The Mortara Research Seminar is a forum for top scholars sharing new research on comparative politics and international relations, hosting visiting scholars who present works-in-progress and receive feedback from the audience. This seminar is intended for faculty, researchers, and graduate students from Georgetown’s Government Department and SFS, but invitations are extended to the top scholars of international affairs across the country.
This academic year, professors Diana Kim, Pauliina Patana, Laia Balcells, and Erik Voeten coordinated the Mortara Research Seminar. The seminar ran with the assistance of PhD Candidate Jonas Heering and the Mortara Center staff.
How are speakers and topics chosen?
Professor Erik Voeten is the Peter F. Krogh Professor of Geopolitics and Justice in World Affairs, as well as the current director of the Mortara Center. Professor Voeten also serves on the selection committee for this year’s seminar series and participated in the Summer 2023 seminar as a presenter.
Under his leadership, Professor Voeten wishes to continue to make the Mortara Research Seminar a “consistent space for people studying international affairs to discuss their research over lunch.” He also wants to continue bringing together the different Georgetown departments studying international affairs, and to strengthen the relationship between these entities and experts outside of Georgetown University. To achieve this, he has established the presence of established scholars such as Oxford Professor Stathis Kalyvas, winner of the Woodrow Wilson Award for best book on government, politics, or international affairs in 2007 (pictured), and Virginia Page Fortna, the Harold Brown Professor of U.S. Foreign and Security Policy at Columbia University, an expert in conflict resolution and the international politics of climate change. Additionally, younger experts have played a larger role for the seminar, such as Saad Gulzar or Andreas Wiedemann from Princeton University. There has also been a continuous effort to invite guests and professors from all of the major institutions within the DC area.
What is the history of the seminar?
Professor Diana Kim has been involved with the research seminar for many years and oversaw the merger of the CRITICS and GUITARS seminars into the Mortara Research Seminar. CRITICS used to be a seminar focused mainly on international comparative politics, while GUITARS focused on topics of international relations. Since their merger, attendance has significantly increased as scholars were less constrained by the previous labels. Today, the Mortara Research Seminar is open to scholars in both comparative politics and international relations, and follows a presentation and discussion format that allows for everyone to participate and learn from each other.
Since the merger, the seminar has also seen an increase in graduate student participation, something that Professor Kim attributes to efforts by faculty and Mortara Staff to get the word out to more students and departments around Georgetown. She also finds that this change brought a dynamic nature to the conversation, bringing attention to a wider variety of perspectives and topics in international relations.
“We are still experimenting. We hope to continue growing the seminar while finding a balance between topics, speakers and approaches to the world of international relations and politics. We aim to bring a diversity in faculty experts, junior scholars, political views and approaches to data and analysis”, said Professor Kim. She ended by highlighting that this experimentation and pursuit of a balance is both challenging and exciting.
Which topics are discussed?
The Mortara Research Seminar covers a variety of topics related to international affairs and comparative politics. Coordinators have found a way to narrow down the scope of the seminar so as not to lose focus but still give enough flexibility for presenters to guide nuanced conversations every week. Historically, speakers have discussed issues ranging from socioeconomic inequality to trade and the implications of climate change.
Starting in Spring 2025, an undergraduate student affiliated with the Mortara Center is invited to attend the seminar, interview the guest speaker, and write a short article for the Mortara website. Please find at the following links our first articles about the presentations from Ashutosh Varshney, Brown University, and Alicia Cooperman, George Washington University.
Georgetown PhD students and faculty interested in inviting a guest speaker can reach out with their proposals to the Center’s email address: mortaracenter@georgetown.edu.
Although the Mortara Research Seminar is not open to the general public, the schedule for Spring 2025 can be found on this webpage for any student, faculty, or staff interested in potentially following up on specific speakers or general topics. The schedule for the Fall 2025 Mortara Research Seminar will be available as soon as specific dates are arranged.
Schedule for the Spring 2025 semester:
- January 13 – Ning Leng, Georgetown University
- January 27 – Susanna Campbell, American University
- February 3 – Margit Tavits, Washington University in St. Louis
- February 10 – Iain Osgood, University of Michigan
- March 10 – Swati Srivastava, Purdue University
- March 17 – Ashutosh Varshney, Brown University
- March 31 – Alicia Cooperman, George Washington University
- April 7 – Aram Hur, Tufts University
- April 14 – Tiago Ventura, Georgetown University
- April 28 – Connor Huff, World Bank/University of California Los Angeles