Faculty Colloquium Spring 2024

All are invited to this semester’s faculty colloquium. The colloquium is a multidisciplinary forum for discussing faculty work in various stages of progress, from brainstorming new ideas to already published work. Each session will take place over lunchtime and feature a variety of formats tailored to the presenter's preferences and objectives. Formats will include a short presentation and discussion of a pre-circulated paper, or a longer (20-30 min) presentation, followed by a discussion. All talks will take place from 12:30 to 1:30pm in P24 Seminar Room 8
 
Wednesday, February 21 – Jana Lozanoska, Assistant Professor at Al-Quds Bard College
“X-Rays Seeing the Invisible”
This research from an interdisciplinary perspective focuses on international criminal law and the visual art exhibition “Radiography” by artist Henry Lewis and forensics. It discusses the nature of X-rays images as evidence and conceptualizes the term ‘contemporary forensics’ deployed during international criminal investigations of mass crimes by focusing on the standards for admission/authentication and probative value of this type of evidence in the International Criminal Court, in particular for the Lubanga case involving the recruitment of child soldiers. The research critically engages with novel approaches of (re)construction of evidence. It distinguishes between forensic radiology and forensic odontology and its interactions with forensic anthropology in examining the interrelationship between X-ray images and regular photographs. Finally, it examines the theoretical writings of the media and culture studies theorist Vilém Flusser proposing phenomenological aesthetics of X-rays as publicity on the one hand and confidentiality on the other as tension that stems out of forums, courts, or arts exhibitions.
 
Wednesday, February 28 – Berit Ebert
“EU Multilevel Governance and the Disobedient Gender Movement in Poland” 
By connecting Multilevel Governance Theory (MLG) with Hannah Arendt’s concept of civil disobedience, this lecture elaborates on the access of the gender equality concerns in Poland to the institutionalized policy-making realm of the European Union (EU). Whereas the 2023
Polish parliamentary elections are often depicted as a great success for women’s and LGBTQIA+, it will be shown that translatability of gender topics to the EU via subnational channels are quantitatively and qualitatively deficient. A variety of access configurations depend on the impact of gender roles in national contexts and lead to different legitimacy constellations across EU Member States.

Wednesday, March 20 – John Kleckner
“Stick Paintings & Foliate Heads: Recent Artworks by John Kleckner”
This presentation will feature recent paintings and drawings from two series that have emerged in my Berlin studio since the COVID-19 pandemic. One is a group of blurred landscapes with meticulously rendered sticks and colorful shapes floating in the foreground; the other is a series of stippled, ink self-portraits framed by flora and fungi. I will trace the development of these artworks, exploring their themes of nature, solitude, mimesis, fragmentation, juxtaposition, and the passing of time. The audience will gain an understanding of my artistic practice as it has evolved over 20 years, leading up to pieces currently in progress. The actual art objects will be on display for close examination and critique.
 
Wednesday April 10 – Cholpon Turdalieva, Professor at American University of Central Asia
"Gendered Mobilities of Central Asian Migrants in Germany through the Perspectives of Public Transport"
Aiming to remedy the lacuna in the interdisciplinary mobility and migration literature, the main objective of the present research project is to examine Central Asian migrant women in Berlin through their commuting experience on public transport. I aim to address several issues and questions as the following. To what extent is Central Asian women's integration in the host city influenced by daily commuting on different modes of public transit? How are women's employment, studying, income, and kinship networks realized or imposed in Germany's ethnocultural communities and other diverse multiethnic groups? Following these questions, my research will be geared to produce academic and practical insights into the intersection of gendered mobility, migration, and public transit. We argue that Central Asian women migrants realize their socio-economic, educational, professional, and other personal and public goals in Germany by navigating their mobility, presumably through public transit transport. In this vein, we may think that automobility technologies, particularly the well-developed public transit in Berlin, empower Central-Asian migrant women by allowing them to move through different public spaces and traverse physical and social boundaries with greater ease and practice.

Wednesday April 24 – Kai Koddenbrock
“Walking a Fine Line: Germany and the Question of Imperialism”
Imperialism is back in our everyday vocabulary to describe Russian expansionism. Yet the theoretical contours of the term imperialism are notoriously hard to pin down and its analytical added value is often disputed. The term exists as a descriptor of government action to qualify Russia or the US as ‘imperialist’ states. It also denotes the structural logic of capitalism on the world scale which tends towards war, value extraction and the bifurcation of the world into core and peripheries. In this paper, I investigate this dual meaning of imperialism with a view to Germany’s history, policy, and political economy. I suggest a contemporary analysis of imperialism focusing on domestic state-capital relations, military violence, and the extraction of value from the Global South. Applying this troika of imperialism to German state-capital relations, the paper focuses on its corporate giants Volkswagen and BASF, recent shifts in security and economic policy as well as the quest for mineral supplies from the Global South and argue that Germany can be – with some qualifications – called an imperialist state. In conclusion the paper shows that imperialism as an analytical term allows to go beyond the overly generic term of capitalism and is uniquely placed to make sense of a more openly violent world engulfed in war and crisis.

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For more information, e-mail [email protected].

Time: 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm CET/GMT+1

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