2024-25 Year in Review of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies
TURNING HEARTS AND MINDS TO EUROPE
Editor
Keith Sayer
Assistant Editors
Will Beattie
Jacob Kildoo
Cecelia Swartz
Designer
Kristina Craig / Kreative Koncepts
Graphic Design
Cover Art and Portraits
Anastassia Cassady (instagram.com/cassadytess)
Contributors
Will Beattie
Erin Blasko
Lizbeth Cordova Lopez
Taras Dobko
William Ek
Chaney Fix
Jacob Kildoo
Rory Finnin
Antônio Lemos
Ewa Rejman
Salvatore Riolo
Keith Sayer
Bennett Schmitt
Clemens Sedmak
Westin Smith
Cecelia Swartz
Massimo Vittorio
This Year in Review is dedicated, in loving and grateful memory, to Elizabeth E. Nanovic (1934-2025).
With Gratitude
During the second half of our spring semester 2025, the Nanovic Institute’s entrance displayed a photo of Elizabeth “Liz” Nanovic with the heading: “The Nanovic Institute celebrates the life of Elizabeth E. Nanovic, Founding Benefactor and Advisory Board Member.”
We celebrate the life of our beloved Liz Nanovic, who passed away on March 30, 2025, with sadness and with gratitude. There is the sadness that we will never again be able to welcome her to the institute, that she will never again be with us to greet Nanovic Forum speakers, Keeley Vatican lecturers, or Laura Shannon Book Prize winners, or that we will never again have the excitement of anticipating one of her visits with her husband, Bob, on campus. This grief is real, and it is a sign of having lost a person we love.
This sadness is painful, as it should be. It is also linked with gratitude in a profound way.
We are grateful for Liz’s life and the many ways her life has touched all of us here at the Nanovic Institute. I have encountered Liz in several contexts: here on campus, in the Nanovics’ apartment in South Bend, in Naples, Florida, and, on several occasions, in Bob and Liz Nanovic’s home in Portland, Maine. In each of these encounters, Liz was a generous host, together with her husband Bob. She always showed a profound interest in the experiences of our students, and she encouraged me in my role, helping me with self-doubts and questions.
A special moment for me was last year’s visit in Maine, when Liz showed my wife and me the photo album of the memorable trip on the Danube that inspired the idea of the Nanovic Institute (somewhere between Vienna and Bratislava).
We are deeply grateful for Liz Nanovic and the gift of her life. The Austrian Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast, a master teacher on gratefulness, likens gratitude to an overflowing: gratitude makes the heart overflow.
This is a beautiful metaphor for Liz herself. She had a big heart, her generosity was overflowing, and we will forever remember her unwavering kindness and love for students.
This year, we also mourn the passing of Sean M. Reilly, an advisory board member who, too, supported many students over the past decade to help deepen their connections with Europe. These two losses remind us that we have much to remember and much to be grateful for.
The Year in Review is a publication marked by gratitude and by hope—by the hope that the seeds we sow will bear fruit and by the gratitude for so many inspiring people, enriching encounters, and touching experiences of learning and growth.
We are grateful for all the support we have received. A special word of gratitude to the new dean of the Keough School of Global Affairs, Mary Gallagher, who has been supporting our institute in many meaningful ways.
Please allow me to express my gratitude to the entire Nanovic Institute community with all best wishes for good memories of 2024-25 and wonderful experiences in the years to come.
Clemens Sedmak Director, Nanovic Institute for European Studies Professor of Social Ethics
Keough
School of Global Affairs
Contents
Foster Elevate Collaborate
Through curricular offerings, events, networking, research, and service opportunities, the institute explores a pedagogical vision animating the undergraduate student learning experience with “bridge-building.” By closely studying Europe, its languages, cultures, societies, politics, and histories, students build meaningful social and intellectual bridges to the continent, thereby fostering academic growth, intellectual creativity, and personal development.
Page 4
As an academic unit of a research university, the Nanovic Institute actively enhances its visibility and profile as a research and teaching institute and develops research projects in collaboration with individuals and institutional partners. Such collaborative, interdisciplinary, and international research projects are designed to attract external funding and contribute to the landscape of European studies.
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Through its visiting scholar programs, the Catholic Universities Partnership, and the networks of its faculty fellows, the Nanovic Institute has built an international base of collaborators, building bridges that bring Europe to Notre Dame and Notre Dame to Europe. Back on campus, the institute intentionally invests in collaborative relationships across campus with the many units that make up the University of Notre Dame.
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This Year in Review is arranged into thematic sections representing the four key areas of the Nanovic Institute’s 2021-26 Strategic Plan, with a center feature on the Ukrainian Studies Conference.
The four thematic areas are:
Converse
The Nanovic Institute
its tradition of
and intellectual discourse by fostering a vibrant, diverse, and inclusive intellectual community constituted by its faculty fellows, graduate student fellows, undergraduate students, and visiting scholars. The institute offers formats and fora to facilitate debate and exchange and to foster the creation of intellectual community.
Elevate
Converse
‘Faith, patience, and dedication’ foster restorative justice: From Norway
By Lizbeth Cordova Lopez ’26
to the United States
uring the summer of 2023, I had the opportunity to work with Accompanying Returning Citizens with Hope, a remarkable reentry program in Columbus, Ohio. That summer experience, part of the Institute for Social Concerns’s NDBridge program, sparked big questions:
• Which places and organizations focus on restorative justice processes?
• Are there programs where previously incarcerated individuals can reconcile with those they’ve hurt?
• If so, where and how are these programs used best?
In the next academic year, I took a course titled Mass Incarceration Research Lab, where I crafted a research paper on mental health programs in the United States and Norway. I discovered Norway had an approach to incarceration that focused on rehabilitation and reintegration. They used small, community-based correctional facilities to promote acceptance and success upon reentry. This approach reduced recidivism rates and improved the well-being of incarcerated individuals.
This research struck me to the core, but Europe, especially Norway, was unfamiliar to me. Then, I learned about the Nanovic Institute and found an internship in Oslo, Norway during my sophomore year.
In Oslo, I interned with the Stiftelsen Breakthrough Foundation, a nonprofit focused on the aftercare of incarcerated individuals. The foundation tailors programs helping inmates rewrite their narratives to boost their identity and confidence.
During my time in Norway, I had many responsibilities, and I learned that working for a nonprofit requires a lot of faith, patience, and dedication. Even after finishing tasks, there was always potential to contribute more. Every day differed. I worked on website design and survey analysis, and I learned how to interview someone.
Organizing the Restorative Justice Cafe allowed me to deeply understand the struggles of being formerly incarcerated and the progress
still yet to be made around restorative justice practices and programs in prisons. Joy, compassion, and healing filled this environment. It was a space for creativity and community engagement through singing, bracelet-making, and crafting. I thoroughly enjoyed singing along to “You’ve Got a Friend” by Carole King and getting to know each person’s unique story.
This summer service internship wholly challenged and changed me. It offered a transformative perspective on restorative justice processes and the need for communication and community. I am filled with immense hope and the affirmation that establishing a nonprofit and working in this community is what I am meant to pursue.
Lizbeth Cordova Lopez ’26 is a psychology major with minors in education, schooling, and society and poverty studies. She is also an AnBryce Scholar. During the summer of 2024, she traveled to Oslo, Norway, with support from the Nanovic Institute and the Transformational Leadership Program.
“This summer service internship [ in Norway ] wholly challenged and changed me.”
Lopez on the way to an interview in Oslo, Norway, with previously incarcerated clients to discuss the reconciliation course.
European Connections and Ice Cream Selections
The sunny afternoon of August 26, 2024, could not have been a better scene for the Nanovic Institute’s opening student event of the academic year, European Connections and Ice Cream Selections. Cool treats were most welcome on this hot August afternoon just before classes started. Students came to learn more about European studies at Notre Dame and make connections with the institute and one another.
ABOVE: Roy Kimmey, program manager, student research and academic affairs, speaks with students about opportunities through the Nanovic Institute.
RIGHT: Students challenge themselves to fill in the names of as many countries on a blank map of Europe as they can.
EuroCup
On Thursday, November 14, 2024, the EuroCup Team Trivia competition returned. By polling student teams’ knowledge of European sports, culture, geography, and history and including a special round on knowledge about Ukraine and Slovakia, a winning residence hall team was declared: Duncan Hall, the home of our own Father Jim Lies!
Have you been eagerly waiting since the previous Year in Review for the next trivia question? Here it is. Test your knowledge:
TRIVIA QUESTION
The Danube River flows through how many European capital cities?
Check for the answers at the bottom of page 44.
Undergraduate Research Conference in European Studies
On March 28, 2025, the Nanovic Institute held its second annual Undergraduate Research Conference in European Studies. This event was an opportunity for students to present their research on Europe to their peers, faculty, and other members of the community and to hone presentation skills. Across four panels, 20 students presented on topics as diverse as Ireland’s contemporary housing crisis, the philosopher John Locke’s writing on tolerance, and refugee assistance in Athens.
Each panel and its accompanying Q&A session were moderated by a faculty member or graduate student, providing the undergraduate presenters with a full academic conference experience. The institute provided breakfast and lunch for all participants, affording them the opportunity to mingle and discuss their research in greater detail with attendant faculty. Roy Kimmey, program manager of student research and academic affairs, gave closing remarks.
In 2024-25, the Nanovic Institute staff led two undergraduate research projects related to sustainability: “Agrivoltaics,” led by Morgan Munsen, senior research and partnerships program manager (see page 26), and “Unveiling the Climate Apocalypse,” led by Will Beattie, postdoctoral research associate (see page 58). The student teams involved in these projects also presented their work at the conference. The agrivoltaics team shared their research on the approaches taken by different European countries to implement dualuse solar energy and agricultural production on farmland, and presented strategies that could be applied in Indiana. The climate apocalypse team presented on different artists’ and writers’ treatment of contemporary climate crises and their lessons for us.
The institute awarded prizes for the best papers:
• Clodagh McEvoy-Johnston received a gold award for her paper and presentation, “Simple Terms: Understanding Disparate Narratives Surrounding Amnesty in PostConflict Northern Ireland.”
• Bennett Schmitt received the silver award for his paper and policy recommendations on agrivoltaics implementation in the Netherlands and Indiana as part of the Agrivoltaics student research project.
• Dani Fielding received an honorable mention for presenting her papers on “’Ice Watch’: A Staged Failure of Integration” and “’Weird’ Representations of the Apocalypse.”
• Jane Palmer also received an honorable mention for presenting her papers on “Canvas of Concern: Confronting Ireland’s Housing Crisis” and “Eco-paralysis to Agency: Rewriting the Climate Apocalypse.”
TOP: Students from the “Unveiling the Climate Apocalypse” project pictured with moderator Justin Barfield, associate professor of the practice, studio art.
BOTTOM LEFT: Bennett Schmitt ’25 presents his findings as part of the agrivoltaics policy project (see page 26).
BOTTOM RIGHT: Student presenters (left to right): Bryan Fok ’25, Jun Wei Lee ’26, Raleigh Kuipers ’25, and Clodagh McEvoy-Johnston ’25.
Current Affairs Cafe
In an effort to foster dialogue among undergraduate students from various disciplines in an informal setting, the Nanovic Institute launched a pilot project in the spring 2025 semester called Current Affairs Café. Two sessions were held, each with a sustainability-themed conversation starter. The first was about the ethics of international travel, introduced by Clemens Sedmak, professor of social ethics and director of the Nanovic Institute, and the second welcomed Elsa Barron, Ph.D. student in peace studies and political science, to begin a discussion on climate reparations. These events sparked great conversations among students over coffee, tea, and biscuits.
Notre Dame Day Funds for Immersive Education
The Nanovic Institute again participated in the 2025 Notre Dame Day event on April 29–30, 2025. This year, the funds raised were dedicated toward the expansion of the institute’s immersive experiences for students, including its diplomacy program (the Diplomacy Fellows and Diplomat in Residence initiatives, as examples), Serving (in) Europe, and other hands-on educational opportunities.
Thanks to the generosity of our community, the institute raised more than $10,000 to support these experiential learning programs. In addition, for the fifth consecutive year, the Nanovic Institute secured the prize for the Institutes and Centers Challenge Hour, resulting in an additional donation of $500 to the cause.
Students participating in the 2025 Diplomacy Fellows program at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, during the spring break immersion trip.
Graduation Breakfast
The Class of 2025 was filled with incredible students poised to be a “force for good” in the world. The Nanovic Institute honored many of these students during a graduation breakfast ceremony on May 16, 2025. During this event, the institute celebrated these graduates’ accomplishments with their families and awarded several prestigious student prizes:
• The Elizabeth E. Nanovic Award for Exceptional Student Engagement was awarded to Bryan Fok, a global affairs and history major with a minor in Italian, and Marko Gural, who majored in political science and history with a minor in European studies. These distinctions, named in honor of Nanovic Institute founding benefactor Elizabeth E. Nanovic (1934-2025), recognize students who have participated widely and with excellence across a range of Nanovic Institute programs.
• The R. Stephen and Ruth Barrett Family Prize was awarded to Raleigh Kuipers, a double major in global affairs and Spanish with minors in civil and human rights and
The minor in European studies graduated the following students in 2025:
Robert Batistich
Majors in Finance and Economics with a minor in European Studies
Libby Eggemeier
Major in History with minors in the Glynn Family Honors Program and European Studies
Demetrios Fotopoulos*
Majors in Psychology and Greek and Roman Civilization with minors in Constitutional Studies and European Studies
Mariella Frisina
Major in Finance with minors in Real Estate and European Studies
Marko Gural
Majors in Political Science and History with a minor in European Studies
Raleigh Kuipers
European studies. This competitive prize honors an undergraduate student who completed outstanding research relating to Europe in any discipline.
• The J. Robert Wegs European Studies Research Prize was awarded to Demetrios Fotopoulos, a double major in psychology and Greek and Roman civilization with minors in constitutional studies and European studies. This prize, named in honor of the Nanovic Institute’s founding director, J. Robert Wegs (1937-2010), recognizes the student who completed the best essay or research output in pursuit of the European studies minor.
Majors in Global Affairs and Spanish with minors in Civil and Human Rights and European Studies
Maggie Murphy
Major in Psychology with minors in Marketing, Business Economics, and European Studies
Manuella de Carvalho Rodrigues
Majors in Business Analytics and Economics with minors in Computing and Digital Technologies and European Studies
Nick Shannon
Major in International Economics with a concentration in German and a minor in European Studies
Jack Verrill
Major in Political Science with minors in Business Economics and European Studies
Zac Yoakam
Major in Finance with minors in Constitutional Studies and European Studies
In addition to these students, the institute also recognized several other students who have been integral parts of the institute’s life throughout their undergraduate career, from participating in opportunities like Diplomacy Fellows and Serving (in) Europe to working as student assistants in the Nanovic office:
Pedro Bolsonaro*
Majors in Finance and Economics
Bryan Fok*
Majors in Global Affairs and History with a minor in Italian
Lilyann Gardner
Major in Film, Television, and Theatre with minors in Anthropology, Journalism, and Ethics and Democracy
Elizabeth Maloney
Majors in Political Science and Peace Studies
Mark Metryoos
Major in Finance with a minor in History
Graduating students at the Nanovic Institute’s 2025 Graduation Breakfast posing with institute staff members (Photo by Peter Ringenberg / University of Notre Dame).
