Past Events

	Title	Date	Type	Speakers
	Ukraine and the Borders of Europe	Mon, 08.11.2021, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Katherine Younger Ludger Hagedorn Volodymyr Yermolenko	Ukraine and the Borders of Europe Essays in Ukrainian and European Intellectual History Mon, 08.11.2021, 16:00 Speakers: Katherine Younger Ludger Hagedorn Volodymyr Yermolenko Series: Seminars and Colloquia Volodymyr Yermolenko explored how evolving ideas and imagination of Europe in the 18th-20th centuries shaped evolving ideas and imagination of Ukraine, in particular the image of Ukraine as the “big frontier”. Moving beyond the geographical sense of border/frontier inherent in Ukraine’s name, the focus here is on the mental and geo-philosophical aspect: the evolution of the mental borders of Europe and the concepts, metaphors, and imagination of Europe that shaped and reshaped how Ukraine and the Ukrainian lands have been seen in intellectual history, both from within and from without. Read more
Ukraine and the Borders of Europe Essays in Ukrainian and European Intellectual History Mon, 08.11.2021, 16:00 Speakers: Katherine Younger Ludger Hagedorn Volodymyr Yermolenko Series: Seminars and Colloquia Volodymyr Yermolenko explored how evolving ideas and imagination of Europe in the 18th-20th centuries shaped evolving ideas and imagination of Ukraine, in particular the image of Ukraine as the “big frontier”. Moving beyond the geographical sense of border/frontier inherent in Ukraine’s name, the focus here is on the mental and geo-philosophical aspect: the evolution of the mental borders of Europe and the concepts, metaphors, and imagination of Europe that shaped and reshaped how Ukraine and the Ukrainian lands have been seen in intellectual history, both from within and from without. Read more
	Healing the World? – German Foreign Policy between High Aspirations and Competing Imperatives	Tue, 02.11.2021, 18:00	Panels and Discussions	Ivan KrastevThomas Bagger	Healing the World? – German Foreign Policy between High Aspirations and Competing Imperatives Tue, 02.11.2021, 18:00 Speakers: Ivan KrastevThomas Bagger Series: Panels and Discussions German foreign policy is strongly informed by a historically grounded optimism in global convergence. But the self-confidence of finally being on the right side of history is shattered by recent crises and the re-emergence of geopolitical conflict. Calls for a more decisive German leadership role in Europe tend to overlook the competing imperatives at the core of Germany’s interests and ambitions. Read more
Healing the World? – German Foreign Policy between High Aspirations and Competing Imperatives Tue, 02.11.2021, 18:00 Speakers: Ivan KrastevThomas Bagger Series: Panels and Discussions German foreign policy is strongly informed by a historically grounded optimism in global convergence. But the self-confidence of finally being on the right side of history is shattered by recent crises and the re-emergence of geopolitical conflict. Calls for a more decisive German leadership role in Europe tend to overlook the competing imperatives at the core of Germany’s interests and ambitions. Read more
	Doomed to Sacrifice?	Thu, 28.10.2021, 14:00 - Fri, 29.10.2021, 16:30	Conferences and Workshops	Martin Koci Sandra LehmannRené Rosfort, Anna Sjöberg, Sara Shabot Cohen	Doomed to Sacrifice? Existential and Phenomenological Perspectives on Sacrifice and Gender Thu, 28.10.2021, 14:00 - Fri, 29.10.2021, 16:30 Speakers: Martin Koci Sandra LehmannRené Rosfort, Anna Sjöberg, Sara Shabot Cohen Series: Conferences and Workshops Sacrifice is a popular theme in philosophical and theological discussions. The concept remains ambiguous, however, and the field is contested across anthropological, ethnological, sociological and ethical perspectives. The objective of this workshop was to discuss gendered aspects of sacrifice from the perspectives of phenomenology and existentialism – disciplines that view sacrifice through the lens of the sacrificial experience. Read more
Doomed to Sacrifice? Existential and Phenomenological Perspectives on Sacrifice and Gender Thu, 28.10.2021, 14:00 - Fri, 29.10.2021, 16:30 Speakers: Martin Koci Sandra LehmannRené Rosfort, Anna Sjöberg, Sara Shabot Cohen Series: Conferences and Workshops Sacrifice is a popular theme in philosophical and theological discussions. The concept remains ambiguous, however, and the field is contested across anthropological, ethnological, sociological and ethical perspectives. The objective of this workshop was to discuss gendered aspects of sacrifice from the perspectives of phenomenology and existentialism – disciplines that view sacrifice through the lens of the sacrificial experience. Read more
