Past Events

	Title	Date	Type	Speakers
	Radka Denemarková: Stunden aus Blei	Thu, 03.02.2022, 19:00	Lecture	Ludger HagedornRadka Denemarková	Radka Denemarková: Stunden aus Blei Präsentation der deutschsprachigen Ausgabe des Romans Thu, 03.02.2022, 19:00 Speakers: Ludger HagedornRadka Denemarková Series: Lecture Eine der erfolgreichsten und meistübersetzten tschechischen Autor*innen, Radka Denemarková, stellt in der Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Literatur die deutschsprachige Ausgabe des Romans "Stunden aus Blei" vor. Dieser Roman, für den sie 2019 den tschechischen Magnesia Litera Preis in der Kategorie Buch des Jahres erhielt, erschien Anfang Jänner 2022 bei Hoffmann und Campe in der deutschen Übersetzung von Eva Profousová. Ludger Hagedorn (IWM) wird mit der Autorin ein Gespräch führen. Die Veranstaltung findet auf Deutsch statt. Read more
Radka Denemarková: Stunden aus Blei Präsentation der deutschsprachigen Ausgabe des Romans Thu, 03.02.2022, 19:00 Speakers: Ludger HagedornRadka Denemarková Series: Lecture Eine der erfolgreichsten und meistübersetzten tschechischen Autor*innen, Radka Denemarková, stellt in der Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Literatur die deutschsprachige Ausgabe des Romans "Stunden aus Blei" vor. Dieser Roman, für den sie 2019 den tschechischen Magnesia Litera Preis in der Kategorie Buch des Jahres erhielt, erschien Anfang Jänner 2022 bei Hoffmann und Campe in der deutschen Übersetzung von Eva Profousová. Ludger Hagedorn (IWM) wird mit der Autorin ein Gespräch führen. Die Veranstaltung findet auf Deutsch statt. Read more
	Everybody is so much now for democracy…	Mon, 31.01.2022, 17:30	Exhibition		Everybody is so much now for democracy… IWM’s landmark 1990 conference "Central Europe on its Way to Democracy" Mon, 31.01.2022, 17:30 Speakers: Series: Exhibition In 1990, IWM organized the landmark conference Central Europe on the Way to Democracy, bringing together leading intellectuals and politicians from across Europe, North America and the Soviet Union to discuss Europe’s future prospects at a time of dramatic change. It was a remarkable event that drew great media attention and international visibility, organized in the premises of Vienna’s Palais Schwarzenberg. And it was a milestone in the history of IWM, crystallizing its mission of offering a space for discussions that transcend “any ideology, church, bureaucracy, or political party,” as founding rector Krzysztof Michalski put it in one of his interventions at the conference. As the first of several activities planned for the 40th anniversary of IWM in 2022, the Institute will feature an in-house exhibition on the many faces and facets of this conference. Throughout the three day-event in June and July 1990, Viennese photographer Renate Apostel took black-and-white photos of its prominent guests, capturing panel discussions as well as informal conversations. Some of her most remarkable portraits and atmospheric photographic observations will be on display along the staircases throughout the IWM building. All photos are handmade prints on baryte paper, developed from the original negatives by Viennese photo artist Andrej Kasik. Read more
Everybody is so much now for democracy… IWM’s landmark 1990 conference "Central Europe on its Way to Democracy" Mon, 31.01.2022, 17:30 Speakers: Series: Exhibition In 1990, IWM organized the landmark conference Central Europe on the Way to Democracy, bringing together leading intellectuals and politicians from across Europe, North America and the Soviet Union to discuss Europe’s future prospects at a time of dramatic change. It was a remarkable event that drew great media attention and international visibility, organized in the premises of Vienna’s Palais Schwarzenberg. And it was a milestone in the history of IWM, crystallizing its mission of offering a space for discussions that transcend “any ideology, church, bureaucracy, or political party,” as founding rector Krzysztof Michalski put it in one of his interventions at the conference. As the first of several activities planned for the 40th anniversary of IWM in 2022, the Institute will feature an in-house exhibition on the many faces and facets of this conference. Throughout the three day-event in June and July 1990, Viennese photographer Renate Apostel took black-and-white photos of its prominent guests, capturing panel discussions as well as informal conversations. Some of her most remarkable portraits and atmospheric photographic observations will be on display along the staircases throughout the IWM building. All photos are handmade prints on baryte paper, developed from the original negatives by Viennese photo artist Andrej Kasik. Read more
