Past Events

	Title	Date	Type	Speakers
	WhatsApp Israel?	Tue, 02.06.2020, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Avrum Burg Ludger Hagedorn	WhatsApp Israel? Tue, 02.06.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Avrum Burg Ludger Hagedorn Series: Seminars and Colloquia There are not many individuals in the world, who do not know Israel. Who did not hear something, good or bad, about it? Many have strong opinions about what is happening in this small country. The country that was once a model society of equality and liberal democracy is now a partner to more conservative and illiberal regimes around the world. So, who are you Israel of 2020? Read more
WhatsApp Israel? Tue, 02.06.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Avrum Burg Ludger Hagedorn Series: Seminars and Colloquia There are not many individuals in the world, who do not know Israel. Who did not hear something, good or bad, about it? Many have strong opinions about what is happening in this small country. The country that was once a model society of equality and liberal democracy is now a partner to more conservative and illiberal regimes around the world. So, who are you Israel of 2020? Read more
	Parenting and Education	Mon, 25.05.2020, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Biray Kolluoglu Ludger Hagedorn	Parenting and Education Navigating Class, Religiosity and Secularity in Turkey Mon, 25.05.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Biray Kolluoglu Ludger Hagedorn Series: Seminars and Colloquia Middle class parents in reproducing their children’s middle classness face a complex web of paths to navigate towards a future that seems less controllable. Education is the primary means of the reproduction of class positions and hence education is the field that unravels both modern parenting and class inequalities. What happens when class gets entangled with the place of religion in a society that is politically, socially and culturally crackling along the religious and the secular divide? This presentation explored how middle class parents in Istanbul juggle their religiosity and secularity in their anxious saga of giving their children a life like theirs. The presentation invited us to think about the global implications of the relationship between the making of cultural cleavages and the role of class practices through their manifestations in the field of education. Read more
Parenting and Education Navigating Class, Religiosity and Secularity in Turkey Mon, 25.05.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Biray Kolluoglu Ludger Hagedorn Series: Seminars and Colloquia Middle class parents in reproducing their children’s middle classness face a complex web of paths to navigate towards a future that seems less controllable. Education is the primary means of the reproduction of class positions and hence education is the field that unravels both modern parenting and class inequalities. What happens when class gets entangled with the place of religion in a society that is politically, socially and culturally crackling along the religious and the secular divide? This presentation explored how middle class parents in Istanbul juggle their religiosity and secularity in their anxious saga of giving their children a life like theirs. The presentation invited us to think about the global implications of the relationship between the making of cultural cleavages and the role of class practices through their manifestations in the field of education. Read more
	Kidnapped from Nazism, or the Greek Tragedy of Central Europe	Mon, 18.05.2020, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Aspen Brinton Ludger Hagedorn Tomáš Korda Vlasta Kordová	Kidnapped from Nazism, or the Greek Tragedy of Central Europe Mon, 18.05.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Aspen Brinton Ludger Hagedorn Tomáš Korda Vlasta Kordová Series: Seminars and Colloquia The paper recalls the essay The Tragedy of Central Europe, written by the Czech novelist Milan Kundera. Vlasta Kordova and Tomas Korda criticize the unhistorical cold-war image of the West that Kundera employs. In his reading, the Second World War just did not take place. They do not mean this objection as an external critique. Since why should someone be interested in Kundera’s omission, after all. They mean their criticism as immanent in the sense that ignoring the WWII, as the “truth” and result of the severe nationalism that was then spread across the continent, precludes the very possibility to apprehend the moral equality or equal legitimacy of the “socialist” East and the “capitalist” West. Since a tragic collision of two powers is set up only by their equal essentiality, Kundera cannot grasp the tragical dimension of the Cold War, and Central Europe respectively. Underpinned by the WWII and thereby elevated into the genuine Greek tragedy, the Cold War cannot know any victors, losers or pure victims and, moreover, both powers of equal essentiality must experience their own respective demise. Read more
