Program
September 30, 2024
5 PM – 5.45 PM
Welcoming address by
Prof.in Dr. Ursula Regener
Vice President for
Internationalization and
Diversity at University of
Regensburg
Dr. André Schüller-Zwierlein
Head of the University Library
Opening of the exhibition
“Shifting Borders,
Fluid Landscapes”
with photographs by
Viktor Marushchenko
Karolina Jonderko
Alexander Chekmenev
Michał Cała
5.45 PM – 7.45 PM
Podium discussion with
Lyuba Yakimchuk
and Zbigniew Rokita
7.45 PM –
Reception
Viktor Marushchenko (1946-2020) was one
of the most internationally renowned Ukrainian
photographers. He participated in the Venice
Biennale in 2001 and in the São Paulo Biennale
in 2004. He also founded the Victor Marushchenko
School of Photography in Kyiv.
Karolina Jonderko, born 1985 in Rydułtowy,
Upper Silesia, works on both local and international
projects, focusing on themes of loss and its aftermath.
She won the World Press Photo Award in 2021.
Alexander Chekmenev, born 1969 in Luhansk,
Donbas, has been living in Kyiv since 1997.
He continuously documents the changing reality
of hiscountry and exhibits his work internationally.
Michał Cała (1948) photographed Silesia most
intensively between 1975 and 1992. In 2007,
he was invited to participate in an exhibition at the
Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw,
showcasing the works of the 100 most
important Polish photographers.
Lyuba Yakimchuk, born 1985 in Luhansk, Donbas,
is a Ukrainian poet and writer known for her
compelling work that often explores
themes of identity, memory, and the effects of
historical trauma. Her work has been translated
into several European languages.
Zbigniew Rokita, born in 1989 in Gliwice,
Upper Silesia, explores the multiple identities
of the former German territories in today’s
Poland in his non-fiction literary works. He won the
prestigious Polish NIKE Award in 2021.
October 1, 2024
9 AM – 10.45 AM
Andrii Portnov (Frankfurt/O.)
Chair: Oleksandr Zabirko
(Regensburg)
DONBAS: SOME
REFLECTIONS ON POSSIBLE
RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES
11 AM – 12.30 PM
Panel 1
Across the Disciplines:
Donbas and Upper Silesia in
Comparative Perspective
Chair: Oleksandr Zabirko (Regensburg)
Peter Oliver Loew (Darmstadt):
Upper Silesia and Donbas:
Century-Spanning Conflicts
over Two Industrial Regions
Vlad Mykhnenko (Oxford):
Geopolitics versus the Regions:
Reframing the Old Industrial
Regions Research
Alina Strzempa (Regensburg):
Region, Globalization, Industry,
Borderland, Comparison: Donbas
and Upper Silesia in Literary and
Cultural Studies
1.30 PM – 3 PM (parallel panel)
Panel 2
Traditions and Transitions:
Questioning Social Formations in
the Post-Industrial Regions
Chair: Alina Strzempa (Regensburg)
Wiktoria Tombarkiewicz-Gorzelik
(Kraków): Folk Costume and Miner’s
Uniform as a Representation of
Upper Silesianness – Roots,
Transformations, Meanings
of the Practice
Monika Glosowitz (Katowice):
Memoirs of Women from Upper-Silesian
Families as Counter-Archive of
De/Industrialisation
Olena Syaivo Dmytryk
(Cambridge): ‘A Multi-Layered Pie
of Contradictions’: Luhans’k
‘Orchid’ Theatre of Provocative
Fashion_VIA ZOOM
1.30 PM – 3 PM (parallel panel)
Panel 3
Identity Crises in Upper Silesia
and the Donbas: From Industrial
Heritage to Separatism and Beyond
Chair: Andrzej Czyżewski (Warsaw)