Bryan Fok Demetrios Fotopoulos
Marko Gural
Raleigh Kuipers
Notre Dame students continue legacy of learning and success at Midwest Model EU
By Will Beattie ’24 Ph.D.
What is the European Union? How does the EU make policies, add new members, or enforce laws? How does the EU “speak with one voice” on issues pertaining to the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis? These are the questions that undergraduates must grapple with when they enroll in the Nanovic Institute’s Midwest Model European Union course.
This one-credit course runs during the spring semester. Through it, students learn about the history of the European Union—its aims, achievements, and challenges—and the processes through which EU policy is proposed, debated, refined, and implemented. The course was co-taught this year by Anna Dolezal, a veteran of the Model European Union program, and postdoctoral researcher
Will Beattie.
The course culminated in the students participating as a team in the Midwest Model EU simulation at Indiana University Bloomington, where over 160 undergraduates from 19 universities met to determine the future of the European Union. They played the roles of ambassadors and politicians, debating policy decisions in simulated councils including the EU Commission, the Environment Council, the Economic and Financial Affairs Council, and the European Parliament. The skills gained during the course go far beyond the simulation. Participant Raleigh Kuipers recalls, “I used my knowledge of how to navigate Eurostat in a presentation for a Spain and EU economics class I took while studying abroad.”
This year, Notre Dame’s student team represented Italy. During the course, each student was assigned to an EU council and tasked with drafting a policy proposal that reflected Italy’s current political
priorities. During the simulation, the students engaged in lively discussions, arguing the merits and failings of other nations’ proposals while always seeking to promote “Italy’s” policies. It required, as participant Quinlen Schacle explains, “public speaking, leadership, teamwork, and communication skills.” On the second day, the simulation’s organizers introduced a surprise “spin” inspired by current real-world geopolitical developments, to which the participants had to respond.
At the end of the event, all participants voted for the representatives in their council who performed the best. Who most accurately represented their country? Who was an arch negotiator? Who was a careful listener? Who turned obstacles into opportunities? This year, four of Notre Dame’s team members were awarded prestigious top places: Martha Byrne took first place in the Economics Council, Quinlen Schachle took first place in the European Parliament, Raleigh Kuipers took third place in the Foreign Affairs Council, and Spencer Foote took third place in the Home & Justice Council. Natalie Kowalkowski also deserves special recognition as her environmental protections directive for endangered waterfowl was featured in the concluding remarks of the competition.
The results of each room’s votes were added together to determine the “Best Delegation” at the simulation. For the second year in a row, the Notre Dame team took home the prize. Graduating senior Demetrios Fotopoulos highly recommends the course to others: “Do it. This is a fun course and a great way to meet new people at Notre Dame in a friendly, open, and quirky environment.”
“This is a fun course and a great way to meet new people at Notre Dame in a friendly, open, and quirky environment.”
– Demetrios Fotopoulos ’25
During the 2025 Midwest Model EU, the Notre Dame team earned the Best Delegation award for the second consecutive year. To commemorate this accomplishment, this plaque is displayed in the Nanovic Institute.
Students participate in a Model EU session.
CLOCKWISE FROM THE TOP: The Notre Dame Midwest Model EU team poses together in front of the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies banner.
Memory, trauma, and politics in Poland: A fall break journey
By Will Ek ’27
Iwas grateful to be able to travel to Warsaw and Krakow, Poland, for fall break with a group of 12 students in a course on conducting research in Europe taught by Marc S. Jacob, assistant professor of democracy and global affairs at the Keough School of Global Affairs. Our trip was part of the EURO Fellows Program, an initiative through the Nanovic Institute for European Studies launched during the 2024-25 academic year.
Our trip began in Warsaw, Poland’s historically rich capital city. Here, we studied a city marked by three distinct eras of architecture, with each era being intimately tied to the memory of the Polish people.
The following day we visited the Jewish Historical Institute, where we heard from museum curators about the preservation of the limited artifacts that remain from the Warsaw Ghetto—the largest Nazi ghetto in Europe—and their efforts to tell the stories of Polish Jews and others persecuted by the Nazis.
Wosińska generously invited our group to her Warsaw apartment the next evening for dinner and a discussion. We had a conversation about her work as a trauma studies researcher, as well as the personal significance of the archaeological and geographic history of her home.
Our time in Warsaw concluded with a meeting with Piotr Rypson from Poland’s Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. We delved deeply into the complex process of recovering stolen art from the war and the politics surrounding money, influence, and governing boards of cultural institutions.
Read the full story at go.nd.edu/f459a6
Our conversation with Małgorzata Wosińska, a Holocaust and genocide studies researcher, was among the most striking experiences. She met our group in an area built directly on top of the remains of the Warsaw Ghetto.
Such close proximity is intentional, Wosińska explained to us. She spoke against the hiding of history or the physical distancing of oneself from it.
We then traveled to Krakow, where, on the first day following our arrival, our group visited the AuschwitzBirkenau Memorial and Museum. The first time visiting this site for most of the group was a solemn experience as we received a guided tour of Nazi Germany’s largest concentration camps. Following our time there, we met with an educator at the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation to discuss the historical legacy of the Holocaust in the nearby town of 34,000.
As I reflect on this intellectually and emotionally rich experience, I feel as if I have only scratched the surface on how I have come to understand the relationship between memory and current politics in Poland.
Students listen to Małgorzata Wosińska, a researcher in Holocaust and genocide studies, outside her Warsaw apartment. Here, the group stands around a glass viewing area that looks into the original structure of the Warsaw Ghetto, with an artifact on display within.
Will Ek ’27 is a Notre Dame undergraduate student majoring in global affairs and theology.
and
“I am grateful to the Nanovic Institute and the Keough School of Global Affairs for this opportunity .” – Will Ek, ’27
classmates
Specialists from the National Archives in Warsaw demonstrate document preservation methods to students on the EURO Fellows immersion trip.
Will Ek
Notre Dame
in front of the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, Poland.
Mark Gitenstein, US Ambassador to the European Union (2022-25), speaks with the Deep Dive into Diplomacy course during his stay as Nanovic Forum Diplomat in Residence.
Building careers in diplomacy with Nanovic Forum Diplomat in Residence
By Will Beattie ’24 Ph.D.
IWatch Ambassador Gitenstein’s Nanovic Forum lecture and read more at go.nd.edu/Gitenstein
n spring 2025, the Nanovic Institute welcomed its second Nanovic Forum Diplomat in Residence, Ambassador Mark Gitenstein. A distinguished lawyer and diplomat, Gitenstein served as US ambassador to Romania from 2009 to 2012 and US ambassador to the EU from 2022 to 2025. This enlightening and rewarding visit built upon the success of the inaugural Diplomat in Residence in 2023-24, Catherine Arnold OBE. Clemens Sedmak, professor of social ethics and director of the Nanovic Institute, said of the visit: “We were so impressed by how much our students learned from classroom and one-to-one conversations with Ambassador Arnold last year that we could not wait to welcome our next Nanovic Forum Diplomat in Residence.”
The Diplomat in Residence program provides students with a unique opportunity to learn from seasoned career diplomats who have years of
experience navigating the world of international diplomacy. Resident ambassadors enrich undergraduate education by sharing their insights, leading seminars on diplomacy, and connecting students with other professionals in the field. During his stay, Gitenstein delivered a lecture to the community, served as a guest instructor for Sedmak’s Deep Dive into Diplomacy course, and met individually with students to discuss their academic and professional goals.
On March 26, Gitenstein gave a lecture titled “The Future of Democracy in Europe” at the 2025 Nanovic Forum, co-sponsored by the Notre Dame Democracy Initiative. His reflections on transatlantic political challenges contributed to vital discussions at Notre Dame on the topic of democratic resilience. His close working relationship with the European Union gave him a unique perspective on its place on the world
stage and its response to growing tensions across Europe and beyond. For Gitenstein, the democratic systems the EU represents are vital for human flourishing: “Democracy is under stress, but it remains our most powerful tool for progress.”
Gitenstein also led several seminars on transatlantic and European diplomacy as a guest instructor for Sedmak’s undergraduate class. He shared his own career path with students, from his work as a lawyer to ambassadorial work with Romania and the EU. He reflected on how transatlantic diplomacy has evolved, with new players on the political stage. The ambassador also invited two colleagues to speak to undergraduates and share their own perspectives. Mike Carroll, founder and current president of Romanian Children’s Relief and Fundatia Inocenti, spoke of his experiences helping disadvantaged children in Romania for over thirty years. Mark Libby, the US Ambassador to Azerbaijan from
“We were so impressed by how much our students learned from classroom and one-to-one conversations with Ambassador Arnold last year that we could not wait to welcome our next Nanovic Forum Diplomat in Residence.”
2023 to 2025, laid out the pathway to becoming a US ambassador and the skills needed to succeed in the role. For Sedmak, the valuable insights of the ambassador and his colleagues “are more timely than ever for our diplomacy students and the campus community at large.”
In addition to his lectures and seminar work, Gitenstein met with students on a one-on-one basis to learn more about their interests in international diplomacy and to identify strategies that could help them achieve their academic and professional goals. As Sedmak noted, Gitenstein’s presence and perspective offered students a “very comprehensive picture of the international diplomatic landscape,” directly enriching the curricular and extracurricular life of the Keough School of Global Affairs.
ABOVE: Diplomacy Fellow students and trip leaders pose in front of the Service européen pour l’action extérieure (SEAE) in Brussels, Belgium, which is the diplomatic service of the European Union.
RIGHT: Matthew Scherber ’27 speaks with officials at the US Mission to the EU.
LEFT: Students in the Diplomacy Fellows program converse with officials from the US Mission to the European Union.
Reflecting on the Laura Shannon Prize and ongoing collaborations in Ukrainian studies
By Rory Finnin
n 2024, the Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies offered me something precious and even unexpected: a sense of community. Its greatest reward is a closer relationship with the students and scholars at Notre Dame’s Nanovic Institute for European Studies. In this sense, the annual Prize is not time-bound at all. It promises engagement and connection for an entire career.
What impressed me from beginning to end was the warmth, professionalism, and sense of purpose in every interaction with the Nanovic team. Europe is in a perilous moment in history, and studying the continent requires academic rigor and emotional sensitivity.
Ukraine is part of the reason why. For the Nanovic team, the concept of Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression has never been abstract. It is something they have witnessed in the work of their Ukrainian colleagues for many years.
When I arrived in South Bend to deliver the Laura Shannon Prize Lecture, Ukraine was at the center of my discussions with Notre Dame’s students and scholars. With graduate students, I spoke about my book Blood of Others: Stalin’s Crimean Atrocity and the Poetics of Solidarity (2022); with undergraduates, I discussed the interplay of culture and civil society in wartime Ukraine. To explore so many aspects of a university’s vibrant academic environment over an extended period is all too rare.
My visit culminated with the Laura Shannon Prize Lecture, whose title was an admonition: “We Need to Talk about Crimea.” I brought to the fore understudied examples of local resistance to Russian occupation, especially among the peninsula’s indigenous Sunni Muslim people, the Crimean Tatars. These acts of resistance often leverage ideas and messages encoded in texts of poetry and prose, reminding us of the abiding value of work in the humanities to our study of contemporary geopolitics. With its interdisciplinary and transnational outlook, the Laura Shannon Prize has never lost sight of this value. Like the Nanovic Institute as a whole, it is a catalyst for intellectual invention.
About the Prize
The Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies is awarded annually by a prize jury of distinguished scholars. It carries an award of $10,000 and the opportunity to present at the University of Notre Dame. It alternates each year between two broad disciplinary areas: humanities and social sciences/ history.
Now in its 16th year, the Laura Shannon Prize is made possible through a generous endowment from Laura Shannon (1939–2021) and her husband, Michael, Notre Dame class of ’58.
The 2025 prize in history and the social sciences has already been announced; Megan Brown, associate professor of history at Swarthmore College, has received this award for her book The Seventh Member State: Algeria, France, and the European Community (Harvard University Press, 2022). Her prize lecture is scheduled for Thursday, November 20, 2025.
Rory Finnin continued his partnership with the Nanovic Institute by participating as a keynote speaker and panel moderator at the Ukrainian Studies Conference “Revolutions of Hope: Resilience and Recovery in Ukraine,” March 6–8, 2025 (see pages 28-39). Finnin will also serve as a visiting professor with the institute during the 2025-26 academic year.
Rory Finnin receives the Laura Shannon Prize from Nanovic Institute Director Clemens Sedmak during his prize lecture on October 3, 2024 (Photo by Peter Ringenberg/ University of Notre Dame).
2025 Faculty Fellows Showcase
Faculty fellows of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies gathered on May 1, 2025, to celebrate their publications, achievements, and awards from the past year. 71 faculty members were honored during the event, and six spoke about their work: A. James McAdams, Johannes Ruhland, Heather Wiebe, Ian Kuijt, Tobias Boes, and Clemens Sedmak
During the showcase, the Nanovic Institute also named Tobias Boes, professor of German and chair of the Department of German, Slavic, and Eurasian Studies, as
Faculty Fellow of the Year. This recognition follows a year in which Boes was an integral part of the institute’s work as a faculty fellow, a principal leader of the Ukrainian Studies Hub, and the instructor of the institute’s foundational seminar for minors in European studies, among many other contributions.
In addition to the Nanovic Institute’s showcase, it also joined the Kellogg Institute for International Studies in celebrating the career of A. James McAdams, who was retiring after an illustrious career as a renowned scholar,
Council for European Studies Campus Spotlight
In spring 2025, the Nanovic Institute was featured as a “Campus Spotlight” in the Council for European Studies’s (CES) online journal, EuropeNow. The journal, which publishes bi-monthly issues as well as individual scholarly articles, is dedicated to diffusing knowledge that can play a critical role in understanding European history and applying its lessons to contemporary problems.
mentor to hundreds of students, and beloved director of the Nanovic Institute from 2002 to 2018. As a token of gratitude, the institute offered McAdams a place of honor in Notre Dame’s delegation traveling to Lublin, Poland, for the next conference of the Catholic Universities Partnership, which he helped found more than 20 years ago (for more information on this story, see the 2023-24 Nanovic Institute Year in Review).
Transnational France Research Cluster
The Transnational France research cluster, supported by an ongoing Nanovic Institute research cluster grant, continued its trajectory of bringing world-renowned scholars in French and/or the Francophone world to campus. Some of the highlights from the 2024-25 academic year include:
• “Kif-Kif? Transmission with Post-Show Q&A,” a performance by Kif-Kif Bledi, a Paris-based dance company dedicated to preserving and sharing social and indigenous dances from North Africa (this event was also part of the institute’s Art and Scholarship of Academic Storytelling series and facilitated by Madison Mainwaring, assistant professor of French and Francophone studies and Nanovic Institute Faculty Fellow);
• “Revolution: The History of an Idea” with Dan Edelstein, William H. Bonsall Professor of French at Stanford University; and
• “The Age of Revolutions and the Generations Who Made It” with Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, professor of history, French and Italian, and law at the University of Southern California.
