Research Area 6: Cultural Identities
Within our Research Area “Cultural Identities”, we discuss a set of concepts dealing with identity in a variety of socio-cultural coordinates. We approach different perspectives and schools of thought to analyse the origin, history, and transformation of such concepts in multiple temporalities and global differences. In this regard, we seek to shed light on the points of convergence and divergence between culture and identity by addressing their ‘travelling’ to different contexts and their adjacent concepts, which gives voice to disregarded realities. The notion of identity is not to be taken as an autonomous and self-sustaining entity, rather, a combination of cultural dynamics open to layers, contrasts, intersections, and ruptures. Our focus considers metaphorical tools of expression as hybridity, transplantation, graft, translation, and travel. We give particular attention to the concepts of subjectivity, the individual and the world, the self, the otherness, the local and global socio-cultural practices, and the nation-state dimension. Following this path, we welcome several critical takes that include but are not limited to Cultural Studies, Social Sciences, Anthropology, Ethnology, Gender Studies, Religious Studies, Diaspora Studies, Literary Studies, Philosophy, New Materialism, Posthumanism, Postcolonialism, Modernism, Postmodernism and Affect Theory. Besides the presentation and discussion of texts, we regularly plan workshops, lectures, and masterclasses inviting scholars from other institutions, thus, fostering the interdisciplinary exchange in our academic community and giving our members the networking opportunity.
Summer Semester 2024
Speakers:
Anjuli Trautmann and Alexandros Balatsoukas
Current focus: Disruption of identities as a result of drastic events, articulations of identity via 'post'-concepts, identity as a contested concept
Active Participants:
- Emilio Aguas
- Alexandros Balatsoukas
- Melisa Çiçek
- Johanna Diehl
- Erzhena Dugarova
- Sandra Engels
- Justus Grebe
- Farouk El Maarouf
- Reiqa Qubailat
- Archana Ravi
- Ana Spasojevic
- Anjuli Trautmann
- Anastasiia Marsheva
Former Speakers:
- Winter Semester 2022/23 - Winter Semester 2023/24: Anastasiia Marsheva and Şahin Yaldiz
- Summer Semester 2022: Dr. Roeland Goorts and Robin Probst
- Academic Year 2021/2022: Clara Verri and Robin Probst
- Academic Year 2021: Laura Popa and Clara Verri
- Academic Year 2020/2021: Laura Popa and Tatsiana Artsimovich
- Academic Year 2019/2020: Laura Popa and Morteza Azimi
- Academic Year 2018: Alexander Flaß and Aleksandar Talović
- 29 January 2024: Workshop "Identity - a Contested Category". Lecturer: Dr. Doris Bachmann-Medick;
- 14 July 2022: Workshop “Die Ökologisierung der Gesellschaft/ Ecologization of Society“ Lecturer: Leander Scholz;
- 7 April 2021: Lecture “National and Religious Identity in the Low Countries during the Grand Siècle”. Lecturer: Roeland Goorts;
- 23-25 June 2021: International Interdisciplinary Laboratory-Conference Online: “Cultural Identities in a Global World: Reframing Cultural Hybridity” (Conference Report)
- 23 June 2020: Workshop “Cultural Hybridity-Revisited”, Lecturer: Doris Bachmann-Medick (Senior Research Fellow, International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture),
- 19 June 2018: Keynote Lecture “The Road Not Taken: Ethics and Non-Negative Non-Agency”, Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Thomas Claviez (University of Bern, Switzerland),
- 20 June 2018: Master Class “Rethinking Agency – Rethinking Community”, Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Thomas Claviez (University of Bern, Switzerland).
Former active participants:
- Aleksandar Talović
- Alexander Flaß
- Alexandra Effe
- Christoph Held
- Clara Verri
- Daniel Schneider
- Daniel Speier
- Jana Tiborra
- Jonas Wolf
- Juan Brigard
- Kwezi Sontange
- Laura Popa
- Lisa Kempus
- María Cárdenas
- Dr. Marion Rutz
- Morteza Azimi
- Robin Probst
- Dr. Roeland Goorts
- Sarah Noske
- Silvia Casazza
- Tatsiana Artsimovich
- Vera Volkmann
- Vira Sachenko
- Zahra Vojgani