Kidnapped from Nazism, or the Greek Tragedy of Central Europe Mon, 18.05.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Aspen Brinton Ludger Hagedorn Tomáš Korda Vlasta Kordová Series: Seminars and Colloquia The paper recalls the essay The Tragedy of Central Europe, written by the Czech novelist Milan Kundera. Vlasta Kordova and Tomas Korda criticize the unhistorical cold-war image of the West that Kundera employs. In his reading, the Second World War just did not take place. They do not mean this objection as an external critique. Since why should someone be interested in Kundera’s omission, after all. They mean their criticism as immanent in the sense that ignoring the WWII, as the “truth” and result of the severe nationalism that was then spread across the continent, precludes the very possibility to apprehend the moral equality or equal legitimacy of the “socialist” East and the “capitalist” West. Since a tragic collision of two powers is set up only by their equal essentiality, Kundera cannot grasp the tragical dimension of the Cold War, and Central Europe respectively. Underpinned by the WWII and thereby elevated into the genuine Greek tragedy, the Cold War cannot know any victors, losers or pure victims and, moreover, both powers of equal essentiality must experience their own respective demise. Read more
	Leben im – und Wege aus dem – „Corona-Camp“	Mon, 11.05.2020, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Bernd Marin Ludger HagedornAugust Ruhs	Leben im – und Wege aus dem – „Corona-Camp“ Mon, 11.05.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Bernd Marin Ludger HagedornAugust Ruhs Series: Seminars and Colloquia Der renommierte österreichische Sozialwissenschaftler Bernd Marin hat in zwei Interviews (beide in voller Länge nachzulesen im Corona Blog des IWM) das Leben im „Corona-Camp” (6. April; eine vielbeachtete Kurzfassung erschien am 12. April in der Ostersonntagsausgabe des KURIER) sowie Post-Quarantimes: Wege aus dem „Corona-Camp“ (29. April) kritisch reflektiert. Im Rahmen des virtuellen IWM-Kolloquiums stellte sich Bernd Marin öffentlich den Fragen zu seinen beiden Interviews (hier eine mögliche Auswahl) und diskutierte mit dem bekannten Psychiater August Ruhs. Read more
Leben im – und Wege aus dem – „Corona-Camp“ Mon, 11.05.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Bernd Marin Ludger HagedornAugust Ruhs Series: Seminars and Colloquia Der renommierte österreichische Sozialwissenschaftler Bernd Marin hat in zwei Interviews (beide in voller Länge nachzulesen im Corona Blog des IWM) das Leben im „Corona-Camp” (6. April; eine vielbeachtete Kurzfassung erschien am 12. April in der Ostersonntagsausgabe des KURIER) sowie Post-Quarantimes: Wege aus dem „Corona-Camp“ (29. April) kritisch reflektiert. Im Rahmen des virtuellen IWM-Kolloquiums stellte sich Bernd Marin öffentlich den Fragen zu seinen beiden Interviews (hier eine mögliche Auswahl) und diskutierte mit dem bekannten Psychiater August Ruhs. Read more
	Religion and Power Between Empires and Publics	Mon, 04.05.2020, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Katherine Younger Laura Engelstein	Religion and Power Between Empires and Publics The Case of the Greek Catholic/Uniate Church Mon, 04.05.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Katherine Younger Laura Engelstein Series: Seminars and Colloquia In the 19th century, the Greek Catholic/Uniate Church, an Eastern rite Catholic Church on the territory of modern-day Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland, served as a proving ground for evolving approaches to negotiating religion within states and between them. Straddling a political border between the Habsburg and Russian empires and a confessional boundary between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, the church became a major object of the ambitions and anxieties of empires and their subjects. The project explores two main questions: How did the role of religion change over the course of the 19th century with regards to imperial governance and international politics? And how did these changes shape the ways power was exercised in those same two arenas? The case of the Greek Catholic/Uniate Church helps us to trace confession’s evolution as a crucial element in the logic of empire, as well as how policies of coercion came to be complemented by tools of attraction given the growing range of actors with domestic and international political influence and power. Read more
