2021 News & Events

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Toulouse's Sébastien Roux, Associate Professor in the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, on "A pandemic, an election, and a few survivalists. On the im/possibilities of ethnographic research".

The Office for Science and Technology (OST) of the Embassy of France in the US, in partnership with iGLOBES, is happy to host a series of 3 virtual conferences combining talks and networking opportunities which will explore the scientific knowledge and growing innovations to prepare for better futures. Based on scientific research, we can identify three main innovative fields for the industry: sensors in extreme environments, advances on data mining and tools to improve preparedness, risk management and resilience.

The virtual French-American Innovation Days May 18th-20th will cover these three fields over three sessions with guest speakers from the academia and from the private sector (innovative companies, startups) from both France and the US. This unique event with a collaborative perspective will allow us to open discussions on current scientific issues and present solutions that will benefit from deployment. Each session (2h30) will be a new opportunity to be inspired and to network with other experts and stakeholders! Watch the replay...

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's Diana Daly, Associate Professor in the School of Information, on "They're not viral, they're spreadable: the allure of pandemic memes" and Université Paris Nanterre's Elisa Chelle, Professor in Political Science on "The bat, the pangolin and the Chinese mad doctor: about the hypotheses on the origins of Covid-19".

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's Jason Jurjevich, Associate Professor in the School of Geography, on  "Covid-19 impacts on a fair and accurate U.S. Census".

Though the exact date of its arrival on the American continent is still a question mark, and though the path from first infection to epidemic varied from country to country, Covid-19 has indubitably dominated political, economical, cultural and social life in the Americas for a year. Stuck in denial, pursuing early and aggressive lockdown measures, and even setting up vaccination campaigns of unknown magnitude, all the countries had to deal with the results that continue to be bad with a third (and last) wave that started at the beginning of 2021, and this despite hopes of getting out of the crisis thanks to the continued immunizations...

See program and register. The conference is in French, on France time. 

The National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the University of Arizona, represented by Chairman and CEO Dr. Antoine Petit and President Dr. Robert C. Robbins, signed an agreement for the opening of the first International Research Center, dedicated to environmental sciences and humanities, with the participation of Philippe Etienne, Ambassador of France to the U.S., and Dr. Edith Heard, Director General of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory. The IRC's name is the France-Arizona Institute for Global Grand Challenges. Watch the recording of the event.

The CNRS-UArizona International Research Center, the first of its kind, will provide new collaborative opportunities between French academic institutions, their students and researchers, and the University of Arizona and its partners across the Americas. 

Dr. Antoine Petit, Chairman and CEO of CNRS tells us more about CNRS in the world, iGLOBES and this amazing partnership that took place today with the University of Arizona (click on image).

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's Joellen Russell, Professor in the Department of Geosciences "Global Environmental Impact of the Pandemic, Implications for Climate Change Modeling and Mitigation".

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's Katalin Gothard, Professor in the Depts. of Physiology and Neuroscience on "Automatic States Predict the Response Properties of Tactile Neurons in the Brain".

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's Samara Klar, Associate Professor in the School of Government and Public Policy on "Who is to Blame? how Political Polarization Distorts Governmental Accountability During the Covid-19 Pandemic".

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's Sabrina Helm, Associate Professor in the School of Family and Consumer Sciences on "How Covid-19 Reshaped Consumer Behavior and Retailing" and Université Sorbonne Nouvelle's Vera Chiodi, Associate Professor in Economy, on "Short-term Effects of Covid-19 Pandemic in Latin America".

At the Geopolitical Festival, David Blanchon, a visiting research scholar at iGLOBES will talk about his book Géopolitique de l'eau which was published in October 2019.

