The Higher Research Seminar: Mats Fred and Hebatalla Taha - “Docent lectures”

Mats Fred 

Title: Organizing Public Sector Reform

Abstract: I defended my PhD thesis on local government projectification in 2018. Since then, my research has expanded both theoretically and empirically toward a broader interest in all kinds of temporary and experimental forms of organizing. In this lecture I will talk about where limited, time-bound spaces are created to test new solutions or services, often with the ambition that successful experiments may influence or transform regular operations. The lecture draws on several empirical examples that illustrate different expressions of this phenomenon across my research.

Hebatalla Taha

Title: Religious Dimensions of Israeli Nuclear Politics

Abstract: In this lecture, I present my recent project on Israeli nuclear weapons. One of the main objectives of this work is to challenge the long-standing depiction of the Israeli nuclear arsenal as exceptional, despite the country’s adoption of a policy known as amimut (opacity), under which it neither confirms nor denies possessing nuclear weapons. The specific paper I will focus on connects the case of Israel to Jacques Hymans’ theoretical framework of ‘the bomb as God’ (2024). It examines three empirical examples through which Israeli nuclear weapons are imbued with divine characteristics: the use of religious metaphors in discussions of nuclear weapons and nuclear strategy; the mythical status attributed to the nuclear reactor; and the public’s silence, interpreted as a form of reverence.

The Higher Research Seminar is the main collective seminar of the Department. The research staff and invited national and international leading scholars present ongoing research and analyses of a broad range of exciting topics of relevance for Political Science.

The Higher Research Seminar is held on Wednesdays 13.15 to 14.30 in Eden 367, unless otherwise indicated. PhD Mid-term seminars 13:15 to 14:45. 

Convenors: Robert Klemmensen and Jonathan Polk

The seminars are open to the public. Welcome to join us!

The Higher Research Seminar | Department of Political Science