Contesting the memory of the Holocaust: Loss of lived memory and the rise of the far-right populism The 75 th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz took place under ominous signs: There is a troubling rise in anti-Semitism and right-wing nationalists contest the memory of the Holocaust challenging its fundamental meaning for Europe’s...

By Oliver Schmidtke , Director at the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria Under normal circumstances regional elections in Italy remain widely unnoticed by international observers. Yet, these are not normal times in Italian politics. The country is currently governed by a fragile coalition between the centre left (Democratic...

Young Scholar Essay Contest: POPULISM: a corrective or a threat to democracy? Young scholars at Canadian universities are encouraged to participate in a discussion on democracy and populism T he rise of populism from the right and the left has fundamentally challenged traditional party politics in Europe and North America. Established centrist...

Canadian experts on memory and politics at the University of Victoria have launched a new Jean Monnet Network “European Memory Politics: Populism, Nationalism and the Challenges to a European Memory Culture (EuMePo)” jointly with scholars from Europe focusing on timely and urgent questions related to populism and the politics of memory in Europe....

Oliver Schmidtke, Director of centre for Global Studies, reflects on the top international stories of 2019 in an end-of-year special on CTV News. https://www.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1863373

By Benjamin Perrier, Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria France is in the midst of yet another massive political unrest. The Yellow Vest movement, which began in November 2018 - and continues today – is also a driving force behind the current general strike against the planned reform of France’s pension system. The Yellow...

Young Scholar Essay Contest: POPULISM: a corrective or a threat to democracy? Young scholars at Canadian universities are encouraged to participate in a discussion on democracy and populism T he rise of populism from the right and the left has fundamentally challenged traditional party politics in Europe and North America. Established centrist...

By Tom Junes, Marie Curie Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence Poland was long seen as the poster child of the post-1989 transition in Central and Eastern Europe. Consequentially, for commentators, policy-makers, and scholars alike, it served as a model for European integration and the EU enlargement to the East. At present,...