paris, the University of New South Wales in Sydney, the University of the Republic in Uruguay, the University of Houston Law Center, and as the Katherine A. Ryan Distinguished Visiting Professor at the St. Mary's University School of Law/University of Innsbruck, Austria.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen Lecture

Tuesday, March 19th, 2019
Clough Colloquium, Winston Center
4:00pm in Robsham Theater

Doors will open at 3:30 PM. Seating is based on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen has been at the center of European and global politics for three decades as Secretary General of NATO, Prime Minister of Denmark, Danish Minister of Economic Affairs, and a leading Danish parliamentarian.

Rasmussen has advocated for stronger ties between the world’s democracies, including a truly “Integrated Transatlantic Community,” a Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement between the EU and North America, and a global community of democracies.

He is the founder of Rasmussen Global which advises clients on a wide range of issues such as international security, transatlantic relations, the European Union, and emerging markets. In his latest book, The Will To Lead: America’s Indispensable Role in the Global Fight for Freedom (September, 2016), Rasmussen argues that western democracies with the steadfast leadership of the United States must stand up to authoritarianism around the world.

Constitutional Rights of Corporations Conference

Thursday, March 21st, 2019
1:00pm - 6:00pm
Barat House, Boston College Law School Campus

The Rise of Illiberal Member States within the EU, and How to Cope with Them?

Monday, March 25th, 2019
12:00 pm (Lunch will be served)
10 Stone Ave. Room 201
Boston College

Speaker:  Gábor Halmai (European University Institute, Florence) 

Appointed in September 2016 as Professor and Chair of Comparative Constitutional Law, and in January 2018 as Director of Graduate Studies at the Law Department. His primary research interests are comparative constitutional law and international human rights. He has published several books and articles, as well as edited volumes on these topics in English, German and Hungarian. He joined EUI in 2016 after a teaching and research career (at the Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, Princeton University in the USA, the European Masters Program in Human Rights and Democratization in Italy) as well as years of professional career as chief advisor to the President of the Hungarian Constitutional Court, member of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency’s Management Board and numerous other civic activities.

Human Rights in Aid of Development in Jinxed Africa

Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Barat House, Boston College Law School 

Speaker: Raymond Atuguba (University of Ghana)

Raymond Akongburo ATUGUBA is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Ghana School of Law, where he has taught since 2002. After his first law degree from the University of Ghana (1997) and his call to the Ghana Bar (1999), he received both his Master of Laws (LL.M) and Doctor of Juridical Sciences (SJD) Degrees from Harvard Law School in 2000 and 2004. He has been a Visiting Scholar and Visiting Professor at University of Nottingham in the UK, Harvard in the USA, Ku Leuven University in Belgium, Université Sciences Po in France, and Monash University, Australia.

Prof. Atuguba has researched and published extensively, mostly in relation to the intersection of law, human rights, policy, governance, the politics and economics of development, institutions and institutional change. He has written over 100 monographs, articles, book chapters, research reports and technical papers on issues of Public Policy, Constitutionalism, Human Rights, Law and Development, and Institutional Renewal in Africa. He has also presented over 200 papers on these subjects at national and international conferences in all continents of the world, including expert papers to the leadership of Parliament and to Parliamentary Committees in Africa, and facilitated dozens of training workshops.

Citizenship and Residency in the Age of Technology

Monday, April 1st, 2019
12:00 pm | East Wing 100 at the BC Law School
Lunch will be served

Speaker: Dimitry Kochenov

The Clough Center, the Internet Law Society, and the International Law Society are proud to welcome Professor Dimitry Kochenov of the University of Groningen back to Boston College Law School for a discussion on how technology is reshaping our conversations around citizenship and residency. As one of the world’s foremost experts on European and citizenship law, Professor Kochenov is uniquely qualified to lead an in-depth conversation on their evolving definitions and how different concepts are expanding around the globe. Lunch  will be served. We hope to see you there!

Professor Dimitry Kochenov of the University of Groningen is an expert in citizenship, nationality and immigration law and constitutional law of the European Union with a particular emphasis on the Rule of Law and other key principles of EU law, EU external relations law, and EU Law of the Overseas: the former colonial possessions and their upgraded ties with the European Union. 

Co-sponsored with Internet Law Society and the International Law Society

The Free Formation of Political Will

Judge Klemen Jaklič
Constitutional Court of Slovenia

Tuesday April 9, 2019 | 3:00-5:00 pm
Open only to current BC law faculty, students, staff and fellows.

Democracies in Peril

Friday, April 12-Saturday, April 13, 2019
Boston College Conference Center
2101 Commonwealth Avenue
Brighton Campus