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The Department of Political Studies Presents The Sir Edward Peacock Professor of Nationalism and Democracy Studies Inaugural Lecture

Zsuzsa Csergő - Sir Edward Peacock Professor of Nationalism and Democracy Studies, ����ֱ�� Department of Political Studies 

Between Protection and Control: The Politics of Kin-State Activism in Central and Eastern Europe

Thursday, March 6, 2025 

2:30-4:00 PM

Robert Sutherland Hall, Room 202

Light refreshments served

Biography: 

Zsuzsa Csergő (PhD in Political Science, The George Washington University, 2000) is The Sir Edward Peacock Professor of Nationalism and Democracy Studies in the Department of Political Studies at Queen’s University. She specializes in the study of nationalism and contemporary challenges to democracy, with particular expertise on Central and Eastern Europe. Before joining the Queen’s faculty, she was Assistant Professor of Political Science and Coordinator of the Women’s Leadership Program in U.S. and International Politics at the George Washington University. From 2013-2020, she was President of the , the largest international scholarly association in the field of nationalism and ethnicity studies. She currently serves as Director of the association’s online initiative, “.”

Dr. Csergő's research contributes to the understanding of tensions between nationalism and democracy in multiethnic societies. Her articles about nationalism, majority-minority relations, kin-state politics, and minority democratic agency in the EU context have appeared in leading journals in her field, including Perspectives on Politics, Foreign Policy, Publius, Nations and Nationalism, Europe-Asia Studies, Problems of Post-Communism, East European Politics and Societies, and other venues. She is the author of Talk of the Nation: Language and Conflict in Romania and Slovakia (Cornell University Press, 2007), co-editor and co-author of collaborative volumes (books and special issues) focused on Europeanization and minority political agency, and Central and East European politics. She is currently writing a book about the sources of minority democratic agency in majoritarian states, based on comparative research on six linguistic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe (Hungarians in Romania and Slovakia, Poles in Lithuania, and Russophones in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania).

Dr. Csergő leads the comparative Minority Institutions Database, which officially launched in March, 2023. She is also the Principal Investigator of a collaborative research project entitled “” (funded by SSHRC), focused on Montreal, Brussels, Belfast, and Vilnius. Additionally, Csergő is a General Editor of the , and a member of , hosted at the University of Glasgow.

To learn more about Dr. Csergő, visit her faculty profile.

The Department of Political Studies Corry Colloquium Speaker Series presents:

Monique Deveaux - University of Guelph

"What if vulnerability is the point? Rethinking the state's role in structural exploitation" 

Thursday, February 27, 2025 

2:30-4:00 PM

Robert Sutherland Hall | Room 448

Light refreshments served

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����ֱ�� the talk:

In public discourse, the exploitation of workers is thought to be a violation of labour laws, typically the outcome of actions by unscrupulous employers. Much labour exploitation, however, happens within larger legal and political structures widely seen as legitimate — notably, immigration regimes and employment programs. Focusing on the plight of migrant workers, I examine the role that states play in deliberately producing and sustaining systemic conditions of structural vulnerability. Reflecting on current political and legal challenges to Canada’s temporary migrant labour programs, I discuss key reforms that advocates seek, despite the knowledge that the vulnerability of migrant workers is intentional. I also consider whether recent legal approaches to holding states accountable for contributing to structures of exploitation can deliver transformational change.

Biography: 

is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy and a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Ethics & Global Social Change at the University of Guelph. 

The Corry Colloquium Speaker Series of the Department of Political Studies presents:

Martha Balaguera - University of Toronto Mississauga 

"Sanctuary encounters: a phenomenological account of civil society's unwitting entanglement in border work" 

Thursday, January 16, 2025 

2:30-4:00 PM

Robert Sutherland Hall | Room 202

Light refreshments served

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Biography: 

’s scholarship focuses on collective political struggles in violent contexts, with an emphasis on transborder activism in the Americas from a feminist perspective. Her first book project (in progress) offers an ethnographic account of migrant encounters with humanitarianism and civil society across what she calls the “integral frontier,” spanning Central America, Mexico and the United States. In it, she theorizes how ordinary people, especially women, LGBTQ+ people, subaltern subjects, and grassroots communities respond with everyday practices of sanctuary and political organizing to forced displacement, confinement and intensified border enforcement. Currently, Martha also has research projects on legal accompaniment at the US-Mexico border, Latin American feminist protest, and trauma-informed methodologies for conducting research with LGBTQ+ migrants.

The March Political Studies Departmental Meeting will be held on Thursday, March 13, 2025 from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. in Robert Sutherland Hall, Room 202.

An agenda will be shared a few days prior to the meeting. This meeting is open to department members only: faculty, staff, adjuncts, post doctoral fellows, and student representatives.

Department of Political Studies Class of 2024 Fall Convocation Reception!

All POLS Fall 2024 graduates and their guests are invited to attend this luncheon reception on Friday, November 15th from 12:30pm to 2:30pm. 

Friday, November 15th | 12:30 – 2:30PM

Robert Sutherland Hall, Room 202  

138 Union Street, Kingston 

Light refreshments will be served

The January Political Studies Departmental Meeting will be held on Thursday, January 9, 2025 from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. in Robert Sutherland Hall, Room 202.

An agenda will be shared a few days prior to the meeting. This meeting is open to department members only: faculty, staff, adjuncts, post doctoral fellows, and student representatives.

The Centre for the Study of Democracy and Diversity Emerging Scholars Present:

Kaitie Jourdeuil - PhD Candidate | Department of Political Studies, ����ֱ��

"Can we decolonize territorial rights? An exploration" 

Monday, November 4, 2024 

2:30-4:00 PM

Robert Sutherland Hall | Room 334

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The Centre for the Study of Democracy and Diversity (CSDD) is pleased to announce its next event, a talk from Kaitie Jourdeuil, a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Studies, titled “Can We Decolonize Territorial Rights? An Exploration”.

Abstract

What does it mean to decolonize territorial jurisdiction in countries like Canada? How can settler political theorists contribute to this process? This talk presents preliminary thoughts on these questions emerging from my dissertation research. Drawing on Indigenous political thought and empirical scholarship, I suggest that decolonization is not a process of redistributing authority, as it is often framed in Canadian political debates and liberal thought, but of changing how settler and Indigenous political communities relate to each other-that is, how we understand territorial jurisdiction itself. I also consider the methodological responsibilities of settler political theorists to contribute to these processes and the implications of these responsibilities for the traditional objects, methods, and arguments of normative political theorizing.

Brief biography

Kaitie Jourdeuil is a SSHRC doctoral scholar in the Department of Political Studies at ����ֱ��, specialising in Political Theory and Canadian Politics. Originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Kaitie joined the Department of Political Studies in 2019 as a Master's student in Political and Legal Thought. She received her Bachelor of Humanities with High Distinction from Carleton University's College of the Humanities, during which she completed a year of study at Cardiff University in Wales.

The November Political Studies Departmental Meeting will be held on Thursday, November 14, 2024, from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. in Robert Sutherland Hall, Room 202.

An agenda will be shared a few days prior to the meeting. This meeting is open to department members only: faculty, staff, adjuncts, post doctoral fellows, and student representatives.