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The Current: The Refugee Crisis in Context

There are currently more than 100 million displaced people worldwide. Join us for a discussion on how today's refugee crisis compares to those of the past as we examine global and local developments.

There are currently more than 100 million displaced people worldwide. The Russia-Ukraine war has displaced over 8 million people internally in Ukraine and has forced over 6.5 million people to flee to other countries (UNHCR, 2022). The millions of displaced people from Ukraine have added to the global refugee crisis with ongoing long-term conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia and more recent crises in Venezuela and Central America.

Join us as authors and OSU History professors, Theodora Dragostinova and Robin Judd, examine the current refugee crisis and put it into context by looking at how today's refugee crisis compares to those we've seen throughout recent history. Community Refugee & Immigration Services (CRIS) Ohio will also provide information on how today's refugee crisis is impacting resettlement populations around central Ohio. 

Theodora Dragostinova is a professor of history at The Ohio State University. Her work focuses on nationalism, migration, global history, and Cold War culture. Geographically, her research is focused on eastern Europe, with an emphasis on the Balkans and Bulgaria, but she also engages with comparative perspectives on Modern Europe in a global perspective. She is also the author of the books The Cold War from the Margins (Cornell University Press, 2021) and Between the Two Motherlands (Cornell University Press, 2011).

Robin E. Judd is a specialist in Jewish, transnational, and gender history, with particular interests in Holocaust studies, the history of antisemitism, the history of religion, the history of leadership, and the history of migration. She is the author of Contested Rituals: Circumcision, Kosher Butchering, and German-Jewish Political Life in Germany, 1843-1933 and the forthcoming book, Love, Liberation, and Loss: Jewish Military Marriages and Community Building After the Holocaust (forthcoming University of North Carolina Press). In recognition of her work in Holocaust studies, Governor Dewine appointed her to Ohio’s Holocaust and Genocide Memorial and Education Commission in 2021.

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