Past Events

	Title	Date	Type	Speakers
	Decolonizing Forced Migration Studies: Lessons from Borderlands	Wed, 12.05.2021	Seminars and Colloquia	Ayşe ÇağlarNergis Canefe	Decolonizing Forced Migration Studies: Lessons from Borderlands Wed, 12.05.2021 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarNergis Canefe 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. Read more
Decolonizing Forced Migration Studies: Lessons from Borderlands Wed, 12.05.2021 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarNergis Canefe 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. Read more
	Alien Logic	Tue, 11.05.2021	Lecture	Ayşe Çağlar Martin Burckhardt Timothy Snyder	Alien Logic Tue, 11.05.2021 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Martin Burckhardt Timothy Snyder Series: Lecture Bronislaw Malinowski has shown with his ethnological studies that a supposedly primitive society can be of astonishing complexity, as well as why the structure of this order remains obscure to its members. Obviously, modern societies also suffer from system blindness – why else is digitization said to have chiliastic, diabolic, magical powers? In a continuation to his cultural-theoretical investigations on the genealogy and philosophy of the machine, Martin Burckhardt explores the question of how the self-enchantment of rationality can occur, and to what extent the operating system of the attention economy can be read as an outsourced unconscious. This, in turn, leads back to the point of departure: what perspective must a contemporary social anthropologist take in order to read the present? Read more
Alien Logic Tue, 11.05.2021 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Martin Burckhardt Timothy Snyder Series: Lecture Bronislaw Malinowski has shown with his ethnological studies that a supposedly primitive society can be of astonishing complexity, as well as why the structure of this order remains obscure to its members. Obviously, modern societies also suffer from system blindness – why else is digitization said to have chiliastic, diabolic, magical powers? In a continuation to his cultural-theoretical investigations on the genealogy and philosophy of the machine, Martin Burckhardt explores the question of how the self-enchantment of rationality can occur, and to what extent the operating system of the attention economy can be read as an outsourced unconscious. This, in turn, leads back to the point of departure: what perspective must a contemporary social anthropologist take in order to read the present? Read more
	Fluid Zones of Hegemony	Mon, 10.05.2021	Seminars and Colloquia	Ezgican Özdemir	Fluid Zones of Hegemony Mon, 10.05.2021 Speakers: Ezgican Özdemir Series: Seminars and Colloquia Based on a 16-month ethnographic fieldwork in north Cyprus, Ezgi Özdemir's doctoral dissertation studies water infrastructure in the Turkish-occupied territories of Cyprus, enduring patronage relations between the Turkish state and the de-facto Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), and emergent political subjectivities and collective identificatory practices of peoples in north Cyprus, which are contingent upon notions of exceptionality, non-recognition, and infrastructural and political dependence. For this, she looks specifically at the Turkish state-funded water pipeline from Turkey to north Cyprus—a megaproject that has since been privatized along with the transferred water and the local water resources of the north. Read more
Fluid Zones of Hegemony Mon, 10.05.2021 Speakers: Ezgican Özdemir Series: Seminars and Colloquia Based on a 16-month ethnographic fieldwork in north Cyprus, Ezgi Özdemir's doctoral dissertation studies water infrastructure in the Turkish-occupied territories of Cyprus, enduring patronage relations between the Turkish state and the de-facto Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), and emergent political subjectivities and collective identificatory practices of peoples in north Cyprus, which are contingent upon notions of exceptionality, non-recognition, and infrastructural and political dependence. For this, she looks specifically at the Turkish state-funded water pipeline from Turkey to north Cyprus—a megaproject that has since been privatized along with the transferred water and the local water resources of the north. Read more
	Do We Need a Post-Covid Economic Revolution?	Sun, 09.05.2021	Panels and Discussions	Albena AzmanovaDaniel Gros, Harald Oberhofer, Lisa Herzog, Eric Frey	Do We Need a Post-Covid Economic Revolution? Sun, 09.05.2021 Speakers: Albena AzmanovaDaniel Gros, Harald Oberhofer, Lisa Herzog, Eric Frey Series: Panels and Discussions The Covid-19-pandemic and the economic crisis it triggered is not only upsetting fiscal and social policies in most industrialized countries, but also the debate among economists about the role of the state, the future of work and the balance between necessary economic growth and the needs to fight global warming. How many of these new ideas will persist once the pandemic is over? Has the time for a new approach to economics finally arrived? Read more
Do We Need a Post-Covid Economic Revolution? Sun, 09.05.2021 Speakers: Albena AzmanovaDaniel Gros, Harald Oberhofer, Lisa Herzog, Eric Frey Series: Panels and Discussions The Covid-19-pandemic and the economic crisis it triggered is not only upsetting fiscal and social policies in most industrialized countries, but also the debate among economists about the role of the state, the future of work and the balance between necessary economic growth and the needs to fight global warming. How many of these new ideas will persist once the pandemic is over? Has the time for a new approach to economics finally arrived? Read more
