The instrumentalization and undermining of human rights by ultra-conservative movements
18.09.2021, 15:15
Prof. Dr. Kristina Stoeckl (Sociologist, Research Director ERC POstSEcularConflicts, University of Innsbruck)
Prof. Dr. Susanna Mancini (Lawyer, University of Bologna. In her work she deals with issues of law and religion, reproductive rights, the partnership of feminism and multiculturalism)
Prof. Dr. Paul Blokker (Sociologist, Associate Professor with research focus on populism and law in Central and Eastern Europe, University of Bologna)
Moderation: Dr. Gesine Dornblueth (Journalist)
Prof. Dr. Kristina Stoeckl is professor of sociology at the University of Innsbruck and currently principal investigator of the ERC research project POstSEcularConflicts, which investigates the transnational networks of moral conservative actors and the role of Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church therein. Her recent research contributes to an assessment of the consequences of the globalization of the American culture wars and the recent conservative turn in politics in Central and Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet space. She has also written about Russian Orthodoxy and secularism, political and social theories of postsecularity, and religion-state relations. Graduated from Innsbruck University in literature and languages (2001) and from the Central European University in international relations (2003), she holds a PhD from the European University Institute Florence (2007). Her forthcoming book, co-authored with Dmitry Uzlaner, is entitled The Moralist International. Russia in the Global Culture Wars and will be published with Fordham University Press.
Prof. Dr. Susanna Mancini (Ph.D., European University Institute, 1995; JD, University of Bologna, 1991) holds the Chair of Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Bologna School of Law, and is a vice president of the International Association of Constitutional Law. She is interested in exploring how race and gender-related social and cultural constructs have shaped the balance of power and privilege in a liberal society, and in the role of the law in perpetuating and/or combating the marginalization of women and of racial, religious, sexual and linguistic minorities. Her work explores issue of law and religion, reproductive rights, the partnership of feminism and multiculturalism, self-determination and secession. Her latest publications include Constitutions and Religion (Elgar, 2020), The Conscience Wars (Cambridge University Press 2018, with Rosenfeld), Comparative Constitutional Law. Cases and Materials (with Dorsen Rosenfeld, Sajo and Baer, West, 2016) and Constitutional Secularism in an Age of Religious Revival (Oxford University Press, 2014, with Rosenfeld).
Prof. Dr. Paul Blokker is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Business Law at the University of Bologna, in Italy. His research interests include the sociology of constitutional law and of human rights, constitutional change, constitutional and political imaginaries, civic participation, and populism. His publications include the following: Populism, Constituent Power and Constitutional Imagination, (2021) in: Martin Belov (Hrsg.), Populist Constitutionalism and Illiberal Democracies, Intersentia. The Constitution as a Symbol, (2021) in: Elżbieta Hałas, Nicolas Maslowski (Hrsg.), Politics of Symbolization Across Central and Eastern Europe, Peter Lang. Editor: Social Imaginaries (2017).
Dr. Gesine Dornblüth is journalist and was from 2012 to 2017 Moscow based correspondent for Deutschlandfunk, Germany’s nationwide public radio. She owns a PhD in Slavic Literature and has been reporting from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union since the early 90ies with a focus on political analyzes, feature stories and long-term documentaries. In 2020 she did a long story on the World Congress of Families.
