Hosted by the Centre for Nordic Studies at the University of Helsinki

The webinar brings together political and economic historians and human rights scholars to discuss interconnected topics that reshaped the international system and government legitimacy between the Helsinki Final Act in 1975 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Join for free at  http://RB.GY/K4J83A | 15:30 – 18:00 (Helsinki time) | 14:30 – 17:00 (Berlin time) | 13:30 – 16:00 (Lisbon time)

THE SPEAKERS

Ana Mónica Fonseca is a researcher at the Centre for International Studies and Assistant Professor at the History Department at Iscte-University Institute Lisbon. Between 2006 and 2015 she was also a researcher at the New University of Lisbon’s Portuguese Institute for International Relations (IPRI-UNL). Her Ph.D. dissertation (Iscte, 2011) is entitled”É Preciso Regar os Cravos!” A Social-Democracia Alemã e a transição portuguesa para a Democracia (1974-1976) (The Carnations need water now! West German social-democracy and the Portuguese democratization, 1974-1976). Her main research areas are Southern European democratic transitions, Portuguese-German relations during the Cold War, transatlantic relations, German History, democracy promotion, and transnational history.

Bo Stråth was Finnish Academy Professor of Nordic, European and World History at the Helsinki University (2007-14), Professor of Contemporary History at the European University Institute in Florence (1997-2007) and Professor of History at the University of Gothenburg (1990-6). He has published extensively on various aspects of European and global modernity and construction of community. His most recent publications are Europe’s Utopias of Peace: 1815, 1919, 1951 (Bloomsbury, 2016) and European Modernity: A Global Approach (Bloomsbury, 2017, co-authored with Peter Wagner). https://www.bostrath.com

Lars Fredrik Stöcker holds a PhD in History and Civilization from the European University Institute in Florence. Having previously held postdoctoral positions at the University of Tallinn and the University of Uppsala, he has since 2015 been working as a researcher at the Institute of East European History and the Research Centre for the History of Transformatios at the University of Vienna. His current book project focuses on transnational expert cultures and economic reforms in the Estonian SSR during perestroika. Among his latest publications is the monograph Bridging the Baltic Sea: Networks of Resistance and Opposition during the Cold War Era (Lexington Books 2018).

Rasmus Søndergaard is a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies.  His research focuses on US foreign policy. In particular, he examines visions for human rights and democracy promotion in American foreign relations and tensions between liberal values and national security interests. He recently published the book, Reagan, Congress, and Human Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2020), which traces the role of human rights concerns in US foreign policy during the 1980s. He also works on Scandinavian contributions to global debates on human rights and economic inequality in the 1970s.