Rethinking War and Transformation in Ukraine and Around the World

In conversation with Professor Timothy Snyder (University of Toronto) and Professor Serhii Plokhii (Harvard University) as they rethink war and transformation in Ukraine and around the world. This conversation was moderated by Professor Janice Stein, Founding Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy on May 8, 2026.

 

Rethinking War and Transformation in Ukraine and Around the World

 

Timothy Snyder holds the inaugural Chair in Modern European History, supported by the Temerty Endowment for Ukrainian Studies, at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. He is also a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and the head of the academic advisory council of Ukrainian History Global Initiative. A scholar of the history of Central Europe, Ukraine, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust, Snyder speaks five and reads ten European languages. He is the author or editor of twenty books published in forty languages. Snyder writes for the press on Ukraine, the U.S, authoritarianism, digital politics, health, and education. He has also appeared in documentaries, on television, and as an expert witness before several parliaments. He has received state orders and decorations as well as honorary doctorates. His work has inspired demonstrations, sculpture, posters, punk rock, rap, film, theater, and an opera.

 

Serhii Plokhii is the Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University. His interests include the intellectual, cultural, and international history of Eastern Europe, with an emphasis on Ukraine. His books have won numerous awards, including the Ballie Gifford Prize, the Shevchenko National Prize (2018), and the Duke of Arenberg European Prize (2024). His broader research interests have spanned the intellectual, cultural and international history of Eastern Europe, with an emphasis on Ukraine. He has published in English, Ukrainian and Russian. In 2025, he received an honorary degree from Oxford University.

 

Janice Stein is the Founding Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. Renowned as one of Canada’s most respected national and international experts on world politics, she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario. She is an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her research sits at the intersection of cognitive science, psychology, and international politics as she focuses on decision making and strategy. The author of eight books and more than a hundred articles, her most recent work is on the management of escalation and the psychological, institutional, and political factors that explain surprise. Her latest research focuses on the intersection of geopolitics and technology.

 

The event was sponsored by the Public History Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and the Myhal Family Foundation.