Prof. René Flores & CISSR Dissertation Fellow Ariel Azar Discuss Immigrant Archetypes in the American Imagination in NY Times
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

CISSR SPOTLIGHT

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Prof. René Flores & CISSR Dissertation Fellow Ariel Azar Discuss Immigrant Archetypes in the American Imagination in NY Times

 
 
 

For the New York Times, 20-21 CISSR Faculty Fellow René Flores (Sociology) recently spoke about American attitudes towards immigration and the challenge facing pro-immigration politicians.“Exposing U.S. individuals to positive messages about immigration has no effect on their policy attitudes,” he says, because when “individuals read negative messages on immigrants, they become motivated to express restrictionist views.” Relying on narratives of success and exceptionalism isn’t enough, he argues, because of “deep-seated cultural representations of perceiving immigrants as a threat and as undeserving.” Professor Flores was joined by several other scholars in the guest essay, “The ‘Third Rail of American Politics’ is Still Electrifying”, on the political, economic, and sociological implications of immigration


The essay also cites a paper cowritten by Professor Flores and Ariel Azar, a 21-22 CISSR Dissertation Fellow and PhD student in Sociology. Through surveys, they identified five main classes or archetypes that come to white people’s minds when asked about immigrants: the “undocumented Latino man,” the “poor, nonwhite immigrant,” the “high-status worker,” the “documented Latina worker,” and the “rainbow undocumented immigrant.” Those who held images of immigrants as undocumented had the highest opposition to immigration. Survey respondents most resistance to immigration have many attributes typical of Southern white conservatives with many living in rural areas, retired with low levels of education, and from the least diverse communities relative to all other classes. With the impending 2022 Midterm elections, understanding the attitudes of voters and charting a path forward is critical. 


As a nation which claims to accept all immigrants who work hard, the U.S. should continue this kind of research to further analyze how these social structures and institutions helped to create and encourage these kinds of “negative” characterizations of immigrants, which will further enlighten what steps can be made to find common ground between immigrants and those who aim to restrict immigration. Professor Flores in 2020-21 with a grant from CISSR Faculty Fellowship launched a project in Mexico about skin-color-based inequalities and will help scholars better theorize race-setting outside of U.S. contexts. 


 
 
 

Reminder: Faculty Fellowship Call for Proposals 

 
 
 

The Center for International Social Science Research (CISSR) invites University of Chicago faculty to submit proposals to join our cohort of Research Fellows for the 2021-2022 academic year. Through the Research Faculty Fellows program, CISSR funds individual and collaborative international, transnational and global projects that address contemporary and historical questions. The deadline to apply is December 1st, 2021.

 
 
 
Apply Here
 
 
 
 
 

UPCOMING EVENTS

 
 
 


 
 

Nov 9

 
 

Center for Health Administration Studies (CHAS)

Alida Bouris on “Development of an implementation facilitation strategy to link mental health screening and eHealth intervention for clients in Ryan White-funded clinics in Chicago”

12:30pm, Live Stream 

Registration is required


 
 

Committee on South Asian Studies 

Discussion with Author Nawaaz Ahmed: Islamophobia, Home, and Belongings in Radiant Fugitives

4:30pm, Live Stream 

Registration is required


 
 

Center for Latin American Studies

MOSTRA XII Brazilian Film Festival:
Babenco: Alguém Tem que Ouvir o Coração e Dizer: Parou

5:30pm, Social Science Research Building, Room 122


 
 

Nov 10

 
 

Seminary Co-op & UChicago Press 

"Django Generations: Hearing Ethnorace, Citizenship, and Jazz Manouche in France" by Siv B. Lie, in conversation with Ingrid Monson & Carol Silverman

2:00pm, Live Stream 

Registration is required


 
 

Center for East Asian Studies 

Visual & Material Perspectives on East Asia Workshop featuring Stephanie Lee

4:45pm, Live Stream 

Registration is required


 
 

Seminary Co-op & The Chicago Society of the Archaeological Institute of America

"Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City” with Andrew Lawler

7:00pm, Live Stream 

Registration is required


 
 

Becker Friedman Institute 

China Biweekly Seminar on Public Economics — Survival of the City

8:00pm, Live Stream 

Registration is required


 
 

Nov 11

 
 