	Hybrider Thementag der Kommission für One Person Libraries	Fri, 22.10.2021, 09:30	Conferences and Workshops	Katharina Gratz, Barbara Petritsch, Lisa Weinberger, Rainer Stowasser, Iwona Dullinger, Sandra Hermann, Sandra Sparber, David Moosmaier, Martin Weidinger, Leonie Bischof	Hybrider Thementag der Kommission für One Person Libraries "Der Mensch für sich allein vermag gar wenig und ist ein verlassener Robinson; nur in der Gemeinschaft mit den andern vermag er viel." Arthur Schopenhauer Fri, 22.10.2021, 09:30 Speakers: Katharina Gratz, Barbara Petritsch, Lisa Weinberger, Rainer Stowasser, Iwona Dullinger, Sandra Hermann, Sandra Sparber, David Moosmaier, Martin Weidinger, Leonie Bischof Series: Conferences and Workshops "Der Mensch für sich allein vermag gar wenig und ist ein verlassener Robinson; nur in der Gemeinschaft mit den andern vermag er viel." Arthur Schopenhauer Read more
Hybrider Thementag der Kommission für One Person Libraries "Der Mensch für sich allein vermag gar wenig und ist ein verlassener Robinson; nur in der Gemeinschaft mit den andern vermag er viel." Arthur Schopenhauer Fri, 22.10.2021, 09:30 Speakers: Katharina Gratz, Barbara Petritsch, Lisa Weinberger, Rainer Stowasser, Iwona Dullinger, Sandra Hermann, Sandra Sparber, David Moosmaier, Martin Weidinger, Leonie Bischof Series: Conferences and Workshops "Der Mensch für sich allein vermag gar wenig und ist ein verlassener Robinson; nur in der Gemeinschaft mit den andern vermag er viel." Arthur Schopenhauer Read more
	The Impossibility of Politics: Brecht, Manto and Two Itinerant Situations	Tue, 19.10.2021, 19:00	Lecture	Ludger Hagedorn Ranabir Samaddar	The Impossibility of Politics: Brecht, Manto and Two Itinerant Situations Tue, 19.10.2021, 19:00 Speakers: Ludger Hagedorn Ranabir Samaddar Series: Lecture Two writings of Bertold Brecht and Sadat Hasan Manto are joined by a realisation that in certain situations political openings become impossible. Strangely these are not stable or more correctly speaking static situations but are situations of mobility. Yet the conditions of mobility bring to us only spectres of deaths. Political openings towards transformation at least in a conventional sense are ruled out. The severity of itinerant situations at times makes it impossible for the migrant subjectivity to become political. Read more
The Impossibility of Politics: Brecht, Manto and Two Itinerant Situations Tue, 19.10.2021, 19:00 Speakers: Ludger Hagedorn Ranabir Samaddar Series: Lecture Two writings of Bertold Brecht and Sadat Hasan Manto are joined by a realisation that in certain situations political openings become impossible. Strangely these are not stable or more correctly speaking static situations but are situations of mobility. Yet the conditions of mobility bring to us only spectres of deaths. Political openings towards transformation at least in a conventional sense are ruled out. The severity of itinerant situations at times makes it impossible for the migrant subjectivity to become political. Read more
	Regional free movement of people law: A new field of research for migration studies	Mon, 18.10.2021, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Diego Acosta Ranabir Samaddar	Regional free movement of people law: A new field of research for migration studies Mon, 18.10.2021, 16:00 Speakers: Diego Acosta Ranabir Samaddar Series: Seminars and Colloquia A powerful narrative presents the response to the global challenge of migration as the erection of borders. This paper explores its apparent converse: the easing of borders at regional level. There are now policies and laws facilitating free movement of people in at least thirty-three regional organizations involving 174 states, in addition to numerous bilateral agreements and domestic norms. Yet little work has been done to understand their scope. This Article defines a new field of study for international migration law, labelled as regional free movement of people law, and systematically presents its components. Read more