Religion and Power Between Empires and Publics The Case of the Greek Catholic/Uniate Church Mon, 04.05.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Katherine Younger Laura Engelstein Series: Seminars and Colloquia In the 19th century, the Greek Catholic/Uniate Church, an Eastern rite Catholic Church on the territory of modern-day Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland, served as a proving ground for evolving approaches to negotiating religion within states and between them. Straddling a political border between the Habsburg and Russian empires and a confessional boundary between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, the church became a major object of the ambitions and anxieties of empires and their subjects. The project explores two main questions: How did the role of religion change over the course of the 19th century with regards to imperial governance and international politics? And how did these changes shape the ways power was exercised in those same two arenas? The case of the Greek Catholic/Uniate Church helps us to trace confession’s evolution as a crucial element in the logic of empire, as well as how policies of coercion came to be complemented by tools of attraction given the growing range of actors with domestic and international political influence and power. Read more
	Europe After the Pandemic	Wed, 22.04.2020, 18:30	Panels and Discussions	Ivan KrastevJordi Vaquer	Europe After the Pandemic Wed, 22.04.2020, 18:30 Speakers: Ivan KrastevJordi Vaquer Series: Panels and Discussions The political scientist Ivan Krastev, chairman of the Centre of Liberal Strategies in Sofia and Permanent Fellow of the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), and the political analyst and co-director of the Open Society Initiative for Europe, Jordi Vaquer, discussed the future of Europe after the COVID-19 crisis. Read more
Europe After the Pandemic Wed, 22.04.2020, 18:30 Speakers: Ivan KrastevJordi Vaquer Series: Panels and Discussions The political scientist Ivan Krastev, chairman of the Centre of Liberal Strategies in Sofia and Permanent Fellow of the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), and the political analyst and co-director of the Open Society Initiative for Europe, Jordi Vaquer, discussed the future of Europe after the COVID-19 crisis. Read more
	Democratic Backsliding in Eastern Europe	Mon, 20.04.2020, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Ludger Hagedorn Venelin Ganev	Democratic Backsliding in Eastern Europe Mon, 20.04.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Ludger Hagedorn Venelin Ganev Series: Seminars and Colloquia Back in the late 2000s, when all former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe acquired full membership of the European Union, it appeared as if these countries were on their way to democratic normality. What happened instead was that many of them underwent democratic backsliding. As the region transitioned from the accession to the post-accession era, the institutional, legal and political parameters of elite action were dramatically and swiftly reconfigured in ways that facilitated the rise of ambitious, illiberal projects. Read more
Democratic Backsliding in Eastern Europe Mon, 20.04.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Ludger Hagedorn Venelin Ganev Series: Seminars and Colloquia Back in the late 2000s, when all former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe acquired full membership of the European Union, it appeared as if these countries were on their way to democratic normality. What happened instead was that many of them underwent democratic backsliding. As the region transitioned from the accession to the post-accession era, the institutional, legal and political parameters of elite action were dramatically and swiftly reconfigured in ways that facilitated the rise of ambitious, illiberal projects. Read more
	Communism Never Happened	Tue, 14.04.2020, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Jan Sowa Ludger Hagedorn	Communism Never Happened Tue, 14.04.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Jan Sowa Ludger Hagedorn Series: Seminars and Colloquia Almost every time a public discussion deals with questions of redistribution or social justice, there is a person standing up and saying something like: “Yes, we know that experiments from history and they all end up in some kind of Gulags!” This can be observed e.g. in debates around Corbynism in the UK or Bernie Sanders in the US, when they are portrayed as vicious Marxists who want to reanimate ugly socialism. The proposition of this talk was to look at the historical experience of Eastern Europe and try to answer the question to what extent it was a communist experience, if matched with the vision and principles of communism as constructed in the 19th and 20th century. The goal was to show that however we evaluate that period, calling it “communist” makes no more sense than agreeing that the German Democratic Republic was “democratic”, because this was asserted by its propaganda and its official name. The talk tried to put forward an analytical framework that allows for a better conceptualization and a more accurate description of the actually existing “communism.” Read more