	The Crisis of Liberal Democracy Today. Is Meritocracy to Blame?	Mon, 31.01.2022, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Ruzha Smilova Ivan Krastev	The Crisis of Liberal Democracy Today. Is Meritocracy to Blame? Mon, 31.01.2022, 16:00 Speakers: Ruzha Smilova Ivan Krastev Series: Seminars and Colloquia The crisis of liberal democracy hardly makes the news today: so often has its imminent death been announced. Yet over the last 15 years organizations responsible for monitoring freedom and democracy in the world have reported a trend of globally declining quality of democracy. Over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, the pace of this trend has accelerated. Different hypotheses for what went wrong have been advanced. Read more
The Crisis of Liberal Democracy Today. Is Meritocracy to Blame? Mon, 31.01.2022, 16:00 Speakers: Ruzha Smilova Ivan Krastev Series: Seminars and Colloquia The crisis of liberal democracy hardly makes the news today: so often has its imminent death been announced. Yet over the last 15 years organizations responsible for monitoring freedom and democracy in the world have reported a trend of globally declining quality of democracy. Over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, the pace of this trend has accelerated. Different hypotheses for what went wrong have been advanced. Read more
	North Macedonia As A Test-Case For Europe’s Credibility	Wed, 26.01.2022, 11:00	Panels and Discussions	Ivan Vejvoda Ruzha Smilova Zoran NechevNikola Dimitrov	North Macedonia As A Test-Case For Europe’s Credibility Europe's Futures Panel Discussion Wed, 26.01.2022, 11:00 Speakers: Ivan Vejvoda Ruzha Smilova Zoran NechevNikola Dimitrov Series: Panels and Discussions North Macedonia - after the historic Prespa Agreement reached with Greece in June 2018 - has been blocked from moving forward on its EU accession path from October 2019 by France and since last year by Bulgaria. Albania's EU fate is coupled to that of North Macedonia. This issue has a broader significance for the EU enlargement policy as well as for the credibility of the EU as a peace project and for its declared geostrategic goals. Read more
North Macedonia As A Test-Case For Europe’s Credibility Europe's Futures Panel Discussion Wed, 26.01.2022, 11:00 Speakers: Ivan Vejvoda Ruzha Smilova Zoran NechevNikola Dimitrov Series: Panels and Discussions North Macedonia - after the historic Prespa Agreement reached with Greece in June 2018 - has been blocked from moving forward on its EU accession path from October 2019 by France and since last year by Bulgaria. Albania's EU fate is coupled to that of North Macedonia. This issue has a broader significance for the EU enlargement policy as well as for the credibility of the EU as a peace project and for its declared geostrategic goals. Read more
	Shifting Sands: The Lure of “Alignments a la Carte” and the True Meaning of “America is Back”	Tue, 25.01.2022, 18:00	Lecture	Soli Özel Ivan Krastev	Shifting Sands: The Lure of “Alignments a la Carte” and the True Meaning of “America is Back” Tue, 25.01.2022, 18:00 Speakers: Soli Özel Ivan Krastev Series: Lecture Because the Trump administration was such a harrowing experience for most European countries, for the EU itself and many others around the world the election of Joe Biden resulted in a deep sigh of relief. In power, Biden moved fast domestically and talked the good talk towards allies in various platforms. Yet, nearly ten months into his term Biden’s policies suggest a surprising degree of continuity with his immediate predecessor. He is also finally putting more substance into President Obama’s “pivot to Asia” strategy. In an age when the United States turns its attention and most of its resources to competing with China and containing Beijing’s ambition, what is Europe to do? In light of the American nonchalance about European allies, is the “strategic autonomy” championed by President Macron of France the way out? Should Europeans really choose between China and the US as Washington clearly wants them to? Would German disdain for claiming strategic leadership and the Europeans’ own complacency turn Europe into a geopolitical void? The new era in international relations is full of surprises and fluidity. Nimble political reflexes and strategic will are of utmost importance. Will the EU deploy them where it can and must? Read more