	Balaton. Novellen	Mon, 03.05.2021	Lecture	Ludger Hagedorn Noémi Kiss	Balaton. Novellen Mon, 03.05.2021 Speakers: Ludger Hagedorn Noémi Kiss Series: Lecture Ungarn in den 1980er-Jahren: Der Balaton, oder Plattensee, ist ein beliebtes Urlaubsziel. Hier liegen Menschen von beiden Seiten des „Eisernen Vorhangs“ einträchtig nebeneinander am Strand, durch den Mauerbau getrennte Familien machen gemeinsam Ferien. Read more
Balaton. Novellen Mon, 03.05.2021 Speakers: Ludger Hagedorn Noémi Kiss Series: Lecture Ungarn in den 1980er-Jahren: Der Balaton, oder Plattensee, ist ein beliebtes Urlaubsziel. Hier liegen Menschen von beiden Seiten des „Eisernen Vorhangs“ einträchtig nebeneinander am Strand, durch den Mauerbau getrennte Familien machen gemeinsam Ferien. Read more
	Das Fremde hinter der Fremde	Tue, 27.04.2021	Lecture	Ludger Hagedorn Michael Kegler Susann Urban	Das Fremde hinter der Fremde Tue, 27.04.2021 Speakers: Ludger Hagedorn Michael Kegler Susann Urban Series: Lecture Mittlerweile gibt es viele AutorInnen, für die Englisch nicht die Muttersprache oder eine Muttersprache unter mehreren, sondern die Zweit-, oder Drittsprache ist. Ihre globalen Biografien und Lebensbrüche spiegeln sich nicht nur in ihren Themen wider. Sie schmuggeln ungewohnte Sprachbilder, Metaphern, Idiome in die englische Sprache – eine wunderbare Bereicherung und eine enorme Translationsherausforderung. Read more
Das Fremde hinter der Fremde Tue, 27.04.2021 Speakers: Ludger Hagedorn Michael Kegler Susann Urban Series: Lecture Mittlerweile gibt es viele AutorInnen, für die Englisch nicht die Muttersprache oder eine Muttersprache unter mehreren, sondern die Zweit-, oder Drittsprache ist. Ihre globalen Biografien und Lebensbrüche spiegeln sich nicht nur in ihren Themen wider. Sie schmuggeln ungewohnte Sprachbilder, Metaphern, Idiome in die englische Sprache – eine wunderbare Bereicherung und eine enorme Translationsherausforderung. Read more
	Die Lieblinge der Justiz	Mon, 26.04.2021	Lecture	Yuri AndrukhovychCornelius Hell	Die Lieblinge der Justiz Mon, 26.04.2021 Speakers: Yuri AndrukhovychCornelius Hell Series: Lecture Die Lieblinge der Justiz, das sind Verbrechen und Verbrecher, echte und vermeintliche: Bohdan Staschynskyj zum Beispiel, ein KGB-Agent und Auftragskiller. Oder Mario, der Kolonialwarenhändler aus Kolomea im östlichen Hinterland der k. und k. Monarchie. Juri Andruchowytsch entfaltet in seinem neuen Buch »Die Lieblinge der Justiz. Parahistorischer Roman in achteinhalb Kapiteln« ein die Jahrhunderte umspannendes Panorama von Mord, Liebe und Verrat, von der Monstrosität des Verbrechens und der Justiz. Read more
Die Lieblinge der Justiz Mon, 26.04.2021 Speakers: Yuri AndrukhovychCornelius Hell Series: Lecture Die Lieblinge der Justiz, das sind Verbrechen und Verbrecher, echte und vermeintliche: Bohdan Staschynskyj zum Beispiel, ein KGB-Agent und Auftragskiller. Oder Mario, der Kolonialwarenhändler aus Kolomea im östlichen Hinterland der k. und k. Monarchie. Juri Andruchowytsch entfaltet in seinem neuen Buch »Die Lieblinge der Justiz. Parahistorischer Roman in achteinhalb Kapiteln« ein die Jahrhunderte umspannendes Panorama von Mord, Liebe und Verrat, von der Monstrosität des Verbrechens und der Justiz. Read more
	In Memory of the “Festival Age” (1987–1994)	Mon, 19.04.2021	Seminars and Colloquia	Yuri Andrukhovych	In Memory of the “Festival Age” (1987–1994) Mon, 19.04.2021 Speakers: Yuri Andrukhovych Series: Seminars and Colloquia The essay Yuri Andrukhovych currently works on is an attempt at a consistent recollection and a fairly objective reconstruction of several significant cultural events that fundamentally influenced Ukrainian society nearly three decades ago. The final years of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the first years of independent Ukraine came together into what was essentially an uninterrupted festival of artistic events that were new for their time, or at the very least a clear alternative to the ossified official culture. A radical renewal of cultural discourses and values through poetry, rock music, visual and performance art became an ineluctable part of sociopolitical changes at that break of eras. How did it begin in Ukraine, and why did it end? What has been preserved in memory? What has been swallowed up by oblivion? Was the “festival age” a continuation of, or a supplement to, the East European velvet alternatives? Read more
In Memory of the “Festival Age” (1987–1994) Mon, 19.04.2021 Speakers: Yuri Andrukhovych Series: Seminars and Colloquia The essay Yuri Andrukhovych currently works on is an attempt at a consistent recollection and a fairly objective reconstruction of several significant cultural events that fundamentally influenced Ukrainian society nearly three decades ago. The final years of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the first years of independent Ukraine came together into what was essentially an uninterrupted festival of artistic events that were new for their time, or at the very least a clear alternative to the ossified official culture. A radical renewal of cultural discourses and values through poetry, rock music, visual and performance art became an ineluctable part of sociopolitical changes at that break of eras. How did it begin in Ukraine, and why did it end? What has been preserved in memory? What has been swallowed up by oblivion? Was the “festival age” a continuation of, or a supplement to, the East European velvet alternatives? Read more
