The Third Oxford-Georgia Forum
Georgia’s European Aspirations: The Role of Soft Power and Public Diplomacy
Announcing The Third Oxford-Georgia Forum organised by the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA).
The annual forum serves as a dynamic platform, enhancing partnership initiatives between Georgia and the UK, and calls on expertise from across the academic disciplines, including but not limited to political science, international relations, history, literature, archaeology, cinematography, cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, economics and business. This year, the forum will be focused on the current political crisis in Georgia, Georgia’s European aspirations and perspectives, role of soft power and public diplomacy.
This event is open to the public. Please register here.
Image courtesy of Oto Gvritishvili
Programme
10:00am-10:30 pm: Coffee and Tea
10:30am-10:45 am: Welcome and introduction
· Professor Paul Chaisty, Head of Oxford School of Global and Area Studies
· Dr Zbigniew Wojnowski, Head of the Georgian Studies Programme at OSGA
Panel I
10:45 am-11:45am: Georgia’s Relations with the EU and UK in a Changing Geopolitical Landscape
The speakers will discuss current political crisis in Georgia and Georgia’s relations with the EU and UK amid a dynamic geopolitical landscape in the region. Dr Natalie Sabanadze will speak about the current political crisis in Georgia following the adoption of the so-called “foreign influence” bill by the Georgian Parliament. Dr Max Fras will also talk about the ongoing protest in Georgia and the involvement of the Georgian youth in it. Based on a chapter on Georgia from his most recent book on political technologies, Professor Andrew Wilson will discuss internal political dynamics and consolidation of power in Georgia amid pro-European protests. Finally, Professor Roy Allisson will comment on Georgia’s current foreign policy and challenges it faces in terms of the Euro-Atlantic integration of the country.
Chair: Professor Paul Chaisty
· Dr Natalie Sabanadze, Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House, Former Ambassador of Georgia to EU
· Dr Max Fras, London School of Economics
· Professor Andrew Wilson, University College London
· Professor Roy Allison, Director of the Russian and Eurasian Studies Centre at Oxford
Panel 2
11:45-12:45: Keynote Speech - ‘‘Georgia's Contested European Trajectory: Instrumentalisation of Europeanisation Discourses by Political and Media Actors’’
Professor Lia Tsuladze, Tbilisi State University
12:45-13:45 Lunch
Panel 3
13:45-14:45: Cultural and Public Diplomacy
The third panel will focus on different research and cultural projects and initiatives at the University of Oxford that are aimed at the in-depth study and promotion of Georgian culture, history and language. This year’s Georgian Fellows Dr Teona Lomsadze and Dr Svetlana Berikashvili, funded by the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia, will present their research projects at Oxford. Teona’s project is focused on the study of Georgian folk music in the UK while Svetlana is working on the description and digitalisation of Bodleian manuscripts of Georgian grammar and language studies. Alexander Sherborne will be speaking about the research trip of the Oxford University Byzantine Society to Georgia and the prospects for Medieval Georgian Studies at Oxford. Finally, Dr Anna Wilson will present a new and advanced pipeline of tools for analysing human communication at speed and scale with the focus on the comparative study of Georgian speech and co-speech gesture in media. This research forms part of the international project “World Futures: Multimodal Viewpoint Construction by Russian International Media” which Dr Wilson co-leads, and may be of interest to researchers from humanities and social sciences working with Georgian videos.
Chair: Zbigniew Wojnowski, Head of the Georgian Studies Programme at OSGA
· Dr Teona Lomsadze, Georgian Studies Fellow at Oxford
· Dr Svetlana Berikashvili, Georgian Studies Fellow at Oxford
· Alexander Sherborne, DPhil Student at Oxford & the President of the Oxford University Byzantine Society
· Dr Anna Wilson, Director of the International Multimodal Communication Centre at Oxford
Panel 4
14:45-15:30: Georgian Studies Program at Harvard University
At the fourth panel, Professor Stephen Jones will introduce the newly-established Georgian Studies Programme at Harvard University and various research initiatives and projects there. Then Alex Jackson, a PhD Student at Harvard University, who also studies Georgian language there, will present his doctoral project ‘Our Brothers Across the Mountains: A History of Black Georgians’.
Chair: Megi Kartsivadze, DPhil Student at the University of Oxford
· Professor Stephen Jones, Head of the Georgian Studies Programme at Harvard University
· Alex Jackson, PhD Student at Harvard University
15:30-16:00 Coffee break
Panel 5
16:00-17:00: Book launch: The translation of Goderdzi Chokheli’s ‘Human Sadness’
The fifth panel will be dedicated to the recent translation of Goderdzi Chokheli’s ‘Human Sadness’ completed by the Oxford Georgian Translation Project run by Lia Chokoshvili. Lia and the translators involved in the project will talk about the translation process. After that, Maya Jaggi will discuss translating Georgian literature in the context of soft power.
Chair: Professor Dan Healey, Professor of Modern Russian History at Oxford
. Lia Chokoshvili, Georgian Programme Language Instructor and the Head of the Oxford Georgian Translation Project
· Dr Geoffrey Gosby, translator
· Walker Thompson, translator
. Margaret Miller - translator
. Ollie Matthews – translator
· Dr Maya Jaggi, Founding Director of the Oxford Literary Festival's programme of Georgian literature and culture; an award- winning journalist and contributing art critic for FT.
Panel 6
17:00-18:00: Georgian Scholars and Students at Oxford
At the final panel, Georgian professors and students at the University of Oxford will discuss their current work and experience here.
Chair: Talia Kollek, DPhil Student at the University of Oxford
· Dr Tamar Koplatadze, Associate Professor in Postsocialist Literature and Culture at Oxford
· Professor Maia Chankseliani, Associate Professor of Comparative and International Education at Oxford
· Sophia Maisashvili, President of Georgian Society at Oxford
· Luka Shanidze, student at Oxford
· Miriam Yakobashvili, student at Oxford