Committee on South Asian Studies 

Southern Asia Seminar: Becoming Bhojpuri: Cinematic Signs and Embodied Politics in “Regional” Mumbai

5:00pm, Live Stream 

Registration is required


 
 

Nov 12

 
 

Center for Middle Eastern Studies

Farouk Mustafa Memorial Friday Lecture Series: Ziad Elmarsafy (King's College London) 

"'Whose Son Are You?' Saud al-Sanousi’s Treatise on Fathers"

1:00pm, Live Stream

Registration is required


 
 

Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society

The Healthcare Information Crisis: Medical Ontologies and the Challenge of Data Harmonization

1:30pmLive Stream

Registration is required


 
 

Seminary Co-op & Department of Art History

Peter Chametzky - "Turks, Jews, and Other Germans in Contemporary Art"

4:30pm, Live Stream 

Registration is required


 
 

Center for East Asian Studies

“Who—or What—Were the First Blacks of China?” Lecture by Don J. Wyatt 

5:00pm, Live Stream 

Registration is required


 
 

Becker Friedman Institute 

U.S. Market Concentration and Import Competition with Mary Amiti

1:30pm, Saieh Hall 021 / Live Stream 

Registration is required


 
 

Becker Friedman Institute 

Equilibrium Port Delay and Social Cost with Thomas J. Holmes 

3:30pm, Saieh Hall 021 / Live Stream 

Registration is required


 
 

Nov 13

 
 

Center in Paris

The Pandemic and Higher Education: A Global Discussion

9:00am, Live stream


 
 

Nov 15

 
 

Center for Latin American Studies

The Scene of Approximation: Francisco Laso’s "Pascana" Series and the Creation of the Andean World with Natalia Majluf, Tinker Visiting Professor in Art History

12:00pm, Live stream

Registration is required


 
 


 
 

Social Sciences Division

Virtual Harper Lecture: "Democracy in Peril: A Conversation with UChicago Social Sciences Faculty"

With CISSR Fellows Marco Garrido & Monika Nalepa 

12:00pm, Live stream

Registration is required


 
 

Nov 16

 
 

Stevanovich Institute on the Formation of Knowledge

A Meeting of the Minds: The Impact of Effective Storytelling

12:00pm, Live Stream 

Registration is required

 
 

Center for Health Administration Studies (CHAS)

Danielle Raudenbush on “Health Care Off the Books: Poverty and Illness in Urban America”

12:30pm, Live Stream 

Registration is required

 
 

Oriental Institute 

East Asia by the Book! CEAS Author Talks ft. David J. Mozina: "Knotting the Banner: Ritual and Relationship in Daoist Practice"

5:00pm, Live Stream 

Registration is required


 
 

UChicago Global 

US-China Forum 2021: Shifting Contours of Governance and Provision: Civil Society and the State

6:00pm, Rubenstein Forum

Registration is required


 
 

Oriental Institute 

The David A. Kipper Ancient Israel Lecture Series: Eric Cline on the OI's historic excavations at Megiddo, the site of biblical Armageddon

7:00pm, Live Stream 

Registration is required


 
 

Nov 17

 
 

Pozen Family Center for Human Rights 

Human Rights Book Salon: Hedi Viterbo: Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood in Israel/Palestine

12:00pm, Live Stream 

Registration is required


 
 

Becker Friedman Institute 

Friedman Forum: The Economic Geography of Global Warming Featuring Esteban Rossi-Hansberg

12:30pm, Breasted Hall / Live Stream 

Registration is required


 
 

Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory

New Book Salon: William H. Sewell Jr., "Capitalism and the Emergence of Civic Equality in Eighteenth-Century France,” in Conversation with Paul Cheney (19-20 CISSR Fellow)

5:00pm, SSRB Tea Room / Live Stream 

Registration is required


 
 

Slavic Languages and Literatures Department

Artur Tanikowski - “Polish, Jewish, International? Painters in Interwar Poland”

5:30pm, Classics 110 / Live Stream 

Registration is required


 
 

UChicago Global 

US-China Forum 2021: Health, Mental Health, and Disability

6:00pm, Rubenstein Forum

Registration is required


 
 

UChicago Global 

US-China Forum 2021: Children and Youth

6:00pm, Rubenstein Forum

Registration is required


 
 