The Nanovic Institute is grateful to two faculty fellows, Emma Planinc, assistant professor of political science, and Sarah Shortall, associate professor of history, for leading this vibrant research cluster.
* Indicates a Nanovic Institute student assistant.
The Nanovic campus spotlight, authored by Abigail Lewis, executive director of CES, highlights the institute’s broad-ranging work in supporting the interdisciplinary study of Europe. It also showcases the distinctiveness of the Nanovic Institute, which lies in its “commitment to building relationships across the Atlantic and supporting experiential learning in Europe” as well as its strategic foci on integral human development, peripheries, and tackling the big questions that face Europe and the world.
Beyond highlighting the growing impact and reputation of the institute, this spotlight likewise signals the strong partnership between the Nanovic Institute and the CES.
To read the Nanovic Institute’s campus spotlight, visit: go.nd.edu/EuropeNowCS
Tobias Boes with Clemens Sedmak A. James McAdams
Emma Planinc
Sarah Shortall
Faculty Promotions
Emeritus/Emerita
Robin Jensen
Patrick O’Brien Professor of Theology, Emerita
David Mayernik
Associate Professor of Architecture, Emeritus
A. James McAdams
William M. Scholl Professor of International Affairs, Emeritus
Ingrid Rowland
Professor of History, Emerita
Promotions
Pedro A. Aguilera-Mellado
Associate Professor of Spanish, Iberian Studies
Katlyn Carter
Associate Professor of History
Sarah Edmands Martin
Associate Professor of Visual Communication Design
Joseph Elkanah Rosenberg
Associate Professor in the Program of Liberal Studies
Arman Schwartz
Associate Professor in the Program of Liberal Studies
Aldo Tagliabue
Associate Professor of Classics
Emily Wang
Associate Professor of Slavic and Eurasian Studies
Romana Huk
Professor of English
CJ Jones
William Payden Professor of German Studies
Chair Appointments
Theodore J. Cachey Jr.
Professor and Pizzo Family Chair in Dante Studies
Gretchen Reydams-Schils
Professor and Chair in the Program of Liberal Studies
Robin Jensen
Ingrid Rowland
Sarah Edmands Martin
Aldo Tagliabue
CJ Jones
David Mayernik
Pedro A. Aguilera-Mellado
Joseph Elkanah Rosenberg
Emily Wang
Theodore J. Cachey Jr.
A. James McAdams
Katlyn Carter
Arman Schwartz
Romana Huk
Gretchen Reydams-Schils
Faculty Fellow Publications
The following are just a few of the many academic publications Nanovic Institute faculty fellows have made over the past year. More publications are highlighted in the 2024-25 Research Report. The faculty fellows of the institute continue to make vital scholarly contributions across many disciplines.
Pedro A. Aguilera-Mellado
Associate Professor of Spanish and Iberian Studies
La Excritura De Juan Benet (Editorial Comares, 2024), with Cristina Moreiras-Menor.
Tobias Boes
Professor of German and Chair of the Department of German, Slavic, and Eurasian Studies
A Reader’s Guide to Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus (Camden House, 2025).
Felipe Fernández-Armesto
William P. Reynolds Professor of History
How the Spanish Empire Was Built: A 400-Year History (Reaktion Books, 2024), with Manuel Lucena Giraldo.
Johanna Frymoyer
Assistant Professor of Music Theory Modernist Movements: Listening for Topics in Schoenberg and Stravinsky (Oxford University Press, 2025).
Rev. Daniel Groody, C.S.C.
Professor of Theology and Global Affairs and Vice President and Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education
Una Teología de La Migración: El Cuerpo de Los Refugiados y El Cuerpo de Cristo (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2024).
Romana Huk
Professor of English
Rewriting the Word “God”: In the Arc of Converging Lines between Innovative Theory, Theology, and Poetry (University of Alabama Press, 2025).
Eileen M. Hunt
Professor of Political Science
The First Last Man: Mary Shelley and the Postapocalyptic Imagination (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024).
Ulrich L. Lehner
William K. Warren Professor of Theology
Spion für Papst: Kaiser und British Empire Das Geheimnisvolle Leben des Rudolf von Gerlach (Verlag Herder, 2025).
Emma Planinc
* Indicates a Nanovic Institute student assistant.
Assistant Professor in the Program of Liberal Studies
Regenerative Politics (Columbia University Press, 2024).
Mark Roche
Rev. Edmund Joyce, C.S.C., Professor of German Language and Literature
Theories of Ugliness: An Unseemly Aesthetic History (Bloomsbury, 2025).
Ingrid Rowland
Professor of History, Emerita
Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Vitruvius (Brill, 2024), with Sinclair W. Bell. The Lies of the Artists: Essays on Italian Art, 1450-1750 (The MIT Press, 2024).
Johannes Junge Ruhland
Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies
Making History with Manuscripts in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (De Gruyter, 2025).
Clemens Sedmak
Professor of Social Ethics and Director of Nanovic Institute for European Studies
Anständige Institutionen: Ethik für Organisationen und Unternehmen (Herder, 2025).
Wenn Das Unvorstellbare Geschieht: Durchbrochenes Denken und Theologische Vorstellungskraft (Herder, 2025).
Steven Semes
Professor of Architecture
New Building in Old Cities: Writings by Gustavo Giovannoni on Architectural and Urban Conservation (Getty Publications, 2024), with Francesco Siravo and Jeff Cody.
Yasmin Solomonescu
Associate Professor of English
Persuasion after Rhetoric in the Eighteenth Century and Romanticism (Oxford University Press, 2024), with Stefan H. Uhlig.
Elyse Speaks
Professor of the Practice, Art History
Women, Making, and Everyday Value in Contemporary Installation Art: Jessica Stockholder, Liza Lou, and Sarah Sze (Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2025).
Heather Wiebe
Teaching Professor in Program of Liberal Studies
Mobilizing Music in Wartime British Film (Oxford University Press, 2024).
Faculty Awards
Ian Kuijt
Professor of Anthropology
Awards for Targeting Beauty (2024) include:
• Best Short Documentary (London Global Film Awards, 2024)
• Honorary Award for Efforts in Social Filmmaking (Activists Within Borders, 2024)
• Best Co-Directors – Short Documentary (Portugal Indie Film Festival, 2024)
• Best Short Documentary (Cine-Paris Film Festival, 2024)
Emilia Justyna Powell
Professor of Political Science
Best Book in International Law (International Studies Association, 2024-25) for The Peaceful Resolution of Maritime Disputes (Oxford University Press, 2023)
Mark W. Roche
Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C., Professor of German Language and Literature Concurrent Professor of Philosophy Hesburgh Legacy Award (University of Notre Dame, 2025)
George Sikharulidze
Associate Professor of Film Production Awards for Panopticon (2024) include:
• Prize of the Ecumenical Jury (Commendation) (Karlovy Vary Film Festival)
• Best Film Award (Palic Film Festival, Parallels and Encounters section)
• Best Film and Best Actor Awards – Special Mention (Batumi International Art House Film Festival)
• Best New Performer Award (Asia Pacific Screen Awards)
• Critics’ Prize (Cinemed Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival)
Ian Kuijt Emilia Justyna Powell Mark W. Roche
George Sikharulidze
Irish island memories: The Inishbofin Library Local Studies Collection
By Cecelia Swartz ’24, ’26 M.A.
It is a bright October day on Inishbofin, an island off the west coast of County Galway in Ireland, and the community has gathered at the local library branch to celebrate the opening of a new repository of archival documents.
This gift to the community emerged from a yearslong project led by Professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies Meredith Chesson, a fellow of both the Nanovic Institute for European Studies and the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at the Keough School of Global Affairs.
The collection includes digital and hard copies of census documents from 1901 to 1911, parish records from between 1867 and 1919, two boat registries from the early 20th century, and valuation records starting from 1842—all shedding light on life in Inishbofin, Inishark, and Inishturk. Chesson and
her team spent the bulk of the project painstakingly combing national databases and archives to identify records relating to the three islands, copy them, and organize them for storage and use in the new repository.
With the repository open, community members can easily access copies of valuation records locally alongside parish and census records. In discussing the collaboration with the Valuation Office, Chesson said, “[Their] staff members were really gracious and supportive of this project.”
Audrey Murray, Co. Galway Librarian for Inishbofin, and Chesson organized the launch as part of the centenary celebrations of the Co. Galway Libraries and Archives. Senior Executive Librarian of Co. Galway Library Jo Fahey and Galway County Council Archivist Patria McWalter attended the
Organizers of the Inishbofin Local Studies Collection Launch. Pictured left to right: Patria McWalter (Galway County Council Archivist), Meredith Chesson (Professor of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame), Jo Vahey (Senior Executive Librarian Galway Public Library), and Audrey Murray (Inishbofin Branch Librarian, Co. Galway Library) (Photo by Linda Martellaro).
launch, along with government dignitaries including the Galway City Archaeologist Jim Higgins, Gearoid Conroy from the Galway office of the National Monuments Service, and 35 community members.
Additionally, Chesson collaborated with the teachers from Inishbofin’s National School. Primary school students created projects for display reflecting on the differences between being in school on Inishbofin now and in the early 20th century.
Chesson calls the collection a “living repository” that will be added to by her team and local islanders. She says, “We will continue to add to it, and as the community gathers things, they also can continue to add to it. So it’s a living gift that just keeps going.”
The archive illuminates the history of the communities it serves, connecting the past and present into the future.
“ We will continue to add to it, and as the community gathers things, they also can continue to add to it. So it’s a living gift that just keeps going.”
– Meredith Chesson
ABOVE: An example of a student’s work exploring differences between school life now and 100 years ago. LEFT: Inish National School’s mural, painted by students, celebrating more than a century of teaching the island’s children (Photo by Meredith Chesson).
Professor Meredith Chesson welcoming islanders and esteemed guests to the launch (Photograph by Linda Martellaro).
Sites of Memory: Students reflect on Europe’s contested past
By Jacob Kildoo ’15, ’23 Ph.D.
In the summer 2024, the Nanovic Institute for European Studies launched the first cycle of “Sites of Memory in Contemporary Europe,” a student-led digital research project that invites undergraduates to engage critically with questions of memory, identity, and history across Europe. With 22 students participating and 32 original site analyses published on the project’s digital platform, the initiative has created a vibrant and growing archive of places where the past continues to shape the present.
Rooted in the Nanovic Institute’s strategic research focus on memory and remembering, this project empowers students to explore sites of contested memory—from monuments and museums to architectural and environmental landmarks. Students already traveling in Europe during academic breaks can apply to contribute. If accepted, they select a site with historical and cultural relevance, conduct indepth research on its background, and write a reflection that includes original photography and a substantive analysis of the site’s role in contemporary memory politics.
The sites featured in this first cohort’s work are diverse: some focus on major international controversies, such as how to remember a nation’s
morally ambiguous past, while others examine less well-known sites that nevertheless hold deep local significance. These reflections offer nuanced perspectives on how European societies remember, reinterpret, or even seek to forget difficult histories. Together, the pieces serve as case studies in memory work and reflections on how contemporary European communities construct their visions of the past and situate themselves in the present.
The project also functions as a digital repository of student research, with each contribution offering an original argument about how collective memory is inscribed in particular locations. The online platform is designed to grow year after year, welcoming new participants and expanding its geographic scope.
By documenting the physical and symbolic sites where Europe’s past meets its present, “Sites of Memory in Contemporary Europe” connects undergraduate education with scholarly inquiry and public engagement. It not only enhances student learning through immersive, experience-based research but also contributes to our students’ broader understanding of how memory is made (and remade) throughout contemporary Europe.
“... monuments can sometimes be imperfect repositories for difficult pasts”
– Anna Buckler ’27
The Monument of the Discoveries, or Padrão dos Descobrimentos, stands 170 feet tall along the picturesque bank of the Tagus River in Lisbon, Portugal (Photo by Chaney Fix ’26).
ABOVE: The Monumento a Isabel la Católica, also known as the Monumento a Isabel la Católica y Colón (“Monument to Isabella the Catholic and Columbus”) or Monumento del IV Centenario (“Monument to the 400th Anniversary”), is located in Plaza Isabel de la Católica in Granada, Spain (Photo by Kate Kirwan ’26). RIGHT: The Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, also known as the “Square Colosseum,” in Rome, Italy, part of the Esposizione Universale Roma (EUR) neighborhood, commissioned by Benito Mussolini (Photo by Bryan Fok ’25).
Aligning agriculture and energy: A framework for
leveraging agrivoltaics
in Indiana
Read the policy brief at go.nd.edu/AgrivoltaicsBrief
By Bennett Schmitt ’25
Indiana consistently ranks among the top states for agricultural production in the United States. However, increasing energy demands and a growing push to transition to land-intensive clean energy sources have seemingly placed the state’s agriculture and energy sectors in direct opposition. Agrivoltaics, however, might be the solution. It is the dual use of land for agricultural production and solar energy generation, which can be adjusted to local crop types and climate conditions, uniquely positioning it to meet growing energy demands without sacrificing valuable farmland. Recognizing the need to align policy across these two major sectors, the Nanovic Institute launched an agrivoltaics policy project during the 2024-25 academic year to develop a policy framework capable of facilitating the implementation of this emerging technology, which has the potential to integrate agriculture and energy generation in Indiana.
Over the academic year, an interdisciplinary group of student researchers led by Morgan Munsen, senior research and partnerships program manager, and Ph.D. student Elsa Barron looked to Europe— which has seen a strong uptake of agrivoltaics in
the last decade—to analyze the characteristics of successful deployment. With students representing multiple disciplines, the team brought engineering, environmental, economic, and legal perspectives to case studies of Germany, Italy, France, and the Netherlands, identifying opportunities to adapt European policy models to Indiana’s economic and regulatory landscape.
Drawing on this research, the team presented their findings at the 2025 Nanovic Institute Undergraduate Research Conference (see page 7). They demonstrated how agrivoltaics installations have increased farmer revenue in Italy, analyzed how tax incentives have helped farmers recoup initial investments in Germany, and reviewed how multilateral collaborations between national agencies and research institutes have advanced regional understanding of well-suited system makeups in the Netherlands. Ultimately, the team summarized the agrivoltaics landscape in Europe and made a case for the viability of leveraging similar approaches in Indiana.
The team synthesized their results into a policy brief published in the Keough School of Global Affairs Publication Series. The brief recommends a tailored
three-tiered approach to help Indiana’s Office of Energy Development and several Indiana Legislative Committees:
(i) Establish clear standards and definitions for agrivoltaics;
(ii) Establish an incentive structure to prioritize high-performing agrivoltaic installations; and
(iii) Harness Indiana’s research and organizational capacity for multilateral collaboration.
Such an approach can help to ensure farmers and solar developers have transparent criteria to aim for when developing their agrivoltaics systems, can overcome the high initial investment, and receive
guidance from cutting-edge research on best practices for crop selection and solar panel arrangement, all while legislators and regulatory authorities have measurable targets with which to certify these systems and direct incentives.
Equipped with evidence from Europe and a strategic framework for how policy can be mapped onto an Indiana context, the team plans to present their work to the Indiana State Legislature. The goal is that Indiana and the Midwest as a whole can use the framework to meet increasing energy demands with clean energy sources that work in harmony with the region’s critical agricultural production.
