KunstlerCast 370 -- Stephan Sander-Faes on Europe's Nervous Winter

KunstlerCast 370 -- Stephan Sander-Faes on Europe's Nervous Winter

Author: James Howard Kunstler February 1, 2023 Duration: 1:12:54

Stephan Sanders-Faes is an historian of Central and Eastern Europe at the University of Bergen, Norway. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Graz in 2011 and obtained the Habilitation in Early Modern and Modern History from the University of Zurich in 2018. Before joining the Bergen faculty in 2020, he taught for ten years at the history departments at the Universities of Zurich and Fribourg, as well as held the István Deák Visiting Professorship in East Central European Studies at Columbia University in 2018.

Stephan's research focuses on post-medieval Central and Eastern Europe (c. 1350-1850), with a particular interest in urban-rural relations, administrative, bureaucratic, and constitutional changes ("ABC history"), and state transformation — that is, the emergence, and change over time, of the European national state. He's the author of two books: Urban Elites of Zadar (2013); and Europas Habsburgisches Jahrhundert (2018). His next book will be Lordship and State Transformation: Bohemia and the Habsburg Monarchy from the Thirty Years War to the War of the Spanish Succession, expected in 2022. 

He blogs on current events at https://fackel.substack.com. Fakel means "torch" in German.

Currently, Stephan is investigating the diffusion of state authority into the rural periphery of Habsburg Lower Austria from the late eighteenth century to the advent of constitutional rule in 1860s, exploring the role of non-state actors as state-builders, the patterns of transition, and the social factors influencing them.

His other contributions to the field includes consulting for the EU Commission's Research Executive Agency (Marie Curie-Skłodowska fellowships), the Polish National Science Centre (Narodowe Centrum Nauki), and the Swiss National Science Foundation, as well as serving on the international editorial board of Atti (published by the Center for Historical Research in Rovinj/Rovigo, Croatia), and as peer-reviewer for Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales, Archivio Veneto, and the Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, among others.

The KunstlerCast theme music is the beautiful Two Rivers Waltz written and performed by Larry Unger.


Each week, author and social critic James Howard Kunstler sits down with host Duncan Crary for a series of frank discussions that form KunstlerCast-Conversations: Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century. The dialogue, grounded in Kunstler's seminal works like "The Geography of Nowhere" and "The Long Emergency," moves beyond simple critique to explore the deep interconnections between the crises shaping our time. Listeners will find these conversations delve into the enduring consequences of suburban sprawl, the societal costs of disposable architecture, and the profound shifts awaiting us as the age of cheap oil recedes. This isn't a lecture, but a dynamic exchange that examines how these forces collide within our culture, economy, and daily lives. The podcast serves as an ongoing, thoughtful autopsy of the American built environment and the unsustainable habits it fosters, while also casting a wary eye on the news of the day. For anyone perplexed by the fragility of modern systems or curious about the roots of our social discontent, these episodes offer a coherent, if challenging, narrative. Kunstler's distinctive perspective, honed over decades of observation and writing, provides a lens through which the chaos of current events begins to form a clearer, if unsettling, picture. Tune in for a consistently provocative analysis that connects the dots between place, energy, and the future of community.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

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