By Christoph Streb In light of recent phenomena of global communication like #MeToo, Fridays for Future, and the proliferating conspiracy theories about the Coronavirus pandemic, this book on the history…
TraFo
TraFo
The League Against Imperialism: Lives and Afterlives
by editorial board •
Founded in Brussels in 1927, the League Against Imperialism attracted anticolonial activists like Nehru, Sukarno, and Kenyatta, as well as figures like Einstein and Madame Sun Yat-Sen. Its immediate goals were to develop solidarity between communists, socialists, and anti-colonial nationalists worldwide.
TraFo
On Dersim and the Banality of Evil: The Diary of Yusuf Kenan Akım
by editorial board •
By Zeynep Türkyilmaz. Entering my usual keywords randomly to see what is out there in my areas of interest, I came across a diary of a Turkish soldier kept during the year 1938.
TraFo
Jewish women in the early Italian women’s movement
by Max Weber Stiftung •
By Ruth Nattermann. This book is the first epoch-spanning study on Jewish participation in the Italian women’s movement, focussing in a transnational perspective on the experience of Italian-Jewish protagonists
TraFo
The Comparative Society
by Max Weber Stiftung •
By Felix Mallin | Comparison – or the mental faculty of distinction – is one of the most fundamental ingredients of autonomous life. It aids us in the quotidian tasks of decoding language, emotions, or smells, as well as in making sense of the society and world around us.
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Constitutional Capture in and around the Contested Neighborhood
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Žilvinas Švedkauskas. As rightly noted by Dr. Anna Hofmann in the introduction to this TRAFO series, the boundary between Europe and its neighborhood has historically been and remains highly ambiguous, though little questioned.
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Trajectories of Change: New Research Projects on the European Neighbourhood
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Anna Hofmann. The revolutionary moments of the Arab Spring in 2011 and the Ukrainian “Euromaidan” in 2014 called for a remarkable rise of public and academic attention towards regions in the east and south of the European continent.
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“The Ideological Deportation of Foreigners and ‘Local Subjects of Foreign Extraction’ in Interwar Egypt” – Interview with Rim Naguib
by editorial board •
Rim Naguib’s article, “The Ideological Deportation of Foreigners and ‘Local Subjects of Foreign Extraction’ in Interwar Egypt”, was published by the Arab Studies Journal this fall. In this interview, Rim discusses her research interests, her recent article, and the complex relationships between colonial legacies and processes of national independence in (interwar) Egypt.
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Nation-building as Entangled History: Turkey and the League of Nations
by editorial board •
Carolin Liebisch-Gümüş, Research Fellow at the GHI Washington, published her first monograph titled „Verflochtene Nationsbildung. Die Neue Türkei und der Völkerbund 1918–38“ this summer. Here, she gives us some insights into her recent publication.
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Modernization Dreams, Lusotropical Promises: A Global Studies Perspective on Brazil-Mozambique Development Discourse
by editorial board •
By Ana Beatriz Ribeiro. Across disciplines, scholars writing on Brazil used to take for granted the state actor’s image as a particularly open-minded “emerging power.”
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“In the face of a systematic erosion of memory, I was intrigued by the preservation of what was gone” – 5in10 with Sana Tannoury-Karam
by editorial board •
Sana Tannoury-Karam is a historian of the modern Middle East, writing on the intellectual history of the Left in the Levant. She is a EUME fellow 2020-2021 at the Forum Transregionale Studien.
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Three Questions That Make One
by editorial board •
By Bashir Bashir and Leila Farsakh. Over the past two decades, Middle Eastern and European politics have been impacted by three critical developments that call into question dominant understandings of nationalism, citizenship, and decolonization. The aggressive and ongoing colonization of Palestine created irreversible realities that cast serious doubts on the feasibility of partition and the “two-state solution.”
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“Research in local archives and the exchange with colleagues led to a shift of my research focus” – 5in10 with Mario Peters
by editorial board •
Mario Peters is a Research Fellow in American and Transatlantic History at the GHI Washington. His current research interests are spread across the intersection of mobility studies, environmental history, and the study of Inter-American relations. In his new project, he examines the development of Pan-American transportation infrastructures between 1870 and 1970, focusing on the cooperation and exchange of knowledge between North American and Latin American experts who contributed to the planning and construction of these infrastructures.
