FAIRNESS: ITS ROLE IN OUR LIVES

Equality, justice, and social change all have their roots in our perceptions of fairness. What drives these perceptions? At the Social Research conference, renowned experts examined issues of fairness in current events and throughout history. Keynote speaker: John Edwards, 2004 Vice Presidential candidate and former U.S. Senator from North Carolina.

The proceedings of this conference are available in Social Research Volume 73, Number 2 (Summer 2006).

THEIR AMERICA: THE UNITED STATES IN THE EYES OF THE REST OF THE WORLD

Since 9/11, there has been a sharp increase in anti-American feelings worldwide. At the same time, there continues to be, in many places around the globe, a dynamic tension between responses to the United States' aggressive military interventions and, for lack of a better shorthand term, what American culture has to offer. Given the increasing tendency of the United States to act unilaterally on the world stage, it is crucial that we understand how the rest of the world views us, our administration, and our actions, so that we may comprehend why our actions succeed or fail, and how best to formulate future plans. Our intention at this conference was to foster discussion between speakers from across the globe, and between speakers and audience, on how the United States is and has been viewed in various countries over approximately the past 75 years. To that end, we invited speakers from the Balkans, China, France, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Mexico, Pakistan, Palestine, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.

The proceedings of this conference are available in Social Research Volume 72, Number 4 (Winter 2005).

Keynote address by
Vice President Al Gore:
[Transcript]    [Webcast]

FEAR: ITS POLITICAL USES AND ABUSES

Since September 11, 2001, fear has been woven into the fabric of daily life in the United States. Our vulnerability and the fear it engendered has become the justification for so much that our government has done since in the name of protecting us: two wars and the "slashing away"of our constitutional protections, all in the name of fighting terrorism. The media thrives on this fear, and even exacerbates it. This conference placed our current heightened state of collective fear in cultural and historical perspective, examining the psychological roots of fear and its manipulation by those who hold or seek power. Speakers explore the complexities and consequences of fear from a variety of disciplines and perspectives, including Vice President Al Gore's keynote address and papers by Joe Ledoux, Steve Heller, John Hollander, Corey Robin, Cass Sunstein, Aryeh Neier, Andrew Arato, Eric Alterman, Jacek Debeic, Barry Glassner, Stanley Hoffnan, Leonie Huddy, E. Valentine Daniel, George Kateb, Kenneth Prewitt, Tom Pyszczynski, and Aristide Zolberg.

The proceedings of this conference are available in Social Research Volume 71, Number 4 (Winter 2004).

ISLAM: THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SPHERES
(Part III in Privacy Series)

This conference brought together 22 speakers over three days to explore the spectrum of Islamic societies worldwide and their varying understandings those societies have of the boundary between private and public. The boundary between public and private is a contested issue in any society, no less so in the Islamic world. Now more than ever, it is critical that we move beyond stereotypes toward a more nuanced understanding of Islam. The conference took a familiar issue, that of privacy, to illuminate how Islamic societies resemble and differ from each other, as well as from our own. The keynote address was delivered by Iranian dissident theologian Mohsen Kadivar. Speakers included Roy Mottahedeh, Mehrangiz Kar, Orhan Pamuk, Nilufer Gole, Baber Johansen, Azar Nafisi, and others.

The proceedings of this conference are available in Social Research Volume 70, Number 3 (Fall 2003).

INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE, WAR CRIMES, AND TERRORISM: THE U.S. RECORD

Dedicated to advancing the possibility of global justice and the protection of human rights, this conference addressed events in New York, Vietnam, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, and other locations, discussing how the national and international community, including the United States, responded to the devastating events in their own and other countries, through legal, political, military, and other means. It examined the U.S. response to war crimes and acts of terrorism, the training of its military, and its role in the evolution of new forms of international criminal jurisdiction. Former Senator Bob Kerrey delivered the keynote address on terrorism. Speakers included Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Justice Richard Goldstone, Justice Patricia Wald, Justice Theodor Meron, Michael Ignatieff., Michael Walzer, and many distinguished others.

The proceedings of this conference are available in Social Research Volume 69, Number 4 (Winter 2002).

PRIVACY: Part II, POST-COMMUNIST EUROPE

Eastern Europe emerges from a communist past where everything was officially "public," privacy was unprotected, and the public sphere was etatized. The highly problematic public/private dichotomy of post-modernity is particularly complicated under conditions of post-communism. Distortions of the public sphere (lack of transparency, skewed or monopolized public discourse, etc.) are aggravated by attempts at penetrating into privacy in the name of public community values (e.g. in the case of abortion). Transparency is denied in the name of privacy ("personality rights" of former secret police informants prevail in some countries against public interest and the rights of victims). Further, in part because of historical traditions, in many East European societies there is no genuine sense of privacy.

These features are not systematically discussed in Eastern Europe. The Social Research Privacy conference at Central European University on March 23-24, 2001, helped to clarify certain crucial policy relevant issues, for example, civic education toward the development of a more responsive citizenry; data protection and access to information; the limits and responsibilities of journalism; reproductive policies. More broadly, the conference offered a valuable point of reference and helped to put the East European issues into a global context, in terms of both prevailing influences and intellectual context.

The proceedings of this conference are available in Social Research Volume 69, Number 1 (Spring 2002).

ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Drugs, meditation, hypnosis, ecstasy, dreaming, hallucination, mass hysteria: there are countless ways of achieving altered states of consciousness. What distinguishes those that are valued from those that are deemed dangerous and consequently feared? How do rules and attitudes toward mind-altering activities change through history and across cultures? This conference attempted to place the current debate about mind-altering substances and the "war on drugs" in their proper historical and cultural frameworks. We examined religious, psychiatric, recreational, and inspirational practices of altering consciousness, looking back at the historical roots of our current views and policies, and forward to more rational, less harmful solutions to what some perceive a a national epidemic.

The proceedings of this conference are available in Social Research Volume 68, Number 3 (Fall 2001).