Nov 18

 
 

Committee on South Asian Studies 

TAPSA: On Being Black in Fayżi’s 𝘕𝘢𝘭 𝘰 𝘋𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘯: Poetic Adaptations of Nala and Damayantī into a Persian Mas̱navi

5:00pm, Live Stream 

Registration is required


 
 

UChicago Global 

US-China Forum 2021: Social Inequality and Policies of Inclusion and Exclusion

With CISSR Fellow Angela García

6:00pm, Rubenstein Forum

Registration is required


 
 

Center for East Asian Studies

"Crisis, Knowledge, and Politics: Taiwan’s Covid Responses” with Professor Yu-Ling Huang

7:00pm, Live Stream

Registration is required


 
 

Nov 19

 
 

Center for Middle Eastern Studies

Farouk Mustafa Memorial Friday Lecture Series: Febe Armanios (Middlebury College)

"Challenging Archives, Paradigms, and Perceptions: Coptic Egyptian History in the Ottoman Period"

1:00pm, Live Stream

Registration is required


 
 
 
 

WORKSHOPS & FORUMS

 
 
 
 

Department of Economics 

Applications of Economics Workshop 

Tuesdays 3:30pm - 4:50pm, Saieh 146

Nov 9: Marta Prato, Ph.D. - Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics, University of Chicago; "The Global Race for Talent: Brain Drain, Knowledge Transfer and Growth”


Nov 16: Ufuk Akcigit - Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics, University of Chicago; "Navigating Stormy Waters: Crisis, Selection, and Productivity Dynamics under Financial Frictions"


 
 

Council on Advanced Studies 

East Asia: Transregional Histories Workshop

Thursdays, 4:00 - 5:30pm, Zoom 

Nov 18: Carl Kubler, CISSR Dissertation Fellow, PhD Candidate in History, The University of Chicago. Title: “Dealing with Barbarians: Negotiating and Contextualizing Conflict between East and West” Discussant: Yuan Tian


 
 

The Center for Health and the Social Sciences 

Health Economics Workshop 

Tuesday 3:30 - 5:00pm, KCBD Building 

Nov 16: Lee Lockwood, PhD, MSc 

Associate Professor of Economics

University of Virginia


 
 

Division of the Social Sciences 

Interdisciplinary Approaches to Modern France and the Francophone World Workshop 

Fridays, 3:30pm, Tea Room 

Nov 19: “Caricature, Skeleton, and the Baudelairean Self: the Emergence of Comicality in ‘Danse Macabre'”, by Xin Yan, MAPH Student, The University of Chicago.


 
 

Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

Interdisciplinary Archaeology Workshop

Thursdays, 3:30 - 5:00pm, Haskell 315 / Zoom 

Nov 11: [virtual] Julian Thibeau (Lab Assistant, CAMEL Lab, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago); “Mapping the Irrigation System of the Greco-Roman Fayum Using CORONA Imagery”


 
 

Division of the Social Sciences 

Islamic Studies Workshop

Wednesdays 2:00 - 3:30pm, Livestream

Nov 12: Arlen Wiesenthal (NELC): “The Traveling Court as Locus of Death: The Ottoman Traveler Evliya Çelebi on Sultan Mehmed IV’s “Bloodthirst””


Nov 19: Prof. Ahmed El Shamsy (Associate Professor of Islamic Thought, NELC): “A fourteenth century Muslim theory of religion”


 
 

Center for the Economics of Human Development

Lifecycle Working Group 

Tuesdays 1:30 - 3:00pm, Livestream

Nov 9: Daron Acemoglu, MIT: Tasks, Automation, and the Rise in U.S. Wage Inequality


Nov 16: Dionissi Aliprantis, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland: What Determines the Success of Housing Mobility Programs?