Bennett Schmitt ’25 is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame with majors in environmental sciences and applied and computational mathematics and statistics and a minor in energy studies. He graduated summa cum laude and was named salutatorian of the Class of 2025. He was a Sorin Scholar with the Flatley Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement, a member of the dean’s list, and a Phi Beta Kappa early inductee.
ON FACING PAGE: An example of an agrivoltaic installation in rural France, one of the case studies for this project (Adobe Stock / Education License).
Agrivoltaics is the dual use of land for agricultural production and solar energy generation, which can be adjusted to local crop types and climate conditions, uniquely positioning it to meet growing energy demands without sacrificing valuable farmland.
Students in the agrivoltaics project present their findings at the Undergraduate Research Conference in European Studies. Pictured here are Natalie Morris ’27 (left) and Hannah Dahl ’25 (right).
RIGHT: An aerial image of St. Joseph Solar Farm, a collaborative effort between Indiana Michigan Power and the University of Notre Dame (Photo by Barbara Johnson / University of Notre Dame).
Revolutions of Hope: A new chapter of Ukrainian studies at Notre Dame
By Keith Sayer
Theotokos, meaning “God-Bearer” or “Mother of God,” is a title for Mary that signifies hope for many Christians, especially in the Eastern Rite—this title reflects the belief that Mary’s role in the Incarnation, through which God became human, offers a source of hope for humanity’s salvation and union with God. This icon depicting the Theotokos, written “layer by layer, prayer by prayer” by Anastassia “Tess” Cassady, an artist with Ukrainian heritage in South Bend, Indiana, was presented by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies to Archbishop Borys Gudziak as a gift to Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) during its first Ukrainian Studies Conference (March 6–8, 2025).
This spirit of hope and deep connection is not new. The partnership between the University of Notre Dame and UCU goes back more than 20 years. Generations of leaders have joined hands to provide resources, opportunities, and support to one another, both through the Catholic Universities Partnership and bilaterally. The bonds of faith and friendship run deep.
Therefore, when Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Notre Dame, particularly through its Nanovic Institute, responded almost immediately. In addition to meeting with UCU leaders to assess what support might be needed, the University also came down firmly in a public statement by then-University President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.:
“Now, more than ever, our friends in Ukraine are in need of healing and hope. We at Notre Dame stand in solidarity with all peace-loving people worldwide in demanding an end to this invasion of a sovereign nation. This unprovoked war is an international abomination and must stop now. Until it does, may God keep safe all of the innocent men, women and children who are currently in harm’s way. The prayers of the Notre Dame family are with them.”
Since that time, Nanovic Institute Director Clemens Sedmak, professor of social ethics at the Keough School of Global Affairs, has closed each Ukraine-focused event hosted by the institute by reading this statement.
While the institute played an important role in Notre Dame’s response to Russia’s invasion, Sedmak and his team recognized early on that there were many others also seeking to build up scholarship and solidarity around Ukraine, and their efforts were sharpened by this flagrant injustice. In addition to working closely with Notre Dame Global to coordinate grants and opportunities that involved UCU-Notre Dame partnerships, Sedmak began to formulate an idea—in close conversations with UCU partners, including Taras Dobko (who was at Notre Dame at the time and appointed rector of UCU in 2023), and Volodymyr Turchynovskyy, dean of the social sciences faculty—for an organized hub for these efforts around Ukraine at Notre Dame.
“I hope that today, Ukraine can give America hope to not be afraid. Don’t be afraid at Notre Dame. Say what you have to say. Say what is true. Witness. Take the stand for the immigrants, for the poor, [and] for the unjustly fired.”
—Archbishop Borys Gudziak, President of Ukrainian Catholic University
“There has been a certain backlash among cultural elites against hope. Which is why I am excited about re-defining hope at the conference. I am going to use the knowledge gained working on my poetry project ‘Don’t MISS USSR.’”
—Daryna Gladun ’26 MFA
The concept was simple: coordinate scholars, students, staff, and partners working on similar subjects together to share their insights and become stronger as a team. The institute would play a key role and offer grants to allow for further research and publications; in so doing, the goal was that Notre Dame and the Nanovic Institute would become leaders in scholarship on Ukraine in the United States. It was a lofty goal, certainly, but the legacy and energy of the institute and the wider Notre Dame community offered an opportunity to make the hub a reality.
The hub started meeting in late 2023, beginning with an exercise to understand the breadth of scholarship about Ukraine currently being done at Notre Dame called “Mapping Ukraine” (an overview of which can be found in the 2023–24 Nanovic Institute Research Report). These meetings brought in guests like Archbishop Borys Gudziak (Metropolitan-Archbishop of Philadelphia of the Ukrainian Catholic Church and president of UCU) and the Ukrainian foundation Voices of Children, offering unique chances to build a network focused on Ukrainian studies.
The public inauguration of this new Ukrainian Studies Hub, however, was yet to come. The members had a vision for a biennial conference, drawing scholars from across the world to Notre Dame, that would serve as a stimulus to keep the ideas and energy of the hub flowing. The hub would officially begin its public work at the first such conference, planned for March 2025.
A call for proposals was sent out to scholars in the United States and Europe, vendors were scheduled, artists booked, and all the components were set in motion for a multidisciplinary conference that was both academically rigorous and a celebration of Ukraine and Ukrainian culture.
No one could have predicted the timeliness of the conference’s arrival when the dates were set almost two years in advance.
Meeting the moment at the Ukrainian Studies Conference
To truly understand the significance of the conference, it is important to place it within the broader political context. On Friday, February 28, 2025, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine met at the Oval Office in a meeting that called US support for Ukraine into question.
One week later, the Ukrainian Studies Conference at Notre Dame began. Titled “Revolutions of Hope: Resilience and Recovery in Ukraine,” it was structured around five plenary sessions and eight parallel panels focused on a staggering range of topics—from environmental questions around Russia’s invasion to business responses in Ukraine to how higher education was continuing to educate students in wartime conditions. The conference included art exhibitions, a music and poetry performance night, and a special screening of the award-winning film Porcelain War (2024).
The first evening’s opening event was also part of the 2024-25 Notre Dame Forum “What do we owe each other” series. In addition to hearing remarks from Ukraine’s ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, Taras Dobko, and Svitlana Ramer, the honorary consul of Ukraine to the state of Indiana, conference attendees were also waiting to hear the first public statement on Ukraine from University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., since the Oval Office meeting.
Father Dowd, knowing that the news was heavy on his listeners’ minds, spoke plainly: “Let me be perfectly clear here today. We here at Notre Dame stand with the people of Ukraine and offer them our full support.”
After the opening remarks, Rory Finnin, professor and founder of Ukrainian studies at the University of Cambridge, took the stage with Archbishop Borys Gudziak to talk about “Cultivating Hope in Ukraine.” In this session, Gudziak spoke openly and authentically, addressing the ongoing invasion, the profound hardships it created, and the struggles worldwide to come to grips with this aggression.
Yet, even in this context, Gudziak turned his message into a pastoral moment, acknowledging that there is fear in the United States, too. His response to this climate made the aims of the
conference clear: to understand how hope, resilience, and recovery are happening in Ukraine so that the entire world may also find hope.
“I hope that today, Ukraine can give America hope to not be afraid,” he urged. “Don’t be afraid at Notre Dame. Say what you have to say. Say what is true. Witness. Take the stand for the immigrants, for the poor, [and] for the unjustly fired.”
The session closed in a unique way—at least for those not from Ukraine. Whereas the program called for Archbishop Gudziak to offer a benedictory prayer, he decided to offer it in song, choosing a closing song traditionally sung in Ukrainian churches and inviting Ukrainians in the audience to join. Throughout the room, their voices rose in answer. One observer noted that this singing was especially moving because of its impromptu nature.
At the reception that followed, attendees had a chance to converse, view the art exhibitions installed at the conference, and join a prayer walk to the Grotto at Notre Dame, which included a service in the Byzantine tradition led by Rev. Andrij Hlabse, S.J. A few participants even venerated the Theotokos icon, kissing the hands and feet of Mary and Jesus.
These experiences highlighted how the conference brought together academic, cultural, and religious elements to provide a holistic picture of Ukrainian studies.
A Night of Ukrainian Poetry and Music
On Friday, March 7, 2025, the conference offered A Night of Ukrainian Poetry and Music, held in the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center.
After an impassioned reading by Daryna Gladun, an awardwinning poet, translator, and researcher from Bucha, Ukraine, currently enrolled in Notre Dame’s Master of Fine Arts program, renowned Ukrainian poets Natalka Bilotserkivets and Halyna Kruk delivered powerful readings of their work in Ukrainian, with English translations by Ali Kinsella. These poems powerfully captured the experiences of Ukrainians as they grappled with war, displacement, and clinging to hope through it all.
“The topic of religion is, of course, indispensable for the understanding of the past and present of Ukraine. Religion is not just a footnote in the study of Ukraine but one of, I think, the core subjects.”
—Yury Avvakumov, Associate Professor of Theology
The musical section of the evening featured The Indiana Slavic Choir, based out of Bloomington, Indiana, and Chicagoarea members of The Women’s Bandura Ensemble of North America. Together they sang Ukrainian songs and performed on the bandura, a stringed instrument with a deep history in Ukraine. Performing works both on their own and together, the artists brought an almost tangible sense of hope to the evening.
LEFT: Three of the seven Chicago-area members of The Women’s Bandura Ensemble of North America who performed at the conference.
Natalka Bilotserkivets Halyna Kruk
TOP
LEFT: The Indiana Slavic Choir joined them for a wonderful combined program (both photos by Peter Ringenberg / University of Notre Dame).
The conference included five plenary sessions: A Conversation on Cultivating Hope in Ukraine (see pages 29-31)
• Ambassador Oksana Markarova (Ukraine Mission to the U.S.)
• Archbishop Borys Gudziak (Metropolitan-Archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia; President of Ukrainian Catholic University [UCU])
• Bishop Kevin Rhoades (Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese)
• University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C. (Notre Dame)
• Taras Dobko (UCU)
• Svitlana Ramer (Honorary Consul of Ukraine to Indiana)
• Rory Finnin (University of Cambridge)
What We Can Learn from Ukraine’s Fight for Democracy (see page 35)
• Olesya Khromeychuk (Ukrainian Institute London)
Followed by a conversation with Michael Pippenger (Notre Dame)
The Power of Hope: The Russo-Ukrainian War through the Eyes of a Historian (see page 38)
• Serhii Plokhy (Harvard University)
Followed by a conversation with Taras Dobko (UCU)
In Solidarity with Ukraine: Diplomatic Perspectives on Resilience and Hope
“[The most valuable aspects of this conference were] the connections made with likeminded people from across the US, being in a cocoon of other Ukraine supporters, and realizing how much Ukraine serves as an inspiration.”
—Svitlana Ramer, Honorary Consul of Ukraine to Indiana
• Jean. P Froehly (Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany)
• Volodymyr Turchynovskyy (UCU)
Followed by a conversation with Svitlana Ramer (Honorary Consul of Ukraine)
Revolutionary Ukraine: A History and Politics of Hope
• Emily Channell-Justice (Harvard University)
• George O. Liber (University of Alabama at Birmingham)
• Fr. Yuriy Shchurko (UCU)
• Sophia Wilson (Southern Illinois-Edwardsville)
Chaired by A. James McAdams (Notre Dame)
These insightful sessions with top voices in the field were also joined by parallel panel discussions covering a wide range of topics:
Conflict and Creation: Art as a Force for Hope in Wartime Ukraine (see pages 36–37)
• Chaired by Tetyana Shlikhar (Notre Dame)
• Oksana Ivantsiv (Notre Dame)
• Lesia Maruschak (VYDNO Collective, University of Saskatchewan)
• Alina Mozolevska (Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University)
• Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern (Northwestern)
Sustainable Hope: Energy, Environment, and the Future of Ukraine
• Chaired by Diane Desierto (Notre Dame)
• Carl Bruch (Environmental Law Institute)
• Olga Degtiareva (Odesa National University of Economics)
• Albina Dioba (Copenhagen Business School)
• Kristina Hook (Kennesaw State University)
• Natalia Slobodian (Canterbury Christ Church University)
Hope on the Page: The Power of Ukrainian Literature in Resilience and Recovery
• Chaired by Rory Finnin (Cambridge)
• Daryna Gladun (Notre Dame)
• Tetiana Grebeniuk (Imre Kertész Kolleg; University of Warsaw)
• Ali Kinsella (Translator)
• Anna Romandash (Notre Dame)
Culture War: Soft Power, Memory, and Identity in the Fight for Ukraine
• Chaired by Ian Kuijt (Notre Dame)
• Olga Filippova (V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University)
• Olena Kovalenko (Ukrainian Institute in Kyiv)
• Khrystyna Kozak (Notre Dame)
• Mykola Riabchuk (Institute of Political and Nationalities’ Studies of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine)
Faithful Hope: Religion and Resilience in Ukraine
• Chaired by Yury P. Avvakumov (Notre Dame)
• Anna Bisikalo (Harvard)
• José Casanova (Georgetown)
• Andriy Kurochka (UCU)
• Catherine Wanner (Penn State)
Hope on the Ground: Lived Resilience during the War in Ukraine
• Chaired by Volodymyr Turchynovskyy (UCU)
• A. Austin Garey (Kennan Institute)
• Sarah D. Phillips (Indiana)
• Sarah Wilson Sokhey (Colorado)
• Kristina Šliavaitė (Vilnius University)
Business on the Frontlines: Resilience and Adaptability in Times of Turmoil
• Chaired by: Magdalena CharzyńskaWójcik (John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland [KUL])
• Yaryna Boychuk (UCU)
• Alejandro Danylyszyn (UCU)
• Georges Enderle (Notre Dame)
• Sophia Opatska (UCU)
Hope in the Headlines?: Truth and Decolonization in the Ukrainian Media Landscape
• Chaired by Svitlana Khyliuk (UCU)
• Katerina Sirinyok-Dolgaryova (Michigan)
• Urszula Soler (KUL)
• Olha Tkachenko (Polish Academy of Sciences)
The essays on the following pages were submitted by conference attendees and reflect the themes and important moments throughout the multi-day event. They are by no means exhaustive but serve as powerful examples of both the relevance of the content presented and the response of those who witnessed it.
Clockwise from top left: Emily Channell-Justice, director of the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program at the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University, speaks during the final plenary session of the event. A candlelight procession from the conference venue to the Grotto during the first night’s program. Archbishop Borys Gudziak speaks with Rory Finnin during the first plenary session. After the procession, conference participants participate in a Byzantine rite prayer service (all photos by Peter Ringenberg / University of Notre Dame).
Most sessions are available to watch at go.nd.edu/USH25Vid
Relying and acting on hope
By Taras Dobko, rector of Ukrainian Catholic University
What a fascinating and beautiful conference this was. It was an invaluable academic exchange of ideas, certainly, but it was also about artistic celebration, making friends, and praying together.
“The
cultural war between Russia and Ukraine began … centuries ago. And it continues today. It has escalated. And we are at the frontline of that battlefield for Ukrainian culture. ”
—Tetyana Shlikhar, Director of Undergraduate Studies for Slavic and Eurasian Studies
Our conference brought a lot of hope to rely on and to act on. Let me offer a linguistic observation from the Ukrainian language. The equivalent of the English word “reliable” in Ukrainian is “надійний,” related to the word “надія” (“hope”), which itself includes the term “дія” (“action”). Thus, the very language of Ukraine teaches us that we can rely on hope and act on its promises.