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“So, surely with hardship comes ease” (Quran 94:5): Seeking acceptance and the quest for unity during the Corona pandemic
by editorial board •
By Yanti Hölzchen and Gulniza Taalaibekova. When the Corona pandemic gained momentum in early 2020, Kyrgyzstan was among the first countries worldwide to shut down international air traffic, to close their borders for foreign nationals, and to go into a governmentally initiated state of emergency.
TraFo
Taboo, Trauma and Identity: Subject Constructions of Palestinians in Germany and in Switzerland, 1960 to 2015
by editorial board •
By Sarah El Bulbeisi. Since 1947, more than 700,000 Palestinians have been displaced from their homes in what is now Israel, and have become refugees. As a traumatic experience, the Nakba has become a crucial part of the collective memory and the identities of the Palestinians.
TraFo
“Whoever Owns Heritage is a Temporary Custodian”: An Interview with Akram Zaatari
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
In this interview the Lebanese filmmaker and artist Akram Zaatari discusses his practice based on collecting and studying photography. Over the past twenty-five years Zaatari has conducted research into private archives and family albums in the Middle East and North Africa, exploring how photography has shaped aesthetic and social codes in the region.
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“As a Historian, the Archive Remains the Foundation of My Practice” – 5in10 with Pascale Siegrist
by editorial board •
Pascale Siegrist joined the GHI London in October 2020. She is an intellectual historian interested in the margins of the canon; her first book project deals with the ‘global’ thought of fin-de-siècle anarchists. At the GHI London she is developing a new project on the worlds of invented languages.
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Migrant Dreams: Egyptian Workers in the Gulf States
by editorial board •
Interview with Samuli Schielke. Samuli Schielke’s latest book, Migrant Dreams: Egyptian Workers in the Gulf States (AUC Press, 2020), is a vivid ethnography of Egyptian migrants to the Arab Gulf states. It investigates the imagination that migration thrives on, and the hopes and ambitions generated by the repeated experience of leaving and returning home.
TraFo
Exiled Among Nations: German and Mennonite Mythologies in a Transnational Age – Interview with John P.R. Eicher
by editorial board •
Earlier this year, the monograph “Exiled Among Nations: German and Mennonite Mythologies in a Transnational Age” by John P.R. Eicher was published by Cambridge University Press, in the Publications of the German Historical Institute Series. We talked with the author about the origins of his book, the role of institutions for diasporic groups and links between his research and today’s world.
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Book Review: A. Getachew: Worldmaking after Empire
by editorial board •
By Christopher J. Lee. Worldmaking after Empire is a study of political thought and institution building during the twentieth century, with a specific focus on black Anglophone leaders and intellectuals such as W. E. B. Du Bois, George Padmore, Kwame Nkrumah, Michael Manley, and Julius Nyerere. The central argument of the book is that the anticolonialism they promoted was not solely concerned with national self-determination and the establishment of nation-states.
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Speaking about the virus: the language of war in the Reformed Church in Zambia
by editorial board •
By Johanneke Kroesbergen-Kamps & Hermen Kroesbergen. In Zambia, like in other African countries, the COVID-19 pandemic started very slowly, while the government was quick to take action. Even before the first Coronavirus case on Zambian soil was confirmed on 18 March 2020, hygiene measures were announced and all schools and universities were closed.
TraFo
Teaching Science Fiction While Living It in Lebanon
by editorial board •
By Nadya Sbaiti. What is the point of teaching dystopian science fiction when actually living something just as terrifying? Reflecting on the last year in Lebanon, this essay argues for the pedagogical power of sci fi in thinking through the country’s popular uprising, economic implosion, pandemic, and port explosion.
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“Postcolonial legal systems embody the paradoxes of decolonisation” – 5in10 with Jihane Chedouki
by editorial board •
Jihane Chedouki is a legal scholar and a political scientist. She was a EUME Fellow 2019-20. She is currently working on a project entitled “Regulating War in Times of Modernity: A Critical Approach of the Comparison of International Humanitarian Law and Islamic Law on the Use of Force”.
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Crisis and Future: On the Demise of Dreams of Connectivity and Mobility
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Farish A. Noor. Crises are not simple objects that we encounter as we walk along, and they cannot be simply pinned down through ostensive definition. We never encounter crisis as something that is already fully-constituted and fully present, but …
TraFo
Southern African Liberation Movements and the Global Cold War ‘East’ – Transnational Activism 1960–1990
by editorial board •
By Lena Dallywater, Chris Saunders, and Helder Adegar Fonseca. The authors in this volume argue that the links between the liberation movements and the Global East must be understood in their local contexts, including personal agendas and internal conflicts, rather than primarily in the traditional framework of Cold War competition.