 
 

Center for Latin American Studies

Latin American History Workshop

Tuesdays 4:30 - 6:00pm, Kelly 114/Livestream

Nov 16: Keegan Boyar, "Vendors and Police Power in Early Twentieth Century Mexico City"


 
 

Katz Center for Mexican Studies 

Mexican Studies Seminar 

Tuesdays 1:00 - 2:00pm, Livestream

Nov 9: Eric Van Young “A Life Together: Lucas Alamán and Mexico, 1792-1853


Nov 16: Gabriela Torres-Mazuera "Privatización Selectiva de Tierra Comunal en la Península de Yucatán: Antes y Después del Tren Maya


 
 

Division of the Social Sciences 

Politics, History, and Society 

Thursdays 5:00pm - 6:20pm, Zoom 

Nov 18: Ningning Zhao (PhD student UIC, Sociology): “The State and Political Education in China and Taiwan since 1949: A Comparative Historical Perspective”

Discussant: Assistant Professor Atef Said (UIC, Sociology)


 
 

Department of Economics 

Public Policy & Economics Workshop

Wednesdays, 3:00 - 4:20pm, Keller Center 1022 / Zoom 

Nov 10: Heather Royer, University of California-Santa Barbara


Nov 17: Christopher Walters, University of California-Berkeley


 
 

Council on Advanced Studies 

Transnational Approaches to Modern Europe Workshop 

Wednesdays, 4:30 - 6:00pm, Zoom 

Nov 10: Fabian Baumann, Postdoctoral Fellow, History. Title: “Diverging Paths: An Intimate History of Russian and Ukrainian Nationalism in Late Imperial Kiev.”


Nov 17: Roy Kimmey, PhD Candidate, History. Title: “Life beyond Labor: The ‘New (Romani) Socialist Man.’”


 
 

Division of the Social Sciences 

Slavery and Visual Culture Working Group 

Thursday, 4:00pm, Zoom

Nov 17: Prof. C.C. McKee at Bryn Mawr College,  “At the Threshold of Human and Vegetable: Painting Black Monstrosity in the French Atlantic”


 
 

Center for Latin American Studies 

Workshop on Latin America and the Caribbean

Wednesday, 5:00 - 6:30pm, Kelly 114 / Zoom 

Nov 10: Pablo Ottonello, PhD Candidate, Romance Languages and Literatures, “No sé para qué escribo”: el fracaso en los diarios de Ricardo Piglia


 
 

Committee on Quantitative Methods in Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences 

Workshop on Quantitative Research Methods in Education, Health, and Social Sciences

Friday, Zoom 

Nov 19: Stephane Bonhomme, Professor at the University of Chicago Department of Economics. “Estimating Individual Responses when Tomorrow Matters.”

 
 


Please note: Workshops are scholarly communities that pre-circulate papers. They meet regularly throughout the year and are generally not open to the public.


 
 
 
 

AROUND TOWN & DOWN THE ROAD

 
 
 


 
 

Nov 9

 
 

CEERES Local Events 

Poland Exhibited: Polish Museum Boom and the Problem of International Recognition

3:00pm, Live Stream 

Registration Required 


 
 

Watson Institute, Brown University 

Elizabeth Pfeiffer — Viral Frictions: An Ethnography of Global Health, Intersecting Inequalities, and the Persistence of HIV Stigma in Western Kenya

3:00pm, Live Stream 

Registration Required 


 
 

Nov 11

 
 

Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Yale University 

Sino-Indian Affairs: Competition and Conflict

3:30pm, Live Stream 

Registration Required 


 
 

Nov 12

 
 

Watson Institute, Brown University 

Somdeep Sen Book Talk ─ Decolonizing Palestine: Hamas between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial

11:00am, Live Stream 

Registration Required 


 
 


 
 

Nov 16

 
 

Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Yale University 

Afghanistan's Future: Development, the state, and the humanitarian challenge

11:00am, Live Stream 

Registration Required 


 
 

Nov 17

 
 

Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, Northwestern University 

The Translator: Film Screening and Panel Discussion

3:00pm, Northwestern Buffett Event Space 

Registration Required 


 
 

Nov 18

 
 

Watson Institute, Brown University 

Rising Tensions in the Taiwan Straits: Will the Chinese Civil War End with a Bang or a Whimper?