We had so many signs and testimonies of hope during these three days.
Many of these sessions reminded me of my lived experience in Ukraine. In Lviv, at least three art galleries have opened during the past few years. Likewise, it has been difficult to get a ticket for a theatre performance during the war because they are sold out. New bookstores are being opened because the book industry is thriving. These are just a few signs of hope I see.
During this conference, we also heard that we need a politics of hope, which is essentially politics based on Catholic Social Teaching and grounded in Christian teaching. It is the opposite of a politics of grievances.
I am very concerned about Ukrainians adopting a victim-based identity as a result of accepting an unjust peace deal. Regrettably, many people may already feel betrayed, but I think the politics of hope we have been discussing can be an antidote against this development.
This conference will have an ongoing legacy. There is already a program that accepts proposals for joint faculty research projects between Notre Dame and UCU faculty members with the potential to achieve international recognition and generate sustainable research outcomes.
This research will have much to teach us about what makes democracies resilient and how religion can play a role. For Ukraine, this is most timely. As we work toward a hopeful future, we must also plan for how to address individual and collective trauma and how to achieve physical, moral, and religious healing. The Ukrainian Studies Hub and the partnership between Notre Dame and UCU will demonstrate that the Ukrainian experience is an essential voice and example for addressing these same issues globally.
We are generating a model for Ukrainian studies, too. As we continue supporting individual Ukrainian scholars displaced by war, we are also cultivating academic collaboration to design a joint, long-term research program with a world-class profile and potential. I am grateful to Notre Dame for joining us in crafting this example, which will be invaluable for the future of Ukrainian academia and Ukrainian studies worldwide.
Taras Dobko
‘Contra spem, spero’: What we can learn from Ukraine’s fight for democracy
By Antônio Lemos, Nanovic Institute Graduate Fellow and editor of Europe in the World
Director of the Ukrainian Institute London Olesya Khromeychuk’s address, “What We Can Learn from Ukraine’s Fight for Democracy,” was a profound exploration of hope, resilience, and the very essence of democratic struggle. The presentation was based on her personal life and experience of growing up in Ukraine in the midst of the country’s struggles to solidify democracy.
Khromeychuk brought not only her academic expertise as a historian but also her deeply personal connection to a nation continuously navigating the complexities of its identity and sovereignty. Her presentation—interwoven with historical narratives, personal anecdotes, and poetic and literary allusions—offered a compelling perspective on the Ukrainian experience.
Her talk began by dissecting the concept of hope, drawing from the ancient Greek myth of Pandora. She challenged the traditional interpretation of Pandora’s act, suggesting that hope, rather than being a curse, is an ambiguous force, a potential source of resilience. This idea of “hopeless hope,” contra spem spero, a term she borrowed from the poetry of Lesya Ukrainka, a 19th-century Ukrainian poetess and political activist, became a central motif in her narrative. She illustrated how this paradoxical hope, born from generations of struggle and statelessness, fueled the Ukrainian spirit, enabling them to persevere against seemingly insurmountable odds.
Khromeychuk’s personal recollections provided a powerful backdrop to her historical analysis. Significantly, she was born in the final years of the fall of the Soviet Union. In a way, she became an adult alongside Ukrainian democracy.
Her discussion of “hopelessness” as a potential source of power was provocative and thoughtful. She challenged the conventional view of despair as a purely negative emotion, suggesting that it can become a catalyst for action and strength for those who have lost everything.
The talk also explored the question of how to cultivate hope in the face of overwhelming adversity. Khromeychuk emphasized the importance of agency and action, reminding the audience that each individual has the power to contribute to positive change. She stressed the need to witness the suffering of others, not as passive observers, but as active participants in the struggle for justice. Here, the aspect of community in resilience and hope was foregrounded. In this context, love is a crucial requirement for hope.
Khromeychuk’s address offered a profound and timely reflection on the lessons the world can learn from Ukraine’s fight for democracy. Her message was clear: Hope is not a passive emotion but an active force, a catalyst for change that requires constant nurturing and unwavering commitment. The enduring flame of the Ukrainian spirit, she argued, serves as a beacon of inspiration for all those who believe in the power of democracy and the human capacity for resilience.
Against all hope, we hope.
BOTTOM PHOTO: Michael Pippenger, vice president and associate provost for internationalization, moderates a conversation and Q&A with Olesya Khromeychuk (Photo by Peter Ringenberg / University of Notre
Watch the full session at go.nd.edu/Khromeychuk
Olesya Khromeychuk, director of the Ukrainian Institute London (Photo by Peter Ringenberg / University of Notre Dame).
Dame).
Visualizing art as hope in wartime Ukraine at the 2025 Ukrainian Studies Conference
By Cecelia Swartz ’24, ’26 M.A.
T(Photo by Peter Ringenberg / University of Notre Dame).
he 2025 Ukrainian Studies Conference brought together scholars from across disciplines and the world to reflect on hope as a positive, reconstructive, preserving, and persevering force in the context of Ukraine’s ongoing war with Russia. The panel on art, titled “Conflict and Creation: Art as a Force for Hope in Wartime Ukraine” and chaired by Tetyana Shlikhar, featured papers from Oksana Ivantsiv, Lesia Maruschak, Alina Mozolevska, and Yohanan Petrov-Shtern. Its participants examined art as a kind of voice, giving people a space to narrate and process their lived experiences, share stories from wartime Ukraine, challenge propaganda, and offer hope for a brighter future.
Oksana Ivantsiv, a Fulbright scholar pursuing a Master of Global Affairs at the Keough School of Global Affairs, examined the value of hope in combating catastrophic thinking in her paper “Is There Hope? How Ukrainian Issue-Based Documentaries Contribute to Documenting War Crimes, Cultural Diplomacy and Peacebuilding.” In her talk, she invited the audience to imagine their own “catastrophic scenarios,” sharing that hers would be living under Russian occupation in Ukraine and the violence that would accompany such a fate. She then introduced her documentary, “Woman Occupied,” which shares the stories of women from Germany, Ukraine, and Kosovo who had suffered from conflict-related sexual violence. Rather than focusing on the crimes committed against these women, the documentary instead emphasizes their “journey to justice” and their hope for the future.
Lesia Maruschak, artist and founder of the VYDNO Collective and research affiliate at the University of Saskatchewan, spoke about the power of art to record and speak out in her paper “Memory
as Resistance: Bearing Witness.” Through her art, she creates immersive, experiential art exhibits that the viewer can step into so that they too may bear witness and give voice: “I deliberately avoid a singular, authoritative narrative. Instead, I offer multiple channels of discovery, open-ended encounters; reviewers become participants.”
Alina Mozolevska, associate professor in the Faculty of Philology at Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University, reflected on the role of hope in art on social media in her paper “Resilience and Hope in Instagram Wartime Artivism.” As part of a research group, she has been collecting data since 2022 on testimony and witnessing in online spaces, including over 1000 images from 50 Instagram art accounts. For Mozolevska, social media holds power as it “shapes our perceptions of the war and how they make us remember something, or forget something, and actually create the viewer’s image and perception of world developments.”
Yohannan Petrovsky-Shtern, Crown Professor of Jewish Studies and professor of history at Northwestern University, spoke about artists in Ukraine responding to the war by creating public art that uses traditional methods in new ways. He noted that, as a medium of unity and self-expression, the art itself becomes hope: “If we read these artworks as a text, they will tell us that we as artists are unifying the nation, politically, linguistically, and socially. We can bemoan our losses, but we can also laugh at our wounds. It becomes very much a part of Ukrainian self-exploration and Ukrainian self-image.”
Iva Sidash, a Ukrainian photographer whose work was also exhibited at the conference, shared a few words following the panel. She emphasized that the concept of “home” is often associated with “safety,” but of course, in Ukraine, there is no safety. The damaged walls captured in her photographs have three layers of meaning. Firstly, the walls themselves, damaged by Russian aggression and that loss. Secondly, the walls
Oksana Ivantsiv, pictured with Robert Nanovic, founding benefactor of the Nanovic Institute.
TOP: Lesia Maruschak’s multimedia and interactive exhibit titled “Poems of Our Children” was displayed as part of the conference, alongside her exhibit “OUR RIUKZAK: Maria + Yegor” and an exhibit by Iva Sidash titled “Traces of Tender Lives”
represent collective memory. Thirdly, the walls capture, for Sidash, the love that the walls still hold within them, of the past and for the future.
As the panelists demonstated, art for Ukraine is a lifeline. It is a place for hope in a time of war and crisis. It is a place for the processing of violence and trauma. It is a place for memory and the forming of a national identity. Art gives voice, mobilizes, and unites Ukrainians in many
forms of resistance. It looks backward and reflects on the wrongs that have been done, processes the complexities of the present, and looks forward towards a brighter future.
Iva Sidash Traces of Tender Lives
ARTIST STATEMENT
Home is about peace and warmth: where you can simply be, where you feel safe in your own skin. It was the same in Ukraine until Russia invaded, shattering the lives of millions. Evil came uninvited to your house, forcing its way in, breaking down your door, lying in your bed, and destroying everything you held dear. It took all that mattered — everything you lived for.
The walls that once sheltered you, that held the personal pieces of your inner world, have become witnesses to a harsh new reality. What do these burned walls, which absorbed the events of your life for years, have to say now? Their scars—the charred marks, the melted floral prints, the crumbling plaster—whisper of what once was gentle and whole. They remember.
Today, they are silent but not voiceless. These walls speak of love, of tenderness, of keeping memory alive, carrying the hope that one day people will return home.
Since the beginning of full-scale Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, Russia has been actively shelling residential neighborhoods, commercial sectors, and entire regions of the civilian population across Ukraine. According to data gathered by the crisis coordinator of the United Nations, approximately 14 million Ukrainians were forced to leave their homes due to the war.
The number of those killed due to the Russian shelling is impossible to count.
Lesia Maruschak speaks to conference participants during the first evening’s reception (Photo by Peter Ringenberg / University of Notre Dame).
Serhii Plokhy examines hope, resilience, and the miraculous at the 2025 Ukrainian Studies conference
By Westin Smith, Ph.D. student in Spanish
To conclude Friday’s session of “Revolutions of Hope,” Nanovic’s 2025 Ukrainian Studies conference, attendees had the opportunity to hear from Serhii Plokhy, author and professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard University. Titled “The Power of Hope: The RussoUkrainian War Through the Eyes of a Historian,” his presentation illuminated hope, resilience, and the miraculous in Ukraine.
Before Russia’s invasion in 2022, there was a hope that the amassing of troops would not convert into open aggression. Hope returned, despite its betrayal, as Ukraine withstood the invasion. The country’s resilience surpassed the expectations of both Moscow and Washington, revealing the miracle of Ukraine’s endurance. The fact that the Ukrainian resistance broke the calculations of global powers should inspire us all. In these times when democratic recourse feels inadequate or when small efforts seem pointless against national and global movements of hatred, ignorance, and violence, Ukraine’s perseverance suggests that the good fight always makes room for miracles.
Plokhy examined the Ukrainian workers’ defiance against the Russian occupation of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant as an example of finding hope against hope (spes contra spem). Although the present-day situation now appears more uncertain than ever, with threats of nuclear escalation and disappearing alliances, Plokhy characterized how the Ukrainian captives at the power plant combated and overcame their subjection as a miracle.
The war went nuclear the day Russia attacked and occupied the power plant. Without a protocol to follow or outside communication, the Ukrainian workers were left to comply or resist on their own accord. They navigated the impossible terrain of what constituted treason or loyalty when forced to decide whether to keep the plant running or let it fail. Using their specialized knowledge, they elected to continue working while using the threat of the plant’s failure as leverage to resist Russian demands. This helped defend their liberties and maintain their dignity during their isolation at the rear of the invasion.
Although cooperation could be considered a betrayal of their country, these workers demonstrated resilience and hope against hope. Much like Ukraine at large, their miracle manifested in their lasting endurance. Upon being liberated months later by Ukrainian forces, President Zelensky honored the captives, thus relieving their fears of being accused of betraying their country. Their experience embodies the message that miracles are fostered through hope and resilience.
Plokhy concluded with the call to never underestimate our capacity to achieve goals; he implored the audience to never lose hope, stay motivated, and recognize that miracles do happen. Of course, Ukraine’s miraculous endurance also calls us to action. Their extra time against Russia’s overwhelming forces has given us the opportunity to help. If we reject this chance, then we deny the miracle. So, let us follow Ukraine’s example and find how our seemingly inadequate abilities and voices can make miracles happen.
Serhii Plokhy
Going forth in hope
A s the final day of the conference came to a close, A. James McAdams, the William M. Scholl Professor of International Affairs and former director of the Nanovic Institute, led the concluding panel. In addition to serving as a skillful mediator for the panelists, McAdams’s presence also linked the past, present, and future of collaboration between the Nanovic Institute and UCU, as he was instrumental in establishing this relationship more than 20 years ago and bringing it to fruition.
Gesturing toward this longlasting legacy and timescale for social change, Sophia Wilson, associate profesor of political science at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and president of the American Association for Ukrainian Studies, challenged the audience: “While it can seem very daunting, our job is to keep going, even when it seems we are not heard.” She contrasted the ease with which false information spreads with the hard road of truth becoming embedded into society, often because the truth is full of “tough stories.” She cautioned against despair, however, advocating for perseverance and hope: “This doesn’t mean we should stop; on the contrary, we have to keep going and talk to everybody.”
In answer, Sedmak read Father Jenkins’s words once more, now filled with new meaning as this event served as a visible incarnation of the commitment to Ukraine they embodied and the acceptance of the call to take the hard road of truth—paved with hope.
After the conference, Svitlana Ramer, honorary Ukrainian consul to the State of Indiana, likened the experience to “being in a cocoon of other Ukraine supporters, and realizing how much Ukraine serves as an inspiration.” Indeed, conference attendees felt that hope pervaded the experience. With renewed enthusiasm for the bonds between Notre Dame and Ukrainian Catholic University, the Ukrainian Studies Hub has now—to expand upon Ramer’s metaphor— emerged and is working both at Notre Dame and across the world to build up Ukrainian studies, solidarity with Ukraine, and, of course, hope.
The hub is organizing joint research and grant programs, expanding access to Ukraine-related courses on campus (including courses on the Ukrainian language), and continuing to provide venues for Notre Dame faculty and students to enhance collaboration with one another and with Ukrainian and international Ukrainian studies scholars.
These promising future horizons resonate deeply with the words of another attendee, whose reflection on the conference’s theme encapsulated the collective sentiment: “As a Ukrainian, I left the conference with even more hope than when I first entered, and I had quite a lot of hope to begin with.”
In that spirit, the Nanovic Institute welcomes all who wish to engage with Ukraine and Ukrainian studies as it builds this exciting, multi-disciplinary movement. Visit nanovic.nd.edu/ about/ukrainian-studies-hub/ for more ways to get involved.