Shifting Sands: The Lure of “Alignments a la Carte” and the True Meaning of “America is Back” Tue, 25.01.2022, 18:00 Speakers: Soli Özel Ivan Krastev Series: Lecture Because the Trump administration was such a harrowing experience for most European countries, for the EU itself and many others around the world the election of Joe Biden resulted in a deep sigh of relief. In power, Biden moved fast domestically and talked the good talk towards allies in various platforms. Yet, nearly ten months into his term Biden’s policies suggest a surprising degree of continuity with his immediate predecessor. He is also finally putting more substance into President Obama’s “pivot to Asia” strategy. In an age when the United States turns its attention and most of its resources to competing with China and containing Beijing’s ambition, what is Europe to do? In light of the American nonchalance about European allies, is the “strategic autonomy” championed by President Macron of France the way out? Should Europeans really choose between China and the US as Washington clearly wants them to? Would German disdain for claiming strategic leadership and the Europeans’ own complacency turn Europe into a geopolitical void? The new era in international relations is full of surprises and fluidity. Nimble political reflexes and strategic will are of utmost importance. Will the EU deploy them where it can and must? Read more
	Governing through Contradictions.	Tue, 18.01.2022, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Ayşe Çağlar Ulrike Flader	Governing through Contradictions. Soft Authoritarianism and the Affective Management of the Opposition in Turkey Tue, 18.01.2022, 16:00 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Ulrike Flader Series: Seminars and Colloquia Turkey is currently governed by a regime which blurs the line between authoritarian and democratic rule. While some authors tend to interpret this state as a moment of transition towards full authoritarianism, this paper argues that we should rather understand the coevalness of democratic and non-democratic practices as a deliberate and “cunning” mode of government, which we call soft authoritarian. Read more
Governing through Contradictions. Soft Authoritarianism and the Affective Management of the Opposition in Turkey Tue, 18.01.2022, 16:00 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Ulrike Flader Series: Seminars and Colloquia Turkey is currently governed by a regime which blurs the line between authoritarian and democratic rule. While some authors tend to interpret this state as a moment of transition towards full authoritarianism, this paper argues that we should rather understand the coevalness of democratic and non-democratic practices as a deliberate and “cunning” mode of government, which we call soft authoritarian. Read more
	Slavic Bazaar: Performances and Instrumentalizations of the Slavic discourse 1791 - 2017	Mon, 10.01.2022, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Katherine Younger Ludger Hagedorn Tomáš Glanc	Slavic Bazaar: Performances and Instrumentalizations of the Slavic discourse 1791 - 2017 Mon, 10.01.2022, 16:00 Speakers: Katherine Younger Ludger Hagedorn Tomáš Glanc Series: Seminars and Colloquia The ideology of Slavic unity and reciprocity has been a crucial pattern of European thought and culture since the beginning of the 19th century, and it is still relevant today. In his presentation, Tomáš Glanc will discuss the development, the teleology, and the typologies of this heterogeneous discourse. The talk will outline performative practices of “Slaventum” rich in contradictions, geopolitical phantasms and geopoetic fictions. Glanc will use examples from different disciplines such as literature, art, linguistics, but also referring to political essays, institutional history, and the history of gymnastics. Read more
