Cultural Studies MA student Aila Spathopoulou presented at a conference in Belgrade on the 6th of December (2014) ‘Engaging Foucault’ organized by the Institute of Philosophy and Social Theory in Belgrade. Her paper titled Heterotopias and Utopias at the border space of Lesvos: Critical reflections on a ‘No- Border’ journey back to Lesvos will be published in June 2015 in the Institute’s Journal. Additionally, she has submitted a paper titled No-border Journeys back to the border space of Lesvos: A migration of struggles on the Aegean, to the Graduate Student Colloquium ‘(Un) mapping the Mediterranean’ organized by the ‘Ocean Crossings’ at the University of Illinois, at Urbana-Campaign.
Click here for the abstract of the paper.
POLS PhD student Ieva Vezbergaite participated in NATO Baltic-Russia Youth Forum that was held in Riga (Latvia) on November 19-22, 2014. The event was organized by NATO Headquarters, Estonian Atlantic Treaty Association, Latvian Transatlantic Organization and Friedrich Ebert Foundation. Ieva has been selected as a participant through highly competitive application process and received full funding to attend the event.
The Baltic-Russia Youth Forum is held annually since 2011 and it marked itself once again as being a successful youth seminar, receiving about 50 students and young professionals from Russia and the Baltic countries and speakers from among highly profiled scholars, intellectuals and officials from universities, governments and international organizations. Due to the fact that Baltic-Russia Youth Forum 2014 was held shortly after the NATO Summit in Wales, the issues and way forward of NATO were given a special emphasis during the discussions at the Forum.
Ieva Vezbergaite has also been selected to participate in United Nations (UN) internship programme and will be an intern for United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Internships offer a small group of outstanding graduate-level students the opportunity to acquire direct exposure to UNDP's work. They are designed to complement development-oriented studies with practical experience in various aspects of multilateral cooperation, but also complements other international studies, including law. Ieva will be working in UNDP Regional Center for Europe and the CIS (eurasia.undp.org) that has been recently relocated to UN Istanbul Regional Hub.