Past Events

Series: Panels and Discussions

In the 1970s, the notion of human rights transformed the landscape of dissent in the Soviet Union. Buoyed by the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975, dissidents embraced this new framework, holding the Soviet regime to account and asserting their right to live in such a way that their outer conduct reflected their inner convictions. The regime found this new challenge to the worldview it sought to impose on its citizens deeply threatening and responded with harsh repressive measures, including the arrest of many of the movement's leaders.

Series: Lecture

History has become a deeply contentious topic in the post-communist space, particularly with regard to World War II, Communism, and Nationalism. Memories are not static, and our increasing historical knowledge is embedded within a dynamic contemporary context. This means that both history and the politics of history are developing and changing. Christoph Dieckmann, one of the leading historians of the German occupation in Lithuania, shared his experiences and impressions of the politics of history in Eastern Europe from the perspective of a German historian.

Series: Lecture

This lecture was part of CRG’s proposed research on the Fifty Years of the Liberation of Bangladesh as well as its research programme on Migration and Forced Migration Studies supported by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung and Institute of Human Sciences, Vienna and several other universities and institutions and universities in India.

Series: Seminars and Colloquia

The relationship between Europe and Russia after the end of the Cold War emerged within the rules and practices of the Liberal World Order. This order was based on certain universal freedoms and global American leadership and ultimate power dominance. Recently it has been under stress, and now there are serious reasons to believe that it is coming to an end, under pressure from a change in the global composition of powers. Both Russia and Europe are looking for new roles within changing international politics.

Series: Panels and Discussions

Der Übersetzer Michael Kegler hat gerade ein Mammutwerk abgeschlossen: Mit Sonntage ohne Gott ist der fünfte und letzte Teil des Roman-Zyklus Vorläufige Hölle erschienen, mit dem Luiz Ruffato (*1961) brasilianische Literaturgeschichte geschrieben hat. Ein vielstimmiger, zerrissener Chor aus zahllosen Einzelstimmen erzählt vom Leben in Brasilien aus der Sicht von Arbeitern, Besitzlosen, Entrechteten. Ein Gespräch mit dem Übersetzer sowie Ausschnitte aus dem Werk.

Series: Panels and Discussions

On 23 May, a Belarusian fighter plane intercepted Ryanair 4978 and forced the European commercial airliner to land in Minsk. The reporter Roman Protasevich (26), known for his coverage of pro-democracy protests, was then abducted by Belarusian authorities, along with the student Sofia Sapega (23). How can reporters be protected against the use of military force by dictators? And how should the EU react to the state hijacking of an aircraft bound from one EU capital to another? Given Russia’s dominant role in Belarus, might it bear responsibility?

Series: Lecture

In this lecture, Prof. Doná revisited the social history of ethnic violence in Rwanda by focusing on marginalized voices. She introduced the constellation of genocide narratives to conceptualize the relationship between public and personal narratives of violence and its legacy and to identify connections among varied stories. This chronicle from below challenges a social history of almost totalizing violence to speak of continuity, embeddedness and the everyday. In doing so, it problematizes the narrative of ruptures between the “old” (pre-genocide) and “new” (post-genocide) reality; challenges the overlap of ethnic and social identities; and records the complex legacy of ethnic violence, as an event and as narrative, on the social and narrative lives of the nation and its people.

Series: Panels and Discussions

Debaty Tischnerowskie przez wiele lat prowadził prof. Marcin Król - historyk idei, filozof i publicysta, jeden z najbardziej wpływowych polskich intelektualistów ostatnich dekad. Odszedł od nas w 2020 r., ale pozostawił nam zapisy swych przemyśleń – liczne książki i artykuły. Dlatego najbliższą, trzydziestą już Debatę, poświęcimy aktualności myśli Marcina Króla. Do rozmowy na ten temat zaprosiliśmy troje wybitnych uczonych: Agatę Bielik-Robson, Timothy Garton Asha i Aleksandra Smolara; ich dyskusję poprowadzi Dariusz Stola.

Series: Seminars and Colloquia

In the shadow of population decline some Central European states have turned their attention to curtailing women’s access to abortion and in the case of Poland, effectively outlawing it. These policy moves are not only the work of illiberal governments. They are also heavily linked to religious institutions who for decades have labelled women’s reproductive rights as enemy number one on the battlefield of moral values. Calling for a “return to traditional family values” is not the path to economic and social prosperity. Yet it is a clarion call sounded from Warsaw to Budapest. Furthermore, these moves are indicative of the Church’s desire to maintain its political as well as religious influence as a growing number of people in the region chose a more secular life.

Series: Seminars and Colloquia

This presentation was an exploration of forced migration studies seen from the lens of de-colonial theory and invited us to consider shifting the geographies of reason habitually marking the field. Starting with a foundational critique of moralism and privilege marking canonized understandings of migration, precarity, displacement and dispossession, it unpacked the complexity of an existential political commitment to redefining forced migration not from the core/recipient states and societies but from borderlands. This work thus contributed to a long and rich—yet also troubled and deeply contested—conversation between postcolonial studies and forced migration studies.