Slavic Bazaar: Performances and Instrumentalizations of the Slavic discourse 1791 - 2017 Mon, 10.01.2022, 16:00 Speakers: Katherine Younger Ludger Hagedorn Tomáš Glanc Series: Seminars and Colloquia The ideology of Slavic unity and reciprocity has been a crucial pattern of European thought and culture since the beginning of the 19th century, and it is still relevant today. In his presentation, Tomáš Glanc will discuss the development, the teleology, and the typologies of this heterogeneous discourse. The talk will outline performative practices of “Slaventum” rich in contradictions, geopolitical phantasms and geopoetic fictions. Glanc will use examples from different disciplines such as literature, art, linguistics, but also referring to political essays, institutional history, and the history of gymnastics. Read more
	The Post-Coloniality of Asylum Infrastructure	Mon, 13.12.2021, 17:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Ayşe ÇağlarPaolo Novak	The Post-Coloniality of Asylum Infrastructure Mon, 13.12.2021, 17:00 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarPaolo Novak Series: Seminars and Colloquia This presentation takes as its object of analysis and investigation asylum seekers’ reception centres in a central Italian province. It builds upon literature concerned with the logistification of asylum to conceive these centres as nodes of the EU humanitarian border, yet it moves beyond the exclusive concern with the migrant-border dialectic that characterises most literature on the subject. In its attempt to dig deeper into the social ontology of the humanitarian border, the presentation de-centres the logistical gaze cast on asylum management characterising this literature by foregrounding instead the productive relation between the humanitarian border and the place-specific social dynamics that explain its emergence and reproduction in concrete settings. Accounting for the multiple and variegated histories, stories, agencies and trajectories that become entangled in the rooms of these reception centres, the paper argues that critical border scholars need to move beyond an exclusive concern with the border-migrant dialectic, and to reorient our attention towards an appreciation of borders’ place-specific configurations. In bringing to the fore the unevenness of these entanglements in each of these reception centres, the presentation also suggests recalibrating contemporary concerns with the coloniality of asylum, of migration, and of infrastructure. The expression ‘postcoloniality of asylum infrastructure’ wants to entangle colonial world-making legacies with everyday practices of place-making. Read more
The Post-Coloniality of Asylum Infrastructure Mon, 13.12.2021, 17:00 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarPaolo Novak Series: Seminars and Colloquia This presentation takes as its object of analysis and investigation asylum seekers’ reception centres in a central Italian province. It builds upon literature concerned with the logistification of asylum to conceive these centres as nodes of the EU humanitarian border, yet it moves beyond the exclusive concern with the migrant-border dialectic that characterises most literature on the subject. In its attempt to dig deeper into the social ontology of the humanitarian border, the presentation de-centres the logistical gaze cast on asylum management characterising this literature by foregrounding instead the productive relation between the humanitarian border and the place-specific social dynamics that explain its emergence and reproduction in concrete settings. Accounting for the multiple and variegated histories, stories, agencies and trajectories that become entangled in the rooms of these reception centres, the paper argues that critical border scholars need to move beyond an exclusive concern with the border-migrant dialectic, and to reorient our attention towards an appreciation of borders’ place-specific configurations. In bringing to the fore the unevenness of these entanglements in each of these reception centres, the presentation also suggests recalibrating contemporary concerns with the coloniality of asylum, of migration, and of infrastructure. The expression ‘postcoloniality of asylum infrastructure’ wants to entangle colonial world-making legacies with everyday practices of place-making. Read more
