Knowledge centre CERISE

CERISE (Centre for Russian, International Socio-Political and Economic Studies) was founded in 2001. The knowledge centre’s mission is to critically study and reflect on Russia – its culture, international relations, socio-political system and economy, both today and in the past – and to disseminate those results to academia, policymakers and the wider public, in order to improve our understanding of this strategically important country. Also, and especially today, with Russia waging war against its neighbor country Ukraine, a better insight into Russia is no less than crucial.

Since its start, the multidisciplinary knowledge centre has brought together scholars from different faculties and disciplines. Also, it has welcomed academics focusing on other regions than the Russian Federation and has hosted talks by and meetings with policy makers, journalists and people in the cultural field. The knowledge centre will continue to pursue its mission and to apply its critical, multidisciplinary and inclusive approach under the wings of the Eureast Platform and in close collaboration with the Platform’s other knowledge centres.

Members:

		Ben Dhooge is Associate Professor of Russian literature at Ghent University’s Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, where he currently he is program chair of the study program in East European Languages and Cultures. Ben Dhooge’s research focuses on early twentieth-century (modernist) Russian literature, both Soviet and émigré. Central in his research are experiments with language, discourse on language and cultural identity. His focus on cultural identity has led him to develop an online, multidisciplinary MA course ‘Russia between east and west’, focusing on an issue which has induced many heated discussions in Russia in the past and which continues to (co)determine Russia’s (cultural) politics until today: is Russia a ‘Western’, ‘Eastern’ or a self-contained culture and civilization? Currently, he is the co-director of Ghent University’s Eureast Platform, together with professor Fabienne Bossuyt.

		Koen Schoors is a Belgian economist and Full Professor at the Department of Economics of Ghent University’s under Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. In the past, he also taught at the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven), at the Vlerick Business School and at the Higher School of Economics at Moscow. He is ranked in the top 10% of the IDEAS top of economists worldwide. His main field of research is the banking and finance sector, business financing and direct foreign investments, with a particular focus on Russia. Furthermore, he is an expert on economic recessions, a subject he often holds public talks on. Professor Schoors appears on a regular basis in the media as commentator on socio-economic events, recently on the economic sanctions on Russia.

		Peter Van Elsuwege is professor of EU law and Jean Monnet Chair at Ghent University, where he is co-director of the Ghent European Law Institute (GELI). He is also visiting professor at the College of Europe (Natolin Campus) and board member of the Centre for the Law of EU External Relations (CLEER) at the Asser Institute in The Hague. His research activities essentially focus on the law of EU external relations and EU citizenship. Specific attention is devoted to the legal framework of the relations between the European Union and its East European neighbours. He is, amongst others, the author of From Soviet Republics to EU Member States. A Legal and Political Assessment of the Baltic States’ Accession to the EU (Brill, 2008) and the editor (together with R. Petrov) of the books Legislative Approximation and Application of EU Law in the Eastern Neighbourhood of the European Union: Towards a Common Regulatory Space? (Routledge, 2014), Post-Soviet Constitutions and Challenges of Regional Integration (Routledge, 2018) and (with F. Bossuyt) Principled Pragmatism in Practice: The EU’s Policy towards Russia after Crimea (Brill, 2021). In addition, he published extensively in leading law journals such as Common Market Law Review, European Law Review, European Constitutional Law Review and others.

		Anna Namestnikov is a teaching and research assistant in the Russian section of the department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication (Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Ghent University) where she is affiliated to the research group TRACE. She obtained a master of arts in Eastern European Languages and Cultures (Russian and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian) in 2019-2020 (Ghent University). As of October 2021, she has been working on a PhD on the translation of foreign literature in Russian émigré journals (1919-1939).

		Tom Eeckhout is a FWO postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Economics. From 2017 until 2023 he was a Research and Teaching Assistant at the Department of Economics at Ghent University. During his PhD he explored the use of trace data in measuring corruption, social mobility and human capital using evidence from Russia. More broadly his research covers topics in institutional economics and economic history and analyses large micro-level datasets.

		Michel De Dobbeleer (PhD East European Languages and Cultures, UGent, 2012) is a Slavist (Russian, Bulgarian, Old Church Slavic), Classicist and Italianist, whose PhD dissertation dealt with medieval Russian historiography. Among his other ‘Russian’ fields of (post-doc) expertise are Russian classicist epic poetry, Mikhail Bakhtin’s chronotope concept, Western histories of Russian literature, comics adaptations of Russian literary classics, reception of Flemish literature in Russia, and cultural connections between East and South Slavs. In academia (UGent & KU Leuven) he has taught, a.o., (overview) courses on Russian literature and history, on premodern Slavic language, literature and art history, and on East-Central European literatures and cultures. At KU Leuven, he also led translation workshops (Russian to Dutch). Outside academia he has been preparing and teaching introductory Russian language and history courses in Flemish secondary schools and adult education.

		Gaëtan Regniers is an FWO Fundamental Research Fellow at the department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication (Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Ghent University) where he is affiliated to the TRACE research group. He obtained an MA in History (major in Late Modern History) and an MA in Eastern European Languages and Cultures (Russian and Polish) from Ghent University and holds a teacher's degree. As of November 2020 he is preparing a PhD on Dutch newspaper translations of Russian Literature under the supervision of Piet Van Poucke and Marianne Van Remoortel.