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Ottoman Children and Youth during World War I – Interview with Nazan Maksudyan
by editorial board •
Interview on Nazan’s book “Ottoman Children and Youth during World War I” that was awarded the AMECYS 2020 book award. Nazan is Einstein guest professor at the Freie Universität Berlin and a EUME Fellow 2009-10.
TraFo
Refugees and Revolution in the Atlantic World – An Interview with Jan C. Jansen
by Max Weber Stiftung •
In October 2020, the five-year research project “Refugees and Revolution in the Atlantic World (1770s–1820s)” started. The project will undertake a systematic exploration of the period as an age of…
TraFo
Writing(s) on Time in Modernity
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Clara Frysztacka. “Zeit-Schriften der Moderne” is a study of the construction of historical time in “classical” modernity at the end of the long 19th century. The pioneering work of Reinhard Koselleck on historical semantics as well as postcolonial historiography invite us to think about modernity …
TraFo
Cross-Country Comparative Research and Quantitative Data Analysis
by Max Weber Stiftung •
In my field of research, which combines Economics and Japanese Studies (trained at the University of Bonn), it soon became clear that eventually I would have to deal with cross-country comparisons.
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Banishment and Belonging: Exile and Diaspora in Sarandib, Lanka and Ceylon
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Ronit Ricci How are the plights of Adam, first man and, according to Islamic tradition, also first prophet; Sita, heroine of the Ramayana; and the 18th century Javanese king…
TraFo
Theaters of Citizenship. Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Sonali Pahwa When the dust of a revolution settles, its sense memory lives on in protest songs, poems, and chants. In the years leading up to the Egyptian uprising…
TraFo
Coronavirus: What next for Democracy? A report from the European Forum Alpbach
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Neus Vidal-Martí “I’m afraid I haven’t heard you,” says a Minister when asked about her country’s stance on Fundamental Rights. In January, this would have been a classic way…
TraFo
The Anti-Gendered Face of the Corona Crisis: The Case of Turkey
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Sedagul Yavuz While the COVID-19 pandemic intensifies, its gendered effects have begun to gain attention and psychological, sexual, and physical violence against women is increasing all over the world….
TraFo
Perestroika and the “Wild” 1990s: State, Society, and the Individual in Eastern Europe, 1985–2000
by editorial board •
On March 18–19, 2021, the workshop “Perestroika and the ‘Wild’ 1990s: State, Society, and the Individual in Eastern Europe, 1985–2000,” will take place at the German Historical Institute in Moscow. We talked with the convener Alexey Tikhomirov.
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“Lebanon’s Art World at Home and Abroad (LAWHA)” – Interview with Nadia von Maltzahn
by Max Weber Stiftung •
In October 2020, the five-year research project “Lebanon’s Art World at Home and Abroad: Trajectories of artists and artworks in/from Lebanon since 1943” will begin. The project will investigate the…
TraFo
The Pandemic as a Prism: Patterns of En-Gendering and Contestations to Women’s and Gender Rights in Times of Corona
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Julia Roth When the pandemic “broke out”, I was focusing my work on Right-Wing Populism and Gender, a volume on the topic which I edited with Gabriele Dietze had…
TraFo
Comparative research in/of Southeast Asia
by Max Weber Stiftung •
As a geographer, comparative research is central to my training. In particular analysing the similarities and differences in spatial transformations (both visible and structural) in two or more places.
TraFo
The Corpus of Russian Translations of Social and Political Works
by Max Weber Stiftung •
It is in the eighteenth century that Russian political language was born. The digital project “The Corpus of Russian Translations of Social and Political Works of the Eighteenth Century” coordinated…
TraFo
Gender in the EU’s Corona Response – Transformation Beyond Clapping?
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Felicia Riethmüller and Hanna-Maria Paul While the Corona pandemic has had an impact on all members of society, the crisis unquestionably aggravates existing gender inequalities within the European Union…
TraFo
Cambodian Court Dance After Genocide: Embodied Heritage and the Limits of Critique
by editorial board •
By Philip Geisler During a seminar trip to Cambodia last year with the research program Art Histories and Aesthetic Practices, our group continuously encountered people engaged in creative practices –…