	Limits and Divisions of Human Histories	Tue, 07.12.2021, 18:00	Lecture	Andrzej Nowak Katherine Younger Ludger Hagedorn	Limits and Divisions of Human Histories A Contemporary Eastern European Perspective on Reinhart Koselleck's Historical Anthropology Tue, 07.12.2021, 18:00 Speakers: Andrzej Nowak Katherine Younger Ludger Hagedorn Series: Lecture The theory of history, as presented by Reinhart Koselleck (1923-2006), offers an intellectually tempting structure of three anthropological distinctions that prescribe figures of all possible histories (individual and collective): sooner or later, inside and outside, above and below. The first one signifies the span between being born and having to die, which makes every life unique and at the same time part of a particular generational experience. It could also be rendered as “old” and “new”. Uses of the second pair might be analysed as a contrast between public and private, or as a contemporary fear stemming from the contrast between “home” and “intruders”. The third pair Andrzej Nowak will try to “translate” not just in “master” and “slave” categories, but rather as “pupil” and “teacher”, or even “therapist” and “patient”. Nowak will try to read Koselleck’s structure in a perspective offered by spatial/temporal concepts of contemporary “Europe in progress” (or “Europe in crisis”), as well as in another, non-political perspective of esthetic renditions of the three above mentioned Koselleck’s abstract pairs ¬ in Andrzej Wajda’s “Birchwood” movie, the last scene of Richard Strauss’s “Rosenkavalier”, and in Philip Larkin’s poem: “An Arundel Tomb”. The question is whether love can be included into these conflicting pairs as a possible factor transcending their structures? Read more
Limits and Divisions of Human Histories A Contemporary Eastern European Perspective on Reinhart Koselleck's Historical Anthropology Tue, 07.12.2021, 18:00 Speakers: Andrzej Nowak Katherine Younger Ludger Hagedorn Series: Lecture The theory of history, as presented by Reinhart Koselleck (1923-2006), offers an intellectually tempting structure of three anthropological distinctions that prescribe figures of all possible histories (individual and collective): sooner or later, inside and outside, above and below. The first one signifies the span between being born and having to die, which makes every life unique and at the same time part of a particular generational experience. It could also be rendered as “old” and “new”. Uses of the second pair might be analysed as a contrast between public and private, or as a contemporary fear stemming from the contrast between “home” and “intruders”. The third pair Andrzej Nowak will try to “translate” not just in “master” and “slave” categories, but rather as “pupil” and “teacher”, or even “therapist” and “patient”. Nowak will try to read Koselleck’s structure in a perspective offered by spatial/temporal concepts of contemporary “Europe in progress” (or “Europe in crisis”), as well as in another, non-political perspective of esthetic renditions of the three above mentioned Koselleck’s abstract pairs ¬ in Andrzej Wajda’s “Birchwood” movie, the last scene of Richard Strauss’s “Rosenkavalier”, and in Philip Larkin’s poem: “An Arundel Tomb”. The question is whether love can be included into these conflicting pairs as a possible factor transcending their structures? Read more
	The One That Got Away / Everyday Life During Armed Conflicts	Mon, 06.12.2021, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Dimiter Kenarov Keith Krause Ludger Hagedorn Paweł Pieniążek Soli Özel	The One That Got Away / Everyday Life During Armed Conflicts Joint Fellows Colloquium Mon, 06.12.2021, 16:00 Speakers: Dimiter Kenarov Keith Krause Ludger Hagedorn Paweł Pieniążek Soli Özel Series: Seminars and Colloquia In this Joint Fellows Colloquium we had presentations from two of our current Fellows, both from the Milena Jesenská Fellowship Program for Journalists, Dimitar Kenarov and Paweł Pieniążek. Dimitar Kenarov is a freelance journalist and poet based in Sofia, Bulgaria. Paweł Pieniążek is a Polish journalist covering conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Read more
The One That Got Away / Everyday Life During Armed Conflicts Joint Fellows Colloquium Mon, 06.12.2021, 16:00 Speakers: Dimiter Kenarov Keith Krause Ludger Hagedorn Paweł Pieniążek Soli Özel Series: Seminars and Colloquia In this Joint Fellows Colloquium we had presentations from two of our current Fellows, both from the Milena Jesenská Fellowship Program for Journalists, Dimitar Kenarov and Paweł Pieniążek. Dimitar Kenarov is a freelance journalist and poet based in Sofia, Bulgaria. Paweł Pieniążek is a Polish journalist covering conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Read more