Communism Never Happened Tue, 14.04.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Jan Sowa Ludger Hagedorn Series: Seminars and Colloquia Almost every time a public discussion deals with questions of redistribution or social justice, there is a person standing up and saying something like: “Yes, we know that experiments from history and they all end up in some kind of Gulags!” This can be observed e.g. in debates around Corbynism in the UK or Bernie Sanders in the US, when they are portrayed as vicious Marxists who want to reanimate ugly socialism. The proposition of this talk was to look at the historical experience of Eastern Europe and try to answer the question to what extent it was a communist experience, if matched with the vision and principles of communism as constructed in the 19th and 20th century. The goal was to show that however we evaluate that period, calling it “communist” makes no more sense than agreeing that the German Democratic Republic was “democratic”, because this was asserted by its propaganda and its official name. The talk tried to put forward an analytical framework that allows for a better conceptualization and a more accurate description of the actually existing “communism.” Read more
	The Importance of Being Funny	Mon, 06.04.2020, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Ludger Hagedorn Mila Ganeva	The Importance of Being Funny Jewish Humor in Cabaret and Film Mon, 06.04.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Ludger Hagedorn Mila Ganeva Series: Seminars and Colloquia This talk was part of a book project on the cultural history of Jewish artistic presence in German-speaking cabaret and film in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. (During her fellowship at the IWM, Mila Ganeva was researching materials at the Austrian Exile Archive at ÖNB and the Österreichisches Kabarettarchiv in Graz.) In this presentation for the colloquium, she focused on a representative figure of cabaret and film, the German-Jewish comedian Siegfried Arno. Arno, who was labeled by contemporaries “our Buster Keaton”, was enormously successful on both the cabaret stage and the silver screen. In the 1920s, Arno and many of his colleagues were also at the centre of the so-called “cabaret wars”, as they were accused (and often sued) by the Centralverein of the German Citizens of the Jewish Faith of excessive use of Jewish jokes and fuelling antisemitism. The presentation reviewed Arno’s role in the very public debate about Jews in cabaret and film, and explored some of his actual performances in films as well as on the stage of the Kabarett der Komiker. Read more
The Importance of Being Funny Jewish Humor in Cabaret and Film Mon, 06.04.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Ludger Hagedorn Mila Ganeva Series: Seminars and Colloquia This talk was part of a book project on the cultural history of Jewish artistic presence in German-speaking cabaret and film in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. (During her fellowship at the IWM, Mila Ganeva was researching materials at the Austrian Exile Archive at ÖNB and the Österreichisches Kabarettarchiv in Graz.) In this presentation for the colloquium, she focused on a representative figure of cabaret and film, the German-Jewish comedian Siegfried Arno. Arno, who was labeled by contemporaries “our Buster Keaton”, was enormously successful on both the cabaret stage and the silver screen. In the 1920s, Arno and many of his colleagues were also at the centre of the so-called “cabaret wars”, as they were accused (and often sued) by the Centralverein of the German Citizens of the Jewish Faith of excessive use of Jewish jokes and fuelling antisemitism. The presentation reviewed Arno’s role in the very public debate about Jews in cabaret and film, and explored some of his actual performances in films as well as on the stage of the Kabarett der Komiker. Read more
	Berlin Hamlet. Gedichte	Tue, 10.03.2020, 19:00	Panels and Discussions	Heike FlemmingCornelius Hell	Berlin Hamlet. Gedichte Tue, 10.03.2020, 19:00 Speakers: Heike FlemmingCornelius Hell Series: Panels and Discussions Lesung und Diskussion zum Werk des ungarischen Schriftstellers Szilárd Borbély, der vor allem für seinen Roman „Die Mittellosen“ bekannt ist. Erstmals liegen nun in deutscher Sprache zwei Gedichtzyklen des 2014 verstorbenen Autors vor, der als bedeutendster ungarischer Lyriker seit 1989 gilt. 2013 war Borbély Paul Celan Visiting Fellow am IWM. Read more
Berlin Hamlet. Gedichte Tue, 10.03.2020, 19:00 Speakers: Heike FlemmingCornelius Hell Series: Panels and Discussions Lesung und Diskussion zum Werk des ungarischen Schriftstellers Szilárd Borbély, der vor allem für seinen Roman „Die Mittellosen“ bekannt ist. Erstmals liegen nun in deutscher Sprache zwei Gedichtzyklen des 2014 verstorbenen Autors vor, der als bedeutendster ungarischer Lyriker seit 1989 gilt. 2013 war Borbély Paul Celan Visiting Fellow am IWM. Read more