11:00am, Live Stream 

Registration Required 


 
 

Nov 22

 
 

Watson Institute, Brown University 

Sumayya Kassamali ─ Female Domestic Labor in Beirut: Reflections on Race and Gender

11:00am, Live Stream 

Registration Required 


 
 

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs 

The Art of Middle East Diplomacy

12:00pm, Live Stream 

Registration Required 


 
 
 
 

NEWS & RESEARCH ROUNDUP

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Ipek Cinar, 21-22 Rudolph Field Research Fellow, and Prof. Robert Gulotty consider the role of uncertainty on trade agreements


Ipek Cinar, PhD student in Political Science and a 2021-22 Rudolph Field Research Fellow with Prof. Robert Gulotty (Political Science) wrote a paper titled “Negotiating Exclusion: Regulatory Barriers in Preferential Trade Agreements.” Published in Economics and Politics, their paper explores how international trade negotiations now center on regulations, resulting in raising uncertainty over fixed costs. Using a simple model of exporter competition, Cinar and Gulotty show how uncertainty from these negotiations redistributes profits while showing that regulatory uncertainty can deter entry for producers outside of the trade agreement. Additionally, this serves to benefit the top producers, the most integrated and productive firms, because the ability of firms to take advantage of the intensive margin determines the effects of regulatory uncertainty. Their case study of the automotive and automotive parts sectors during North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations highlights how trade politics act to benefit few large firms over the interests of more numerous but marginal exporters.


 
 
 
 
 
 

Prof. Maryam Alemzadeh, CISSR Dissertation Alum Postdoctoral Research Associate & CISSR Dissertation Fellow writes on the role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard in the Iranian Kurdish Conflict


In an article published in the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Maryam Alemzadeh, a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University and previous CISSR Dissertation Fellow, explores how the repression campaign of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shaped its organization, structure, and practice. Focusing on the 1979-80 Iranian Kurdish conflict, the most intensive example of repression of an armed movement by IRGC, Alemzadeh identifies two ways IRGC’s involvement formed the institution. Politically, fighting for the state made IRGC a legitimate organization independent of the regular army and organizationally, learning combat in a low intensity war allowed IRGC to adopt a structure based on direct action. Using documents collected in Iran and interviews with IRGC veterans and Iranian Army Officers, this paper argues post-revolutionary civil conflict allows for different paths of institution building as it defies the need for rapid centralization. 


 
 
 
 
 
 

PhD Candidate Ariel Azar with co-authors Ignacio Madero-Cabib and Josefa Guerra writes on employment and depression in retirement-age adults in Chile


Ariel Azar, PhD Candidate in Sociology and a CISSR 2021-22 Dissertation Fellow, co-authored an article in Aging & Mental Health with Ignacio Madero-Cabib (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) and Josefa Guerra (Millennium Nucleus for the Study of the Life Course and Vulnerability) about a study on employment and depression symptom trajectories around retirement age in Chile. Employment status is a crucial determinant in empirical studies of long-term patterns of depression in retirement-age adults. Previous studies have overlooked the changing nature of employment status and solely focus on developed countries in Western Europe and North America. By studying how employment and depression evolve across time among adults and can vary throughout old age, this study seeks to better understand the connection through trajectories rather than fixed data. Using population-representative data and longitudinal statistical methods, the authors identified different trajectory types among adults aged 56-65 and aged 66-75 and organized them by social and health characteristics. Trajectories defined by permanent employment are linked with lower depressive symptoms than those indicating retirement or inactivity, though health and social status greatly affect inactivity or retirement and depressive symptoms. As policy reforms emerge that are designed to encourage adults to delay retirement, this study emerges at a critical time to better inform these decisions and support older adults. 


 
 

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT


 
 
 
 
 
 

A Field Guide to White Supremacy - A discussion with Kathleen Below and Ramón Gutiérrez

 
 

In a book event presented by the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture (CSRPC), Seminary Co-op Bookstores and the Department of History, Kathleen Belew, Assistant Professor of U.S. History and the College, discussed her recently released book “A Field Guide to White Supremacy” co-edited with Professor Ramón Gutiérrez (History). The manuscript’s indexing was supported by a 2020-21 CISSR Monograph Enhancement. Prof. Belew was joined by Trayce Matthews, Executive Director of CSRPC, and Roderick Ferguson, a Professor of Women’s Gerder, and Sexuality Studies and American Studies at Yale University. The interdisciplinary book gathers experts on white supremacy in modern society, and provides a valuable source to understand how these movements form and what recent history shows us about those who join them and act with violence. While focused on the American white supremacy, the book addresses how globalization, foreign wars, and xenophobia play critical roles in white supremacist ideology in the U.S. 


 
 
  
 
  
 
 
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