Regional free movement of people law: A new field of research for migration studies Mon, 18.10.2021, 16:00 Speakers: Diego Acosta Ranabir Samaddar Series: Seminars and Colloquia A powerful narrative presents the response to the global challenge of migration as the erection of borders. This paper explores its apparent converse: the easing of borders at regional level. There are now policies and laws facilitating free movement of people in at least thirty-three regional organizations involving 174 states, in addition to numerous bilateral agreements and domestic norms. Yet little work has been done to understand their scope. This Article defines a new field of study for international migration law, labelled as regional free movement of people law, and systematically presents its components. Read more
	Delhi, Oxford, Moscow.	Thu, 14.10.2021, 18:00	Lecture	Andrei SoldatovArundhati Virmani	Delhi, Oxford, Moscow. The Intellectual and Political Spaces of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Philosopher, Ambassador to Soviet Russia, and President of India Thu, 14.10.2021, 18:00 Speakers: Andrei SoldatovArundhati Virmani Series: Lecture Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, philosopher, academic, intellectual, president of the Indian Republic, spent his life in building and crossing unexpected bridges: between the multifarious activities he undertook during his lifetime, between places that he chose to inhabit, or where he was sent. His multifaceted profile thus led him from his native southern India to the seat of the British empire in Calcutta, to academic citadels in Britain and in the United-States, and later, at the heart of the Cold War, as ambassador to the Soviet Union. His trajectory allows us to follow these multilateral exchanges at different scales and leads us to consider the complex exchanges between distant places belonging to civilizational blocs like Europe, India and Russia beyond traditional binary poles, while viewing them in very contemporary contexts. The intervention examines how Radhakrishnan’s biography challenges our classic understandings of colonial and post-colonial categories and relationships. Read more
Delhi, Oxford, Moscow. The Intellectual and Political Spaces of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Philosopher, Ambassador to Soviet Russia, and President of India Thu, 14.10.2021, 18:00 Speakers: Andrei SoldatovArundhati Virmani Series: Lecture Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, philosopher, academic, intellectual, president of the Indian Republic, spent his life in building and crossing unexpected bridges: between the multifarious activities he undertook during his lifetime, between places that he chose to inhabit, or where he was sent. His multifaceted profile thus led him from his native southern India to the seat of the British empire in Calcutta, to academic citadels in Britain and in the United-States, and later, at the heart of the Cold War, as ambassador to the Soviet Union. His trajectory allows us to follow these multilateral exchanges at different scales and leads us to consider the complex exchanges between distant places belonging to civilizational blocs like Europe, India and Russia beyond traditional binary poles, while viewing them in very contemporary contexts. The intervention examines how Radhakrishnan’s biography challenges our classic understandings of colonial and post-colonial categories and relationships. Read more
	Sovereignty and Political Mythologies	Wed, 13.10.2021, 18:00	Lecture	Colby Dickinson	Sovereignty and Political Mythologies Wed, 13.10.2021, 18:00 Speakers: Colby Dickinson Series: Lecture The Cartesian mind/body dualism that has come to dominate western thinking for centuries has an unacknowledged affinity with the split in sovereign power that once characterized the king’s two bodies. In this medieval political theology the king is said to have both a physical-temporal body that eventually dies and another body that represents the politically sovereign and eternal body. Secularized Cartesian mind/body dualism, where the mind becomes an eternal force of reason acting within a corrupted embodied existence, the king’s two bodies reflect a hierarchical imposition of dominance that justifies a more deeply engrained master/slave duality. Read more
