Events

What is “East Germany”? We want to talk about a region often perceived as gray, cold, and politically right-leaning. We aim to discuss how East German lifeworlds are constructed in media representations, political debates, and cultural and literary narratives, navigating between self-description and external attribution, between memory and the present.

In fall 2025, Worlds of Contradiction (WOC) will be 10 years old. An overview of the planned program is available on the WOC website.

Early Career Networking Workshop as part of the 10th anniversary of the WOC Contradictions Festival with members of the WOC Graduate Network (WOC GradNet), the DFG Research Training Group 2686 Contradiction Studies, the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS), the Institute for Social Research (IfS) and the GRK 2638 Normativity, Critique, Change

Durban South African Indian people exhibit heteronormative attitudes toward gender and sexuality. In this talk, Braedon Steven argues that the racialization of Durban South African Indians, shaped by British colonialism, is central to understanding these conservative views.  The migration of British colonial ideals enforced, precisely, Christian Victorian-era attitudes towards gender and sexuality from the former […]

Moderation: Hagen Steinhauer, Jessica Nuske, Jendrik Nuske, Kevin Kuhlmann, Sarabjeet Kaur, Jonas Trochemowitz What is the role of academic freedom in doctoral studies and scientific qualification? Is academic freedom under threat, and if so, what can we as doctoral students do to protect it? We would like to discuss these and other questions in a […]

This talk focuses on an afro-diasporic community located in an Andalusian town (Southern Spain). It concerns a series of families whose identity is linked to the early modern slave trade, while Spanish mainstream society tends not to remember this period of its history. During the session, we will reflect on the boundaries between history and […]

Memory Politics are often juxtaposed with material forms of reparation. With the intention of countering this simplification, we have invited Laidlaw Peringanda to give a lecture followed by a talk with a member of the neighborhood initiative “Stadtteilinitiative Walle Entkolonialisieren”. Laidlaw Peringanda is an Ovaherero activist, artist, chairman of the Namibian Genocide Association and founder […]

On November 17th 1989, students protested peacefully in Prague. On the National Street, in the middle of the city, the demonstration was brutally beaten up by the police. This was the beginning of a social upheaval that reached its climax on Human Rights Day on December 10th 1989. On this day, the dissident Vaclav Havel […]

In his talk Heiko Motschbacher seeks to make a theoretical contribution to the field of language and sexuality (Motschenbacher 2022). His goal is to use the sociological approach of labeling theory (Becker 1963) to inform discussions in language and sexuality studies. On the one hand, it is argued that labeling theory has certain advantages that […]

With reference to the traveling exhibition Demokratie vor Ort – Persönliche Erinnerungen von Hamburger:innen aus der DDR, a discussion among experts will take place on the significance and development of the memory of the GDR and its effects on our society today. More information about the event can be found here. Organizor:University of Hamburg, Working […]