“Notre
Dame is opening this wonderful Ukrainian Studies Hub. And this is where people are going to learn more about Ukraine and support the idea, as Ukrainians do, that justice and human rights matter. And that’s what we all need to fight for.”
—Sophia Wilson, President of the American Association for Ukrainian Studies
Conference Co-Sponsors
We thank the following co-sponsors for supporting this conference:
• Department of German, Slavic, and Eurasian Studies
• Kellogg Institute for International Studies
• Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
• Notre Dame Democracy Initiative
• Notre Dame Global
• Office of the President, University of Notre Dame
• The Program of Creative Writing
• Raclin Murphy Museum of Art
• Ukrainian Catholic University
A. James McAdams
Italy, US, and urban ethics as a Fulbright Lecturer at Notre Dame
By Massimo Vittorio
y experience at Notre Dame as a Fulbright Lecturer, cohosted by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies and the Center for Italian Studies, marked a distinctive chapter in my professional journey. While I had previously spent time in the United States as a tourist and as a young doctoral researcher more than 20 years ago, this particular sojourn was profoundly different. It arose from a successful application for a Fulbright scholarship, specifically a “Distinguished Chair” grant, which for the first time afforded me the opportunity to teach in the US, rather than solely conducting research and delivering occasional seminars.
My teaching responsibilities included a three-credit philosophy course on Urban Ethics, which—to my pleasant surprise—attracted a packed class of 19 students and more on a waiting list. The course guided students through important questions about the nature and inner-workings of cities and how contemporary cities might respond to challenges regarding pollution, sustainable development, human rights, energy consumption, and more. These students represented diverse academic years and majors, transforming each lecture into a vibrant exchange of thoughts, ideas, and emotions. The pedagogical demands were substantial: preparing lectures and presentations, meticulously selecting source materials to stimulate discussion, grading papers, and devising team-building exercises. The walk from my apartment to classroom E289 in Corbett Family Hall was consistently full of positive energy, driven by the anticipation of engaging with my students and sharing my perspective on Italy, Europe, and the US as a Fulbright ambassador. This commitment to teaching, alongside the course content, instilled a deep sense of pride and dedication. Each lecture felt like a prelude to the next. I am still in contact with some students after my return to Italy, with several seeking my support and supervision for their thesis projects.
A unique aspect of this experience was the presence of my family. The prospect of my 11-year-old daughter having such a cross-cultural experience added another layer of emotional complexity, prompting reflections on whether it would be an opportunity or a source of
discomfort. Her attendance at Clay International Academy provided an invaluable chance to explore a radically different educational system from the Italian one, make decisions outside her comfort zone, and forge new friendships.
Ultimately, aside from inclement winter weather, there was no discomfort. The Notre Dame campus itself cultivated an incredibly smooth (albeit challenging) environment, even with heavy snow and no car. The unwavering support of Clemens Sedmak and the entire Nanovic staff, particularly Melanie Webb, Rebekah Prince, Grant Osborn, Roy Kimmey, and Fr. Jim Lies, was exceptional, guiding me through a world I only partially knew and which presented numerous challenges and novelties. Beyond teaching, I attended international-caliber seminars and conferences, met esteemed colleagues, and witnessed firsthand the power of education as a potent social glue, capable of forging bonds across borders, ethnicities, and beliefs. Reflecting on this transformative experience, which I intend to share with my Italian students, I am left with a singular profound question in the end: Did I or my students gain more from the course and this overall experience?
Massimo Vittorio with his urban ethics class at the University of Notre Dame during the spring 2025 semester.
Celebrating the Keough School’s First Year with Dean Mary Gallagher
The 2023-24 academic year was the first full year working with Mary Gallagher, Marilyn Keough Dean of the Keough School of Global Affairs. Dean Gallagher’s leadership and steady hand have been on full display this year as she has met with all the institutes, including the Nanovic Institute, to understand their strategic priorities and opportunities for collaborative growth.
Dean Gallagher had the opportunity to meet the Nanovic Institute Advisory Board during the fall 2024 semester, and she has continued to work closely with the institute to amplify our work across the Keough School, the University, and beyond.
She has been a steadfast advocate for the inauguration of the Ukrainian Studies Hub and the first conference this March.
During the summer of 2025, she also joined and served as a keynote speaker for the institute’s Advanced Catholic Leadership Program in Rome, allowing her to network and build relationships with our Central and Eastern European colleagues in the Catholic Universities Partnership.
The Nanovic Institute is immensely grateful for all Dean Gallagher’s efforts and leadership this year and looks forward to many opportunities to work collaboratively with her in the future.
Nanovic Sustainability Fellows
* Indicates a Nanovic Institute student assistant.
During the spring 2025 semester, the Nanovic Institute launched, in partnership with Notre Dame Global, the Nanovic Sustainability Fellows program. This initiative supports students at a Notre Dame Global site in Europe in researching a chosen sustainability topic, including how insights from their host nation and city can inform that topic in the United States.
Four students entered the program at the Notre Dame Dublin site:
• Rika Felten, who examined offshore wind energy;
• Christine Hruby, who studied water quality;
• Jack MapelLentz, part of the same water quality project; and
• Sara Wheeler, whose research focused on sustainable housing.
Their research will be presented on campus in fall 2025.
Fellows traveling with Prof. Susan Hegarty of Dublin City University’s Water Institute to work with community groups monitoring water quality in Counties Cavan and Monaghan.
Rika Felton ’26
Christine Hruby ’26
The Nanovic Institute advisory board, staff, and student guests during the advisory board meeting when they met Dean Gallagher (Photo by April Toler/ University of Notre Dame).
Sara Wheeler ’26
Jack MapelLentz ’26
Mary Gallagher
A Year of Purposeful Partnership
Collaboration is the cornerstone of the Nanovic Institute’s mission to bring Europe into conversation with the university and the world. During the 2024-25 academic year, the institute partnered with dozens of campus units on programs that advanced shared intellectual goals, enriched student and faculty experiences, and addressed key priorities of both the Keough School of Global Affairs and the University of Notre Dame.
This collaborative spirit was especially evident in the institute’s partnerships within the Keough School. Among many shared programs, the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies co-hosted a panel discussion on “Indigeneity in Europe” (November 22), which explored new possibilities and alliances. The Nanovic Institute also co-sponsored a panel discussion on overcoming “Balkanization” (October 31) with both the Keough-Naughton Institute and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. This partnership with the Kroc Institute extended to events that challenged standard narratives of European conflict and peacebuilding, including a screening of the documentary Creative Force (2025), with its Ukrainian filmmakers (February 25), and a performance of the nuclear-age drama The Mistake (April 13), also co-sponsored by the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies. The Nanovic Institute deepened its commitment to peace by sponsoring Ukrainian participants in the Kroc Institute’s Strategic Peacebuilding Academy (May 20–24). In partnership with the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion, the Nanovic Institute explored the impact of the “Global North vs. Global South” divide on integral human development (October 17).
The Nanovic Institute’s deep ties with Notre Dame’s core humanities departments yielded a rich series of events. It joined the Department of German, Slavic, and Eurasian Studies for numerous events, including panels on German elections (February 12) and authoritarianism (April 7), as well as a talk by Germany’s Consul General in Chicago (April 3). Throughout the year, the institute collaborated with the Center for Italian Studies on several lectures, including ones that explored Italian cultural history (September 26, with Oxford Professor Guido Bonsaver) and the fictions of Europe (November 21, with Nicoletta Pireddu, director of the Georgetown Humanities Initiative). One noteworthy event brought together the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre, and the Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good: a three-day Emmanuel Gras Film Showcase (October 28–30). It culminated in a screening of A French Revolution (2022), which was part of the fall 2024 Nanovic Film Series.
ABOVE: Promotional graphic for the Emmanuel Gras Film Showcase.
CENTER: Promotional image for The Mistake by Michael Mears, a British actor and playwright.
ABOVE RIGHT: Cover of the book ‘Balkanization’ and the Euro-Atlantic Processes of the (Western) Balkans: Back to the Future by Liridona Veliu Ashiku, which was the subject of a panel discussion.
With the Notre Dame Democracy Initiative, the Nanovic Institute hosted former US Ambassador to the EU Mark Gitenstein for a Nanovic Forum lecture on the future of European democracy (see pages 14–15). The institute partnered with the Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society for a “fireside chat” with a leader from Ukrainian Catholic University (December 3), and with the Hesburgh Libraries’ Rare Books & Special Collections and the Department of History on events connected to the exhibition “Tragedies of War,” including a talk by a senior historian from the National WWII Museum (April 10) and a musical performance for Yom HaShoah (April 22).
These partnerships are vital, creating forums for interdisciplinary dialogue that connect the Nanovic Institute community to global issues of pressing importance.
Volodymyr Turchynovskyy, dean of the social sciences at Ukrainian Catholic University, during a fireside chat with Nitesh Chawla, founding director of the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society. (Photo by Christine Grashorn / University of Notre Dame).
Joint ND-UCU Publications
The Churches and the War: Religion, Religious Diplomacy, and Russia’s Aggression Against Ukraine is an edited volume published by Ukrainian Catholic University Press as part of the “Standing in Solidarity” partnership between UCU and the Nanovic Institute. The volume explores the war in Ukraine in the context of Russia’s and Ukraine’s religious past and present, religion’s role in the war, and the possibilities of religious diplomacy. It resulted from a conference in Lviv in 2023.
In a 2024 interview, editor Yury P. Avvakumov, associate professor in the Department of Theology, described how he hopes the volume will promote a sense of urgency for intellectuals. He explained that Ukraine is still at war despite no longer being at the forefront of the media and that there is a deficit of knowledge about the historical roots of the conflict and the role of religion therein, which the essays in The Churches and the War seek to address.
In 2025, Ukrainian Catholic University Press also published Facing Russian Aggression: Struggle for Security and Peace in Europe, edited by Volodymyr Turchynovskyy and Oleh Turiy, which arose out of a symposium titled “Challenges of Russia’s War against Ukraine and the Ethical Principles of Sustainable Peace in Europe” in Munich in 2024. The symposium was sponsored in partnership between Ludwig Maximilian University, Ukrainian Catholic University, and the Nanovic Institute. The volume offers a Catholic perspective on ethical resolutions to ongoing sociological issues and questions of global security, focusing particularly on the topics of past and contemporary totalitarianism, Russian aggression, and just peace.
Synodality Conference
The Nanovic Institute for European Studies and Durham University’s Centre for Catholic Studies co-hosted a colloquium entitled “Lived Catholicism” at Notre Dame London, April 11–12, 2025. With scholars and practitioners from across Europe, the gathering focused on experiences and perceptions of synodality within the Catholic Church. Designed to promote open conversation, the event featured paired voices from Eastern and Western Europe on each panel. Participants offered provocations and reflections, personal and scholarly, that prompted rich, collective dialogue. This unique format fostered a spirit of synodal listening, encounter, and exploration across cultures and disciplines
Learn more at livedcatholicism.org
Marko Gural
Affiliated and Visiting Scholars
The affiliated scholars of the Nanovic Institute are scholars outside Notre Dame that are committed to ongoing research endeavors with the institute. They participate in a wide range of projects, from publications to the Ukrainian Studies Hub and more. Visiting scholars come to Notre Dame each semester from institutions across Europe to complete research and participate in the Nanovic Institute’s intellectual community.
Affiliated Scholars
Pamela Ballinger Professor of History and Fred Cuny Chair in the History of Human Rights University of Michigan
Magdalena CharzyńskaWójcik Chair of the Department of the History of English and Translation Studies
John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland
Affiliated Scholars (continued)
Lewis Executive Director Council for European Studies (CES)
Dominika Ruszkiewicz Assistant Professor in the Department of English Language and Culture Jesuit University Ignatianum in Kraków
Visiting Scholars Spring 2025
John
Fr. Yuriy Shchurko Dean of the Faculty of Theology and Philosophy Ukrainian Catholic University
Taras Dobko Rector Ukrainian Catholic University
Stella Ghervas Professor of History and Eugen Weber Chair in Modern European History University of California, Los Angeles
Mechtild Widrich Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism School of Art Institute of Chicago
Urszula Soler Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Administration
John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland
Moritz Graefrath Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow European University Institute
Visiting Scholars Fall 2024
Babic Associate Professor in the Department of History Catholic University in Ružomberok, Slovakia
Massimo Vittorio Research Professor of Moral Philosophy University of Catania, Italy
Abigail
Marek
Volodymyr Turchynovskyy Dean of the Faculty of Sciences Ukrainian Catholic University
Fr. Michał Pierzchała Ph.D. Candidate
Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland
Read the full story at go.nd.edu/498755
Fighting for Ukraine’s future:
For Khrystyna Kozak, peace studies offers a path to justice
By Erin Blasko
Khrystyna Kozak, a human rights lawyer specializing in displacement, was working for a nongovernmental humanitarian organization in Kyiv, Ukraine, on the morning of February 24, 2022, when Russian forces invaded the country from multiple directions.
As of May 2025, Kozak is now a graduate of the Keough School’s Master of Global Affairs program with a concentration in international peace studies. As part of a requirement for peace studies students through the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Kozak completed a six-month internship in the Netherlands with the Register of Damage for Ukraine in 2024.
As one of a handful of Ukrainians working for the register, Kozak was responsible for screening and evaluating claims and evidence submitted via Diia, a government-backed app that she and other Ukrainians use for a variety of state-sponsored functions.
Like most Ukrainians, Kozak views the war in existential terms. “It’s not a war about territory,” she said. “We’re fighting for our identity, for our right to live in our own country, to speak our own language, to not switch to Russian.”
A ledger of loss
Established by the Council of Europe in 2023, the Register of Damage is charged with accounting for recorded instances of torture, inhumane treatment and sexual violence, vast destruction of residential buildings and critical infrastructure, immense economic losses, and other effects of Russia’s aggression. The organization’s work is a first step toward
justice and compensation for Ukraine and its people.
Maintaining that the simple act of acknowledging the physical damage wrought by conflict is important on its own, Clemens Sedmak, professor of social ethics and director of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, framed the issue in three dimensions.
“One is, you want to do something, and since you cannot stop the war or force reparations, documentation is a kind of agency you can exercise,” he said.
Secondly, he said, “It is a matter of honoring what is happening and remembering that memory is a very strong force—and a very strong political force.”
Finally, “Once you have documentation and the war ends, and it has to end at some point, you can use that to try to get something (in exchange for) the damage in terms of compensation, reparations, restoration,” he said.
‘So much to do’
After returning to the United States, Kozak worked on her capstone project in peace studies, drawing on her experience with the Register of Damage and her own research. She also presented at the 2025 Ukrainian Studies Conference, titled “Revolutions of Hope: Resilience and Recovery in Ukraine,” dedicated to the ethics and politics of hope in contemporary Ukraine (see pages 28-39).
Through the participation of
Ukrainians themselves, the conference helped to put a face on the conflict.
Looking ahead, Kozak hopes to return to the Register of Damage and, ultimately, to Ukraine as well.
“There is so much to do in Ukraine, even to rebuild it,” she said. “I will spend my whole life (contributing to the cause of Ukraine) and not even contribute one percent because the scale of destruction is so much.”
“It’s not a war about territory. ... We’re fighting for our identity, for our right to live in our own country, to speak our own language, to not switch to Russian.”