Sovereignty and Political Mythologies Wed, 13.10.2021, 18:00 Speakers: Colby Dickinson Series: Lecture The Cartesian mind/body dualism that has come to dominate western thinking for centuries has an unacknowledged affinity with the split in sovereign power that once characterized the king’s two bodies. In this medieval political theology the king is said to have both a physical-temporal body that eventually dies and another body that represents the politically sovereign and eternal body. Secularized Cartesian mind/body dualism, where the mind becomes an eternal force of reason acting within a corrupted embodied existence, the king’s two bodies reflect a hierarchical imposition of dominance that justifies a more deeply engrained master/slave duality. Read more
	Legacies of Silenced Atrocities: Lessons from Holodomor	Mon, 11.10.2021, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Karolina Koziura Katherine Younger Ludger Hagedorn	Legacies of Silenced Atrocities: Lessons from Holodomor Mon, 11.10.2021, 16:00 Speakers: Karolina Koziura Katherine Younger Ludger Hagedorn Series: Seminars and Colloquia How to make sense of an atrocity in an environment of repressive silence? What kind of memory work needs to be done to overcome imposed forgetting? This presentation aimed to address these questions by analyzing the long-term legacy of political violence that travels across time and space. By unravelling the meaning of Holodomor, one of the biggest - yet unacknowledged - atrocities in the history of the Soviet Union, it traced the lasting effects of the denial of mass atrocity and documented the struggles of transnational mnemonic activists to reclaim authority over a silenced past. It further showed that to achieve reconciliation with a repressive past, history and memory need to be seen as mutually dependent transcending the national optic. Read more
Legacies of Silenced Atrocities: Lessons from Holodomor Mon, 11.10.2021, 16:00 Speakers: Karolina Koziura Katherine Younger Ludger Hagedorn Series: Seminars and Colloquia How to make sense of an atrocity in an environment of repressive silence? What kind of memory work needs to be done to overcome imposed forgetting? This presentation aimed to address these questions by analyzing the long-term legacy of political violence that travels across time and space. By unravelling the meaning of Holodomor, one of the biggest - yet unacknowledged - atrocities in the history of the Soviet Union, it traced the lasting effects of the denial of mass atrocity and documented the struggles of transnational mnemonic activists to reclaim authority over a silenced past. It further showed that to achieve reconciliation with a repressive past, history and memory need to be seen as mutually dependent transcending the national optic. Read more
	The Ratline - From Vienna and Back, with Love, Lies and Justice	Tue, 05.10.2021, 19:00	Lecture	Ivan VejvodaPhilippe Sands	The Ratline - From Vienna and Back, with Love, Lies and Justice Patočka Memorial Lecture 2021 Tue, 05.10.2021, 19:00 Speakers: Ivan VejvodaPhilippe Sands Series: Lecture To mark the publication of the English language version of The Ratline, which follows his prize-winning book East West Street, Philippe Sands explored the ideas that underpin his new work, an account of the lives of Otto von Wächter, an Austrian SS Gruppenführer indicted for mass murder, and his wife Charlotte, from the moment they met Vienna in April 1929 to his unexpected death in Rome in 1949. The lecture was built around a set of deeply personal stories that explore the role of justice, the legacy of memory across generations, and the impulses that generate our search for truth. Read more
The Ratline - From Vienna and Back, with Love, Lies and Justice Patočka Memorial Lecture 2021 Tue, 05.10.2021, 19:00 Speakers: Ivan VejvodaPhilippe Sands Series: Lecture To mark the publication of the English language version of The Ratline, which follows his prize-winning book East West Street, Philippe Sands explored the ideas that underpin his new work, an account of the lives of Otto von Wächter, an Austrian SS Gruppenführer indicted for mass murder, and his wife Charlotte, from the moment they met Vienna in April 1929 to his unexpected death in Rome in 1949. The lecture was built around a set of deeply personal stories that explore the role of justice, the legacy of memory across generations, and the impulses that generate our search for truth. Read more