What’s at Stake in Ukraine?

February 11, 2022

The NYU Remarque Institute and the NYU Brademas Center co-sponsored this afternoon's webinar conversation, "What's at Stake in Ukraine?" How can individuals understand the crisis in Eastern Europe, where the high-stakes standoff between Russia and the US has gone on for a decade yet is suddenly bursting with new urgency? What is at stake in the threat of an invasion? What will it mean for Europe as a whole?

In this panel, five scholars and public intellectuals of Ukraine, Russia, Central Asia, and Europe discussed the theme from different perspectives, some geopolitical, others granular. These panelists included Masha Gessen, The New Yorker, Volodymyr Ishchenko, Free University of Berlin, Sophie Lambroschini, Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin, Adam Tooze, Columbia University, and Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, New York University. The conversation will be moderated by Stefanos Geroulanos, New York University.

The plan was to set the discussion of the biggest crisis to engulf the region in a decade on a new plane.

This webinar was open to everyone. Registration was required in order to receive the log-in details. Please note that this program was recorded.

Zvi Ben-Dor Benite

Masha Gessen

Stefanos Geroulanos

Volodymyr Ishchenko

Sophie Lambroschini

Adam Tooze

Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, New York University

Zvi Ben-Dor Benite is Professor in the Department of History and the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. He teaches courses on Euraasian history during and after the Mongol period and on Judaism and Islam. He is the author of The Ten Lost Tribes: A World History (2009) and The Dao of Muhammad: A Cultural History of Muslims in Late Imperial China (2005), and the co-editor of The Scaffolding of Sovereignty (2017) and Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: Writings on Identity, Politics, and Culture 1893-1958 (2013).

Masha Gessen, The New Yorker

Masha Gessen is the author of twelve books, including most recently Surviving Autocracy, the National Book Award–winning The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia and The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. A staff writer at The New Yorker and the recipient of numerous awards, including Guggenheim and Carnegie fellowships, Gessen lives in New York City.

Stefanos Geroulanos, New York University

Stefanos Geroulanos is Professor of European History at New York University and Executive Director of the Remarque Institute. He usually writes about concepts that weave together modern understandings of the human, time, and the body. He is working on a book on the history of conceptions of human origins since 1770 (under contract with Liveright), and a short book on Napoleon and the institution of the Civil Code in France. He is the author or co-author of 4 books: Transparency in Postwar France: A Critical History of the Present (2017), The Human Body in the Age of Catastrophe (with Todd Meyers, 2018), Experimente im Individuum (with Todd Meyers, 2014), and An Atheism that is not Humanist Emerges in French Thought (2010).

Volodymyr Ishchenko, Free University of Berlin

Volodymyr Ishchenko is a research associate at the Institute of East European Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. His research focused on protests and social movements, revolutions, radical right and left politics, nationalism and civil society. His work has appeared in Post-Soviet Affairs, Globalizations and New Left Review, among other journals. He is a contributor to major international media outlets such as The Guardian and Jacobin.

Sophie Lambroschini, Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin

Sophie Lambroschini is an associate researcher at the Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin, where she investigates cross-front-line economic interactions and networks in the Donbas. She holds a Ph.D. in Slavic studies and is the author of Les Ukrainiens: Lignes de vie d’un peuple (Ateliers Henry Dougier, 2014/2016).

Adam Tooze, Columbia University

Adam J. Tooze is a British historian who is a Professor at Columbia University and Director of the European Institute. Previously, he was Reader in Twentieth-Century History at the University of Cambridge and Gurnee Hart Fellow in History at Jesus College, Cambridge.