– Khrystyna Kozak ’25 MGA
FACING PAGE: Khrystyna Kozak, a graduate student in peace studies, who is from Ukraine, spent the fall 2024 semester working for the Register of Damage for Ukraine in the Netherlands. (Photo by Michael Caterina/University of Notre Dame) ABOVE: Kozak in the Netherlands. (Image provided)
Read the full story at go.nd.edu/Lublin25
Lublin as a site and symbol of Jewish presence
By Sophia Rockwell ’25
It is rare for any student, let alone an undergraduate, to be able to pursue independent research, develop close faculty mentorship outside their field, and study internationally with field experts. However, the Nanovic Institute of European Studies has offered me just such opportunities, expanding my worldview in and beyond the classroom.
I study environmental science and global affairs, and my first exposure to European studies came from a course taught by Dr. Abigail Lewis, executive director of the Council for European Studies and affiliated scholar at the Nanovic Institute, titled Mobilizing Memory: The Politics of Memory in Modern Europe. My classmates and I engaged with primary and scholarly material on how history and trauma shape European identities and cultures today.
I was thrilled to hear about the first session of the Lublin: Site and Symbol of Jewish Presence summer program. Four students from the University of Notre Dame traveled with our advisors, Dr. Lewis and Rev. James Lies, C.S.C., to Lublin, Poland, to learn alongside students from John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin (KUL) for a fourteen-day program focused on the study, reckoning, and celebration of Jewish identities throughout the complicated history of Lublin.
For centuries, Lublin was a hub of Jewish life, manifested through art, food, music, architecture, education, and religious celebrations. During the German occupation, starting in 1939, Lublin became a site of atrocity. Lublin is currently undergoing efforts to honor, remember, and pay tribute to the Jews who formed the city and were the victims of such evil. Jewish culture and history are deeply interwoven in the fabric of Lublin’s identity.
During the trip, we read and discussed Polish Jewish literature and learned about the impact of Jewish
composers on Polish classical music by attending public concerts and speaking with KUL professors. We attended film and theater performances highlighting the lives of Polish Jews and engaged with sites of historical importance, throughout the city both present and no longer present.
The program faculty’s dedication to immersing us in the culture, scholarship, and history of Lublin and the Polish Jewish identity enriched our experience in Poland. Local experts challenged us to deeply engage with the stories and topics we explored. Our classrooms extended into the vibrant city streets, allowing us to be immersed each day in Lublin’s past and present.
The impact of the Lublin program would have been drastically different without the cross-cultural exchange that we engaged in with our Polish peers. Our cohort developed authentic relationships with them that promoted learning outside of the structured academic program. I am hopeful that these relationships lay the foundation for further collaboration in which American universities can reciprocate and host their European student collaborators for continued intercultural communication.
Participating in the first cohort of the Lublin summer program is an opportunity I will cherish forever. By making the world seem a bit smaller and more attainable to explore, I not only have grown as a student but also as a global citizen engaged in dialogue surrounding our world’s most pressing issues.
Sophia Rockwell ’25 is a Notre Dame alumna who majored in environmental science and global affairs. At Notre Dame, she was a leader of the Kellogg Developing Researchers Programs, a program assistant at the Gender Relations Center, and a student manager of the Notre Dame Men’s Lacrosse team.
The program faculty’s dedication to immersing us in the culture, scholarship, and history of Lublin and the Polish Jewish identity enriched our experience in Poland.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Museum inside the Grodzka Gate. The Jewish cemetery in Lublin.This statue is on the main street of Lublin, a representation of the Magician of Lublin from Isaac Bashevis Singer’s famous novel. (Photos by Sophia Rockwell)
Catholic Church of Our Lady of Sorrows in the north of the village. Status in 2024.
Centering the ‘peripheries’ in Partizánska Ľupča, Slovakia
By Will Beattie ’24 Ph.D.
Read the full story at go.nd.edu/ PartizanskaLupca
The population of Partizánska Ľupča, a village nestled in mountainous northern Slovakia, has been slowly decreasing over the years, from its peak of about 4,000 residents when it served as an important mining town from the 14th to 19th centuries to about 1,300 residents as of this writing. Sustained by a strong gold-mining industry, it held status as a royal city; once an economic and political center, it has moved to the margins.
According to one resident, “Although we are a large village—huge—we have many empty houses. There isn’t much occupancy here. ... I think that people left for the cities.” There are many reasons for this exodus, including better-paid work and new apartment buildings in the cities. More children now go to school in neighboring towns, and the utilities that once supported the village are dwindling.
Partizánska Ľupča is a village on the peripheries of modern Slovakia. Buses that were once hourly now come just a few times a day, but the roads are still busy. The village’s old kindergarten building has become a retirement center, but young children are now looked after in a newly remodeled kindergarten. For its residents, Partizánska Ľupča remains the center of daily life.
In 2023, the Nanovic Institute launched a pilot study as part of its research interest in “peripheries.” In partnership with Catholic University in Ružomberok, Slovakia, the project is an effort to study marginalized places and communities within Europe. Coordinating this initiative is Marek Babic, associate professor in the Department of History at Catholic University in Ružomberok and visiting scholar at the Nanovic Institute for the 2024-25 academic year.
Babic and his colleagues in Slovakia conducted 25 interviews with residents of Partizánska Ľupča to understand their perspectives on the place and identity of the village over its history. The researchers wanted to understand the culture of memory-making in the village: how residents remember the past, and what they hope for in the future. In addition to these interviews, the researchers created a database of photographic documents of Partizánska Ľupča and its surroundings.
The research team is currently working on a monograph on Partizánska Ľupča. Using historical sources and other scholarly works, the book will chronicle the village’s rich history through the Middle Ages and into the 21st century.
Reflecting on the project, Babic expressed his desire to undertake similar research in the future. The people of Partizánska Ľupča were friendly and proud of their home’s royal history. Residents value the upbringing that they can give their children. As one interviewee said, “There are fewer pitfalls in the village than in the city. It is easier to control things here, we all know each other here, which is sometimes good, but also very bad. We have it under control here.”
The project revealed that, overall, the villagers are proud of their home and its storied history. As Babic and his team put it, “the population consider their village to be a good place to live and believe that young people will continue to return to their homeland, and others will come who will appreciate the natural, geographical and cultural benefits of Partizánska Ľupča, which together create all the conditions for a dignified life.”
“The
population consider their village to be a good place to live and believe ... others will come who will appreciate the natural, geographical, and cultural benefits of Partizánska Ľupča, which together create all the conditions for a dignified life.”
TOP: Aerial view of Partizánska Ľupča from the south. The Western Tatras mountains are visible to the north. CENTER: Lumberjacks in the Partizánska Ľupča Valley. Photo from 1937. BOTTOM: View of the main square in Partizánska Ľupča towards the north. Status in 2024. Buildings in the photo from left to right: Evangelical Church, St. Matthew’s Catholic Church Tower, Cultural House, Slovak National Uprising Memorial.
ABOVE: Map of forest cover from 1935. At that time, the village was called Nemecká Ľupča.
Designing change: Lessons from Serving (in) Europe
By Chaney Fix ’26
hen I applied to the Nanovic Institute’s Serving (in) Europe program, I was open-minded about where and how this service experience would take shape.
When I learned I would serve with Caritas Malta, I knew it would be a life-changing experience; however, I didn’t yet know the impact it would have on how I think about my future career as a marketing major.
In a few brief online meetings before the trip, my internship coordinator, Patrick Harvey, outlined a basic description of my expected duties—a service role in soup kitchens and shelters, which aligned with the kind of hands-on, community-based work I expected to do.
After I arrived in Malta, however, I realized my service work would be quite different. Instead of working directly in homeless shelters or soup kitchens, I was to construct a research project titled “A Minimum Essential Budget for a Decent Standard of Living.” This research study, issued every four years, aimed to define a “decent” standard of living in the country. The project involved compiling data on housing prices, grocery costs, school uniforms, and even the expenses related to raising a newborn or owning a pet, among many other statistics and figures.
My co-intern, Matthew Scherber, and I both had graphic design and research backgrounds. We were assigned to work closely with the research team to design and format the report ensuring the layout was engaging.
“As a marketing and global affairs major, my placement at Caritas Malta opened my eyes to the many ways I can use my studies to be a force for good in the world.”
While the shift in my work’s focus was unexpected, it resulted in an incredibly fulfilling experience with far-reaching implications for Malta’s most vulnerable populations.
This report will be used to advocate for policy changes, raising awareness about the true costs of living for individuals and families struggling to make ends meet. Because of this, our work felt meaningful, and I knew the resource we created would inspire social change.
Even outside the office, the Caritas Malta team took great care of us. We met their families and loved ones and shared in their celebrations. During breaks from work, I made sure to explore Malta’s vibrant culture and stunning landscapes. Its crystal-clear waters and beautiful beaches were among the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.
I could not have predicted what I would experience among the people of Malta, but it turned out to be the perfect experience for this time in my life as I consider my career path.
As a marketing and global affairs major, my placement at Caritas Malta opened my eyes to the many ways I can use my studies to be a force for good in the world.
I’m grateful to Notre Dame, the Nanovic Institute, and Caritas Malta for this opportunity. It taught me valuable lessons about the importance of community, resilience, adaptability, and the beauty of the small but strong nation of Malta.
Chaney Fix ’26 is a Notre Dame student majoring in global affairs and marketing. Likewise, Matthew Scherber ’27 is majoring in theology and global affairs with minors in French and European studies. He is also a member of the Nanovic Institute’s student assistant team.
The front cover of the research study published by Caritas Malta.
A photograph of the Caritas Malta graduation celebration.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day
To mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Nanovic institute invited journalist and author Helen Epstein to speak on her book, Franci’s War (Penguin, 2020). The daughter of two Holocaust survivors, Epstein specializes in writing about intergenerational trauma. Franci’s War is an edited edition of her mother’s memoir, which recounts how she survived the Holocaust and highlights a generational history of women in the Holocaust.
In the talk, Epstein reflected on ways of remembering the Holocaust, noting that there are different methods depending on one’s nationality, but that she herself is biased towards books. She also addressed the powers of memory, education, and resilience in her mother’s story, highlighting the importance of the relationships with other women, which helped her mother survive. The talk concluded by reflecting on the complexities of human nature, examining how resilience is intertwined with damage and trauma that can be carried through generations.
The Nanovic Film Series: Europe Through Film
Now a longstanding tradition, the Nanovic Film Series continued this year, supported by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies. During both the fall and spring semesters, a course titled Europe Through Film facilitated the public film series and offered students the opportunity to explore the continent using cinema’s distinctive lens.
In the fall semester, James Collins, professor of film studies, led the course and selected the films. He also was able to secure remarks from Emmanuel Gras (Un Peuple, 2022) and introductions and remarks from many faculty members across campus, including:
• Tobias Boes, professor of German and chair of the Department of German, Slavic, and Eurasian Studies;
• Vittorio Hösle, Paul G. Kimball Professor of Arts and Letters;
• Sarah Edmands Martin, associate professor of design;
• Olivier Morel, associate professor of film studies; and
* Indicates a Nanovic Institute student assistant.
• Tetyana Shlikhar, teaching professor and director of undergraduate studies for Slavic and Eurasian studies.
Then in the spring semester, Olivier Morel, associate professor of film studies, led the course exploring further aspects of European cinema, focusing on the portrayal of the experiences of marginalized populations in film. During the screening of Dahomey (2024), Jordan Gieger joined to speak on the aftereffects of colonization and the history of the kingdom. Daryl Mifsud ’26 MGA, a student from Malta, co-hosted the screening of Luzzu (2021), highlighting the significance of spotlighting the Maltese film community, given the island’s relatively small population and exposure to international audiences.
Clemens Sedmak (left), director of the Nanovic Institute, with Helen Epstein.
Welcoming a New University President
During the 2024-25 academic year, the University of Notre Dame marked a historic moment with the inauguration of Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., as its 18th president. Two full days of events led up to the formal installation on September 13, 2024.
During the Inauguration Mass, Clemens Sedmak, director of the Nanovic Institute and professor of social ethics at the Keough School of Global Affairs, offered a reading from Proverbs 8:22–31, which describes how God created Wisdom long before all the wonders of the Earth and how it came to humanity. These words were a fitting way to celebrate the wisdom and leadership of Father Dowd, both as a longtime friend of the institute and in his future years as president of the University.
Fittingly, Father Dowd’s inaugural address envisioned Notre Dame as a place of thoughtful, constructive conversations—a community where compassion and moral courage thrive. He said, “So this is who we are, and who we are called to be. Seekers of truth. Sustainers of hope. Builders of bridges. Extending and expanding these gifts we’ve been given—to others and to the world.”
This vision continues to resonate deeply with the Nanovic Institute’s mission to build connections between Notre Dame and Europe.
Inauguration Week also offered a unique opportunity. While on campus and accompanied by his daughter Becky Nanovic, Dr. Robert Nanovic, founding benefactor
students gather to hear from Robert Nanovic, founding benefactor of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, during his visit
of the institute, met with students who had participated in a wide range of Nanovic Institute initiatives.
Recognizing that they were becoming “artisans of a new humanity,” Bob Nanovic and the institute team asked what they might craft together in the future. The meeting was structured as a listening session. Nanovic asked the students about their studies, how Europe was part of their journeys, and what more the institute could do.
In turn, Bob Nanovic offered insights from his own life, emphasizing adaptability and the centrality of relationships in his professional and personal life. In a sense, his experiences echoed Father Dowd’s call to build bridges on an individual level. He recounted how his career path was not always linear, but through trust and support for the people he believed in, a path opened.
Alongside members of the institute staff, Nanovic was deeply interested in the students’ input on future programs and opportunities, a fitting expression of the institute’s enduring commitment to students.
BELOW: University of Notre Dame President Emeritus Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., and President Emeritus Rev. Edward A. “Monk” Malloy, C.S.C., offer a prayer of blessing over University of Notre Dame President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., at the Convocation and Inauguration Ceremony (Photo by Matt Cashore/University of Notre Dame). Below this image, the Nanovic Institute team poses with Notre Dame students, Robert Nanovic, and Becky Nanovic.
ABOVE: University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., greets his Holy Cross brothers after the Inauguration Mass (Photo by Matt Cashore/University of Notre Dame). Below this photo,
for Father Dowd’s inauguration.
Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C
New Fellows
Dror Baitel
Assistant Professor of the Practice of Collaborative Piano
Christina Bambrick
Filip Family Assistant Professor of Political Science
David Bird
Assistant Professor of Music Technology and Digital Media
Marc S. Jacob
Assistant Professor of Democracy and Global Affairs
Matthew Knight
Irish Studies Librarian and Curator, Hesburgh Libraries
Rachel Patt
Assistant Professor of Art History
Alessandro Pierattini
Associate Professor of Architecture
Davin Raiha
Associate Teaching Professor of Economics
Leo Varadkar Visit to the Nanovic Institute
* Indicates a Nanovic Institute student assistant.
On September 20, 2024, Deputy Leo Varadkar, former Taoiseach of Ireland (2017–20, 2022–24) and member of parliament in Dáil Eireann, visited Notre Dame’s Keough School for Global Affairs to take part in a public discussion on civic life and the political future of Ireland, as a vital part of Europe and transatlantic partner with the US. During his visit, the Nanovic Institute hosted a discussion between Mr. Varadkar and its students and those of the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies.
