Past Events

Series: Seminars and Colloquia

Polish politics of memory has undergone significant change in the past several years, becoming more entrenched and preoccupied with projecting an image of Poland as the victim of successive historical catastrophes. At the same time, Polish politics relies increasingly more often on visions of happy “futures past” that are deeply rooted in Polish culture and builds social resentment by accusing subsequent social groups of squandering away chances for development. Therefore, it seems necessary to ask what are these versions of Polish alternate history embedded in Polish culture and in what way do they influence contemporary politics of memory?

Series: Panels and Discussions

Immediately following the hijacking of the Ryanair flight and abduction of Roman Protasevich and Sofia Sapega on 23 May, IWM hosted a discussion posing the question of что делать? (What is to be done?) from the perspective of European Union states: The Hijack. Europe, Belarus, and the Abduction of Roman Protasevich.
The following two discussions (the first in German, the second in English) shifted the focus from the European Union to the former Soviet space in an attempt to better understand what is happening inside Belarus itself. In what way is the currently showcased performative-confession-extracted-through-torture reminiscent of Stalinist times, and in what way is there something post-modern about it? What is the relationship between insecurities about masculinity and state terror? How does a “revolution with a woman’s face” open new possibilities for politics, for rebellion against tyranny?

Series: Panels and Discussions

Unmittelbar nach der Entführung des Ryanair-Fluges und der Verschleppung von Roman Protasewitsch and Sofia Sapega organisierte das IWM am 23. Mai spontan ein Expertenpanel, das sich mit der Frage что делать? (Was tun?) insbesondere aus der Perspektive der Europäischen Union befasste (The Hijack. Europe, Belarus, and the Abduction of Roman Protasevich). Die beiden für den 30 Juni und 1. Juli geplanten Diskussionen (die erste auf Deutsch, die zweite auf Englisch) haben das Augenmerk stärker auf den post-sowjetischen Raum gerichtet und sich insbesondere mit den Auswirkungen des staatlichen Terrors auf die belarusische Gesellschaft befasst: Wie werden die gegenwärtig öffentlich inszenierten (und durch Folter erzwungenen) Geständnisse wahrgenommen? Was erinnert daran an die Schauprozesse der stalinistischen Ära und was ist vielleicht spezifisch postmodern? Wie hängt der staatliche Terror zusammen mit einer tiefgreifenden Krise von Männlichkeit? Wie kann es einer Revolution „mit weiblichem Angesicht“ gelingen, neue Möglichkeiten für die Politik und den Widerstand gegen die Tyrannei zu gewinnen?

Series: Seminars and Colloquia

In recent years, governments and citizens in countries all over the world, from Eastern Europe to North America and Africa, have torn down historical monuments in pursuit of historical justice.  Russia experienced such paroxysms of iconoclasm three times in the 20th century, but following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it instead embarked on a wave of monument building across the country. What are the dynamics and causes of this monument fever? What does it tell us about nation-building in Russia thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union?

Series: Conferences and Workshops

The aim of this international conference, organized under the auspices of the “Eurasia in Global Dialogue” Programme, was to offer a better understanding of contemporary developments in Eurasia by looking at their origins in Byzantium. The focus fell on the history of the reception of the Byzantine heritage in Russia and Eastern Europe. While addressing a wide range of topics in intellectual history, politics, aesthetics, religion, etc., all papers engaged with the contested nature of the concept of “Eurasia.”

Series: Conferences and Workshops

The inaugural Yehuda Elkana Fellow, Helga Nowotny, conducted a non-public manuscript workshop with invited guests at the Central European University, in cooperation with the IWM and the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College.

Series: Lecture

The inaugural Yehuda Elkana Fellow, Helga Nowotny, gave a lecture at the Central European University, in cooperation with the IWM and the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College.

Series: Conferences and Workshops

The Junior Visiting Fellows' Conference is a bi-annual event at the Institute for Human Sciences that gives the Junior Fellows to present their work and research in a day-long conference. A traditional, semester-closing, celebration of the talented young researchers that is as old as the Institute itself, is always organized by the Junior Fellows themselves and usually includes Senior Fellows, Staff members and Alumni among others as commentators and discussants.

Series: Festivals

Das tschechisch-österreichische Kulturfestival "Vienna meets Prague" widmete sich im Jahr 2021 dem großen Prager Erzähler Bohumil Hrabal mit einem Schwerpunkt, der verschiedene Formate verbindete.

Series: Seminars and Colloquia

The international refugee regime and its national versions increasingly tend to offer a temporary protection mechanism that creates a “limboizing effect” on refugees’ lives. It also appears that these policies use temporariness as a political tool of governance. While these dominant international and national rulings ideally present the three choices of settlement (integration in the first country of asylum), onward movement (resettlement in the third country), and return (repatriation) as durable solutions to the refugee question, none of these choices easily become pertinent in the lives of refugees under their protracted situation and limitations of the international refugee regime. Consequently, refugees face with the challenges of living in an environment of uncertainties that is also labelled with the concept of permanent temporariness. In this presentation, Ahmet Içduygu referred to the concept of permanent temporariness, and answered the question of what is the role of international refugee regime and that of Turkey’s refugee policies towards Syrian refugees in the context of refugees’ aspirations for planning their future. He also questioned the polarized nature of the structure-agency debate, emphasizing the synthesis of these two influences on refugees’ aspirations in the context of settlement, onward movement and return choices.