	Capitalism, Alone	Thu, 15.04.2021	Panels and Discussions	Ivan Krastev Shalini RanderiaBranko Milanovic, Shalini Randeria	Capitalism, Alone Thu, 15.04.2021 Speakers: Ivan Krastev Shalini RanderiaBranko Milanovic, Shalini Randeria Series: Panels and Discussions We are all capitalists now. For the first time in human history, the globe is dominated by one economic system. In Capitalism, Alone, leading economist Branko Milanović explains the reasons for this decisive historical shift since the days of feudalism and, later, communism. Surveying the varieties of capitalism, he asks: How did capitalism become the dominant system in all parts of the world? And what needs to change for capitalism to deliver a more equitable future? Read more
Capitalism, Alone Thu, 15.04.2021 Speakers: Ivan Krastev Shalini RanderiaBranko Milanovic, Shalini Randeria Series: Panels and Discussions We are all capitalists now. For the first time in human history, the globe is dominated by one economic system. In Capitalism, Alone, leading economist Branko Milanović explains the reasons for this decisive historical shift since the days of feudalism and, later, communism. Surveying the varieties of capitalism, he asks: How did capitalism become the dominant system in all parts of the world? And what needs to change for capitalism to deliver a more equitable future? Read more
	Forced Migration, the Antinomies of Mobility, and the Autonomy of Asylum	Wed, 14.04.2021	Seminars and Colloquia	Ayşe ÇağlarNicholas de Genova	Forced Migration, the Antinomies of Mobility, and the Autonomy of Asylum Wed, 14.04.2021 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarNicholas de Genova Series: Seminars and Colloquia Rather than seeing the ever more devious reaction formations of border policing and militarization, migrant detention, immigration enforcement, and deportation by state powers as if these were purely a matter of control, it is instructive to situate this economy of power in relation to the primacy, autonomy, and subjectivity of human mobility on a global (transnational, intercontinental, cross- border, postcolonial) scale. This is true, I contend, as much for refugees as for those who come to be derisively designated to be mere “migrants.” If we start from the human freedom of movement and recognize the various tactics of bordering as reaction formations, then the various tactics of border policing and forms of migration governance can be seen to introduce interruptions that temporarily immobilize and decelerate human cross-border mobilities with the aim of subjecting them to processes of surveillance and adjudication. Indeed, it is this dialectic that reconstitutes these mobilities as something that comes to be apprehensible, alternately, as “migration,” or “asylum-seeking,” or the “forced migration” of “refugees” in flight from persecution or violence – which is to say, as one or another variety of target and object of government. Yet, even under the most restricted circumstances and under considerable constraint, these human mobilities exude a substantial degree of autonomous subjectivity whereby migrants and refugees struggle to appropriate mobility. Even against the considerable forces aligned to immobilize their mobility projects, or to subject them to the stringent and exclusionary rules and constrictions of asylum, the subjective autonomy of human mobility remains an incorrigible force. Read more
Forced Migration, the Antinomies of Mobility, and the Autonomy of Asylum Wed, 14.04.2021 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarNicholas de Genova Series: Seminars and Colloquia Rather than seeing the ever more devious reaction formations of border policing and militarization, migrant detention, immigration enforcement, and deportation by state powers as if these were purely a matter of control, it is instructive to situate this economy of power in relation to the primacy, autonomy, and subjectivity of human mobility on a global (transnational, intercontinental, cross- border, postcolonial) scale. This is true, I contend, as much for refugees as for those who come to be derisively designated to be mere “migrants.” If we start from the human freedom of movement and recognize the various tactics of bordering as reaction formations, then the various tactics of border policing and forms of migration governance can be seen to introduce interruptions that temporarily immobilize and decelerate human cross-border mobilities with the aim of subjecting them to processes of surveillance and adjudication. Indeed, it is this dialectic that reconstitutes these mobilities as something that comes to be apprehensible, alternately, as “migration,” or “asylum-seeking,” or the “forced migration” of “refugees” in flight from persecution or violence – which is to say, as one or another variety of target and object of government. Yet, even under the most restricted circumstances and under considerable constraint, these human mobilities exude a substantial degree of autonomous subjectivity whereby migrants and refugees struggle to appropriate mobility. Even against the considerable forces aligned to immobilize their mobility projects, or to subject them to the stringent and exclusionary rules and constrictions of asylum, the subjective autonomy of human mobility remains an incorrigible force. Read more