Dror Baitel
Christina Bambrick
David Bird
Matthew Knight Rachel Patt
Alessandro Pierattini Davin Raiha
Marc S. Jacob
Keeley Vatican Lecture with Rev. Msgr. Anthony Ekpo
In February 2025, the Nanovic Institute welcomed Rev. Msgr. Anthony Onyemuche Ekpo, Undersecretary of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, to campus to deliver the prestigious Keeley Vatican Lecture.
Msgr. Ekpo’s talk, “The Reform of the Roman Curia and the Promotion of Integral Human Development,” explored the history of papal reforms to the Holy See’s central administrative body, the Roman Curia. He also discussed Pope Francis’s establishment of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development in 2016. This dicastery coordinates the Holy See’s work to “promote the integral development of the person in light of the Gospel and in line with the Social Doctrine of the Church.” These efforts fall into a variety of categories, including engagement with issues of human rights, disarmament, health, migration and displacement, and much more. Msgr. Ekpo remarked that the work of his dicastery has recently been inspired by the scholarship of Nanovic Institute Director Clemens Sedmak in Enacting Integral Human Development (Orbis, 2023).
Through this lecture series, the Nanovic Institute continues to deepen Notre Dame’s connection to the Holy See by bringing distinguished representatives from the Vatican to Notre Dame to explore questions that pertain directly to Notre Dame’s Catholic mission. Msgr. Ekpo’s presence on campus and message allowed the institute to further engage with the Keough School of Global Affairs’s commitment to integral human development.
German Consul General
for the Federal Republic of Germany.
Urszula Soler, associate professor in the Department of Political Science and Administration at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin in Poland, was a visiting scholar during the spring 2025 semester and joined the conversation (Both photos here and photos on the facing page by Ryan Juszkiewicz / University of Notre Dame).
On April 3, 2025, Michael Ahrens, Consul General in Chicago for the Federal Republic of Germany, met with leaders and faculty fellows from the Nanovic Institute while visiting campus. The conversation centered around the institute’s growing diplomacy programs and the resources and partnerships the consulate might have available as these initiatives grow.
ABOVE: Michael Ahrens, Consul General in Chicago
RIGHT:
ABOVE: Msgr. Ekpo speaks with graduate students during an informal meeting during his visit. LEFT: Msgr. Ekpo delivers the 2025 Keeley Vatican Lecture (Photo by Peter Ringenberg / University of Notre Dame).
Undergraduate students create a digital exhibition that explores the climate crisis in art
By Will Beattie ’24 Ph.D.
IIn May 2025, the Nanovic Institute for European Studies released a student-created digital exhibition titled “Unveiling the Climate Apocalypse.” It was created by an undergraduate research group organized by the institute during the fall 2024 and spring 2025 semesters.
Five students each wrote about an artist, author, or text and their response to the climate crisis. Some, like Banksy, are household names. Others, like the video game Anno 2070, are less likely to be the subject of an academic essay. This project puts these texts into conversation in new ways to fully explore our response to the climate crisis.
Encountering sunken life-sized sculptures off the Grenadian coast. Exploring an ice cave in Iceland. Walking past enormous blocks of Greenland ice, slowly melting under the shrouded sun of Copenhagen. Controlling an outpost of the last surviving humans in a video game. Studying satirical adaptations of famous paintings while navigating a horde of rats. Or reading a call to action by a lifelong climate campaigner and political leader. Each brings the viewer into a different relationship with the subject of climate change, and each asks—even demands—different responses from its audience.
geographical, cultural, or artistic context, each student wrote a compelling analysis of the impact such works have on the public.
As one student reflected on the project, “especially being unrelated to my major, it’s allowed me to expand my perspective and approach to learning.” These same skills will support the researchers as they continue their studies.
“We are facing a lot of the same problems people had to contend with a thousand years ago: food insecurity, political instability, disease, and war.”
I had the pleasure of leading this project and working with our students to bring it to fruition. My own research is on Old English literature, particularly homilies that center on the apocalypse. People often speculate that my research must feel particularly relevant today, and in many ways, they are right. We are facing a lot of the same problems people had to contend with a thousand years ago: food insecurity, political instability, disease, and war. We have had to deal with climate change before, but the speed and scale in our current moment are unique. Our circumstances raise difficult questions: How do we as individuals respond to climate change? What ought we do? This project is part of that discussion, and though things can look bleak at times, we end with hope and optimism.
The students came from many academic disciplines: aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, computing and digital technology studies, political science, marketing, and global affairs. By reading and using critical theory from literature and art history, and by close-reading the media texts within their
As with previous Nanovic exhibitions, this project will remain online indefinitely as a unique research outcome. In addition to this online collection, the students also presented their work to the Notre Dame community at the Nanovic Institute’s second annual Undergraduate Research Conference in European Studies on March 28, 2025.
“The New Jerusalem” scene, panel from the Apocalypse Tapestry, commissioned by Louis I, the Duke of Anjou, and woven in Paris between 1377 and 1382. It is held at Musée de la Tapisserie, Château d’Angers, Angers, France. Public Domain.
Project Leader
Will Beattie
Student Researchers
Catherine Paris ’27
Monay Licata ’25
Dani Fielding ’28
Anna Massman ’28
Jane Palmer ’26
Jason deCaires Taylor, “Rising Tide,” 2015. www.underwatersculpture.com. Used with permission. View the full exhibition at go.nd.edu/ ClimateApocalypse
Pictured left to right:
A Fable of Tomorrows: Time and ephemerality in Norwegian folktales
By Salvo Riolo, Nanovic Institute Graduate Fellow and editor of Europe in the World
On November 13th, 2024, the Nanovic Institute hosted a thought-provoking lecture by Sarah Edmands Martin, associate professor of design and a Nanovic Institute faculty fellow, on her project “A Fable of Tomorrows.” This installation intertwines video projection, interactive sculpture, and video game design to explore the experience of time through folktales and riddles. The lecture was part of the 2024-25 lecture series “The Art and Scholarship of Academic Storytelling.”
Designing the experience of time
The project stemmed from a Fulbright affiliate position in digital research in Bergen, Norway. Its goal was to explore the encounter between sociopolitical structure and folktale and challenge the preestablished narrative that these social constructs are fixed within the cultural roots of Western societies.
To pursue this vision, Martin’s work uses different materials and media from analog to digital. She explores the intersection between visual communication, media aesthetics, and speculative design in the installation.
The Viewer in Time and Space
Entering the installation space, video projection renders what time itself might look like for different life forms. It uses nature and folk elements to reframe the inherited human-centric perception of time. At the center of the room, an enigmatic sculpture beckons viewers. Viewers can interact with this paper-made sculpture with their smartphones, through an NFC chip, and access a riddle game that is solved by answering puzzles and then waiting a specific amount of time for subsequent puzzles to appear. The last riddle is meant to appear in 100 years, making the game last more than a human lifespan.
Every riddle in this game is drawn from the folk tradition of Norway. Using speculative design as a method to engage with the archive, Martin renders the coexistence of human memory, digital media, and the ancient folktale.
The latter, Martin claims, has an innate darkness in dealing with the idea of temporality and the ephemerality of human nature. Indeed, folktales serve an educational purpose while outliving their at-times anonymous authors who created them. The social role in the creation of these stories and riddles reveals a collective meaning-making of profound existential questions. Such interrogatives transcend individual and religious values, demonstrating a shared human nature in perceiving and coping with the idea of time and mortality.
Lingering Voices
To begin, the game opens with a significant riddle: “What is so delicate that it breaks as soon as you name it?”
The answer: Silence.
The initial interaction with the game is an act of noise that disrupts the dominant silence of human absence. Just like in folktales, the viewer’s active participation breaks this barrier of silence, tapping into traditions that outlive individual experiences.
Join the Story...
Do you want to experience the game and take part in the great narration of time?
In addition to this session, the Art and Scholarship of Academic Storytelling series also included:
• A performance and Q&A with the North African dance group Kif-Kif Bledi (October 13, 2024), facilitated by Nanovic Faculty Fellow Madison Mainwaring, assistant professor of French and Francophone studies
• A pre- and post-show discussion with members of Actors From the London Stage’s performance of Twelfth Night (November 1, 2024), with discussions led by Jennifer Thorup Birkett, postdoctoral research associate for Shakespeare at Notre Dame, and Scott Jackson, Mary Irene Ryan Family Executive Artistic Director of Shakespeare at Notre Dame.
TOP: A wide view of the full exhibit showcasing the use of immersive video. ABOVE LEFT: The pedestal in the exhibit beckons visitors and then introduces them to the riddle game. ABOVE: A visitor begins the riddle game. (All photos provided by Sarah Edmands Martin.)
The environmental dimension of the conflict in Ukraine
By Ewa Rejman ’25 J.D.
During the 2025 Ukrainian Studies Conference, “Revolutions of Hope: Resilience and Recovery in Ukraine,” a panel of scholars addressed the environmental aspects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine through various viewpoints. This panel was chaired by Diane Desierto, professor of law and global affairs at the University of Notre Dame, and the panelists were:
• Kristina Hook (Kennesaw State University);
• Carl Bruch (Environmental Law Institute);
• Olga Degtiareva (Odesa National University of Economics);
• Albina Dioba (Copenhagen Business School); and
• Natalia Slobodian (Canterbury Christ Church University).
Layers and intent
Hook highlighted that the environmental impact of the war manifests across multiple layers and “arenas,”
including energy, air, water, soil, natural landscapes, and urban settings. The war’s victims span various categories— not only Ukrainians, but also the natural world. Hook underscored the importance of assessing intent in cases of environmental damage, distinguishing between collateral effects and deliberate targeting. She concluded with a message of hope, acknowledging the resilience of the Ukrainian people—while also lamenting the tragic reality that they are forced to be so resilient.
Bruch also emphasized the importance of evaluating intent in cases of environmental damage. He noted establishing criminal responsibility requires proving specific individuals either intended the damage or were at least aware of it and failed to take action to prevent it, despite having the ability to do so. However, Bruch highlighted several challenges that must be addressed, such as assessing environmental damage in areas not under territorial control, navigating issues of military necessity and proportionality, identifying individual perpetrators, and securing long-term funding for compensation.
Abandoned Russian military equipment, like this tank, has a significant negative impact on Ukraine’s natural ecosystem, as highlighted in Natalia Slobodian’s presentation (Adobe Stock / Education License).
Despite these difficulties, he stressed that even “rough justice” can be a crucial step toward achieving lasting peace.
Assessing and planning for restoration
Degtiareva and Dioba highlighted empirical data and statistics illustrating the impact of the war in Ukraine. For instance, as of the time they prepared their presentation, shortly before the conference, there had been 309 attacks on physical energy infrastructure since February 2022—a number that has since increased. The speakers emphasized the critical need for decentralizing Ukraine’s energy system to enhance sustainability, adaptability, and resilience against external threats.
Slobodian, the final speaker, focused on environmental restoration, including the concept of environmental peacebuilding. This approach involves integrating education and cultural initiatives with a gender-sensitive perspective. She stressed the importance of ongoing
discussions on reparations for environmental harm, particularly as awareness of environmental damage continues to grow among Ukrainians.
Reflecting on these discussions, I could feel the weight of the war not just as an abstract policy issue, but as a human tragedy crossing many dimensions. The efforts to remedy the harm should be part of a common endeavor, not only because of the need for solidarity among people and nations, but also because of the consequences that degradation of one nation’s environment in wartime might have for the stability of our shared human ecosystem.
Plainly, it seems, the “Revolutions of Hope” referenced in the conference theme must take into account the environment as well; by taking an honest assessment of what is happening, we set ourselves on the path toward solutions.
Read the full story and watch the panel at go.nd.edu/ EnvironmentUkraine
Reflecting on these discussions, I could feel the weight of the war not just as an abstract policy issue, but as a human tragedy crossing many dimensions.
Panelists (pictured left to right): Carl Bruch, Olga Degtiareva, Albina Dioba, and Kristina Hook.
With hope
In his last book, Italian journalist Tiziano Terzano talks about hope as a scarce good, a good people desperately need.
In May 2025, the Nanovic Institute co-organized a conference in Rome titled “A Theology of Hope For and From Ukraine.” This collaboration between Ukrainian Catholic University, the Gregorian University, Notre Dame Rome, and the Nanovic Institute was an expression of solidarity, faith, and intellectual encounters.
In February 2025, we had entered the fourth year after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. After so many tragedies, there is a profound need for hope, and the many testimonies of Ukrainian courage are a source of hope for us.
Hope is not a luxury good; it is as important as the air we breathe. In a milestone case in the European Court of Human Rights (Vinter vs UK), one Irish judge, Ann Power-Forde, famously talked about the right to hope: To deny persons the experience of hope would be to deny a fundamental aspect of their humanity.
Hope is, I would suggest, the grounded and committed expectation of future transformation. Any academic teacher needs to be full of hope. Any student entering the university is hopeful. A university is an institution dedicated to cultivating hope—hope for knowledge, wisdom, truth, community, and learning.
The Nanovic Institute is part of the Keough School of Global Affairs, which is dedicated to integral human development. In this vital commitment, hope plays a critical role as a driving force of human effort and, thus, integral human development.
We are grateful for the hope that we have been encouraged to cultivate. Our Ukrainian Studies Hub, with its projects and encounters, has become a source of humbling hope for us.
We have seen many other ways hope can manifest in this issue:
• Hope for a better criminal justice system can drive our research, service, and career passions.
• Hope for justice for Crimea and the Crimean Tatars can move us to produce meaningful scholarship that makes a difference.
• Hope for the next generation of scholars can inspire an Italian urban ethics professor to invest in the lives of students at Notre Dame.
• Hope for a better life for everyone in Malta can enliven the rigorous statistical work of Caritas Malta and the Notre Dame students who work with them.
The Nanovic Institute was established by Robert “Bob” Nanovic and the late Elizabeth “Liz” Nanovic more than thirty years ago with the hope of transforming students’ lives. This is still our hope, still our mission.
University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., has identified “Cultivating Hope” as the theme for the 2025–26 Notre Dame Forum. As members of a Catholic University, we see hope in dark times, in the cross: Ave crux, spes unica.
I would like to suggest that any deep community is both a community of memory and a community of hope. Our institute will make an effort to strengthen the hope of our students that this world can be transformed.
Every gesture of support is a source of hope. Please accept my gratitude for all the sources of hope we can draw from.
With grateful wishes,
– Clemens Sedmak
Staff
Clemens Sedmak
Director, Nanovic Institute for European Studies, and Professor of Social Ethics
Grant Osborn
Executive Director
Will Beattie
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Roy Kimmey
Program Manager, Student Research and Academic Affairs
Jacob Kildoo
Senior Research Program Manager
Rev. James Lies, C.S.C.
Senior Advisor for Faculty Fellow Affairs and Partnerships
Hildegund Müller
Senior Liaison for Research and Curricular Affairs, and Associate Professor of Classics
Morgan Munsen
Senior Research and Partnerships
Program Manager
Rebekah Prince
Program Manager, Events and Operations
Annie Seul
Program Manager, Internal Grants and Academic Administration