Water as a resource is often compared to oil whose shortage would create a pending "water crisis", permanent, local and global. It would not take  much to shift from this alarming assessment to war, as some have predicted. And yet the issue water plays in conflicts is not certain. Those it makes them worse, it is rarely the main reason, and could even be a source of cooperation when wanting to make peace. More so than a "water crisis" brought on by a natural shortage, geopolitics of water is governed by inefficient water policies and by not being able to guarantee water safety, all this made worse by climate change. There are solutions for a "new water culture", but this would mean having to put them in place. Register (Webinar will be in French)

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's Ute Lotz-Heumann, Associate Professor in the Department of History on "Toward a Comparative Cultural History of Epidemics or What Can the Experience of a 17th Century Englishman Tell Us About Ourselves in the Age of Covid-19?" and Université de Paris' Marie-Jeanne Rossignol, Professor in American Studies, on "African Americans and the 1794 Philadelphia Yellow Fever Epidemic: From Respectability to Protest and Today's Consequences".

The CNRS & University of Arizona new International Research Center (IRC) is issuing this call for proposals to support joint, collaborative research in areas including (and not limited to) social sciences and humanities, biodiversity and earth sciences, space sciences and high energy physics, material and optical sciences, and mathematical and information sciences. Each project will be co-directed by one CNRS team and one UArizona team and submitted jointly as one proposal. Selected projects will be awarded two graduate student (PhD) three-year fellowships, one granted by CNRS to the CNRS team, and one granted by UArizona to the UArizona team. In addition, each student supported by a fellowship will receive travel funds to visit the collaborators’ team at the partner institution. Up to five collaborative projects will be selected through this call. For more information...

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's Eleni Hasaki, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Classics on "The Parthenon and The Plague: Pandemic Perspectives From Classical Athens" and EHESS' Patrice Bourdelais, Emeritus Professor in History on "Mankind Facing the Great Pandemics".

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's David Enard, Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology on An Ancient Viral Epidemic Involving Host Coronavirus Interacting Genes More Than 20,000 Years Ago in East Asia

The ultimate symbol of untamed nature under threat, the Amazon inspires anxiety and fantasy in equal measure. Numerous French humanities and social sciences journals are endeavoring to tease out the issues at stake, calling on the voices of Latin American specialists. These voices reveal a complex, uneven, and much more nuanced reality than is suggested by the simplistic narratives that filter through the media (...). Contrary to popular belief, it is not a sanctuary for “virgin nature” but a continuum of spaces modified and regulated by humankind for millennia. Read more...

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's Joceline Lega, Professor in the Depts. of Mathematics and Public Health on Modeling and Forecasting the Spread of the Pandemic. 

Come join us as UA Professors discuss various topics related to COVID-19, with the participation of UA students and international students from partner French institutions in this weekly webinar organized by iGLOBES in collaboration with the École normale supérieure (ENS) school, within Paris Sciences & Lettres University. The general public is welcome. For more information...

The COVID-19 pandemic that erupted in early 2020 has not spared higher education and research. Like all French educational establishments, the École normale supérieure (ENS) school, within Paris Sciences & Lettres University, has had to suspend most of its international exchanges and many students have seen their plans for study or research abroad cancelled. For more information...

After a full year of being unable to travel because of the Covid-19 pandemic, François-Michel Le Tourneau, Deputy Director of iGLOBES, was able to go back to French Guiana and continue his research on illegal gold miners.

In his new blog posted in the Journal du CNRS, he talks about an "internet revolution" which is spreading in the forest and how cyber cafes are flourishing, "a thoughtful mix of high-tech, DIY and total lack of security". Read the full blog (in French)....

"For the "real" survivalists, preparedness is an expression of a cherished Americana, a way to reconnect with masculin, religious and warrior values which, in their opinion, have ledo this nation chosen by God to greatness. They live as defenders of a perverted America - by Blacks, Democrats, weak people, federalists and socialists".

The 2020 survivalists do not really fear the rise in climate change or the decrease in biodiversity: rather, they are resistant to "declassification and dispossession".  "These average conservatives are living like "strangers in their own land", as American sociologist Arlie Hochschild's book title, continues Sebastian Roux. Their actions show a measure of struggle to reappropriate themselves. For them, preparedness is not anticipating the future, but today's fight against domination and oppression."

Full article by Anne Chemin (in French & requires a subscription).