Alexandr Osipian (Leipzig):
Identity Crisis in Old Industrial Region:
Historical Legacy of Donbas
in Ukraine and Russia, 1991-2024
Jerzy Gorzelik (Katowice):
The Industrial Heritage of
Upper Silesia after 1989 as a
Factor of Cohesion and Subversion
Kyrylo Tkachenko (München):
Separatism, Irredentism, or
Something Else? The Shifting Image
of the “Exploiting Center” in
the Political Debates in the Donbas,
1989-1993
3.30 PM – 5 PM (parallel panel)
Panel 4
Belonging, Displacement, and
Propaganda in the Donbas
Chair: Vlad Mykhnenko (Cambridge)
Qianrui Hu (London): Evolving
Narrative of Self and Belonging
among Displaced Ukrainians
from ‘Donbas’
Jon Roozenbeek (London):
The Long-Term Failure of Russian
Propaganda_VIA ZOOM
3.30 PM – 5 PM (parallel panel)
Panel 5
Upper Silesian Borderland
Narratives
Chair: Anna Seidel (Berlin)
Jess Jensen Mitchell
(Harvard/Katowice): ‘Still nothing
about Silesia’: Regional Family
Sagas in Contemporary Polish
Writing
Leszek Drong (Katowice):
Ghost of Borders Past: Haunted
Borderscapes in Contemporary
Narratives from Upper Silesia
Adam Kubik (Heidelberg): Industry
as a Mirror of the Self and the
Other in Contemporary Literature
of Borderlands: Upper Silesia and
South Tyrol
October 2, 2024
9 AM – 10.30 AM (parallel panel)
Panel 6
Environmental Footprints: Water,
Nuclear, and Coal Legacies
Across Europe
Chair: Olga Plakhotnik (Greifswald)
Anna Barcz (Warsaw):
Major River Floods in
19th Century Europe: Literary
Sources and a Non-Anthropocentric
History of Hydro-Infrastructure
Juliane Tomann (Regensburg):
Nuclear Heritage in the Making.
Negotiating the GDR Uranium
Mining Past in the “New Landscape”
Park in Ronneburg (Thuringia)
Marta Tomczok, Paweł Tomczok
(Katowice): Coal Humanities:
Assumptions, Perspectives,
and Possibilities
9 AM – 10.30 AM (parallel panel)
Panel 7
Community Dynamics in
Industrial Landscapes
Chair: Maria Mayerchyk (Kleve)
Oleksandr Zabirko (Regensburg):
The Owner and the Debt:
The Symbolic Economy of Miners’
Cult in the Soviet Donbas
Karolina Pospiszil-Hofmańska
(Katowice): Human Waste:
Exploring Narratives of Spoil Tip
Inhabitants in Upper Silesian
Literature
Anna Seidel (Berlin): Scooping
Oil and Digging Coal. Literary
Representations of Workers’ Lives
in Teschen Silesia and Eastern
Galicia
11 AM – 12.30 PM
Panel 8
Art and Identity in Post-Industrial
Urban Settings
Chair: Juliane Tomann (Regensburg)
Clemens Günther (Berlin):
Colours of Ostrava – Examining
the Colour Schemes of the Historical
Past and Present
Carlos Navarro González (Paris):
Cinema and Audiovisual Art in the
Post-Industrial Landscape of
Lisbon: Migrant, Working, and
Racialized Communities
Andrzej Czyżewski (Warsaw):
Promised Land – in Search of the
City’s Identity (Łódź)
11 AM – 12.30 PM (parallel panel)
Panel 9
Myths of the Donbas: Creation,
Persistence, and Destruction
Chair: Oleksandr Zabirko
(Regensburg)
Mykola Riabchuk (Kyiv): Donbas
versus Galicia: Different Modes of
Othering and Mythologizing
Roman Dubasevych (Greifswald):
“You must defend what rightfully
belongs to you”: Masculinity,
Violence, and (Impending) War in
Serhii Zhadan’s novel
Voroshylovhrad (2010)
Oleksandr Chertenko (Giessen):
“Fortress Donbas”: Going Back to
a Wild Field? Cultural Accounts
of a (Former) Industrial Region
after 24.2.2022
12.30 PM –1 PM
CONCLUDING REMARKS