Social and Labour History News

EuroDem Conference
Location: Ruhr-University Bochum, Institute for Social Movements, Clemensstraße 17-19, 44789 Bochum
Date: 26-27 February 2026

The production of discourses around workplace democracy has historically oscillated between hopes for radical transformation and cynical diagnoses of symbolic politics. One could argue, reality often unfolded somewhere in between. In the wake of current debates on the digital transformation of work, automation, AI-driven reorganization of production, and a declared polycrisis (Reckwitz & Rosa 2021, William & Erickson 2024) - i.e. the perception of social crises as overlapping, mutually reinforcing structural phenomena - similar tensions are re-emerging, frequently perceived as entirely novel, though they are deeply rooted in past experiences. Looking back at earlier waves of structural change and transformation – especially since the 1980s – and the industrial-sociological debates they triggered, reveals patterns of friction between institutional, academic, and workplace-level understandings of democratization. Whether under the label of “Humanisation of Work” in Germany, post-Fordism, or lean production, democratic aspirations have often confronted complex realities of economic restructuring, managerial resistance, and changing labor relations. While diagnoses of current transformations in work and production abound, they often focus on isolated phenomena – such as digitalization, AI, or economic restructuring – and address them as singular crises or disruptions. This fragmentation overlooks the historical entanglements and systemic continuities that shape today’s challenges. What remains underexplored is how these developments intersect, reinforce, or contradict one another within broader trajectories of workplace democratization. By bridging past and present, theory and practice, and singular diagnoses with structural analysis, this conference aims to address this gap and foster a more integrated understanding of democratic potentials and limitations in the evolving world of work. This conference seeks to revisit these past and present contradictions through the lens of research that not only observes but aims to shape practice and vice versa to ultimately explore how democratic concepts of work have been transferred, translated and transformed across contexts: from theory to application, from one workplace or country to another, and from one era of change to the next. We are pleased to invite submissions for an interdisciplinary conference exploring the evolving and contested terrain of workplace democracy – between visionary renewal and practical contradiction, between academic discourse and labor experimentation. This on-site conference is organised in the framework of the research project Workplace democracy: a European ideal? Discourses and practices about the democratization of work after 1945 (EURO-DEM) funded by the ANR and DFG.

We welcome contributions that engage with, but are not limited to, the following themes:
Conceptual and Methodological:
• Methods and methodological challenges of transfer research in the field of work and labor.
• Forms and conceptions of transfer research: What does it mean to “transfer” democratic ideals into practice? What are the possibilities and pitfalls?
• Theoretical contributions exploring multi-level or systemic understandings of democracy at work.
Empirical Approaches:
• Case studies exploring how democratic forms of work organization have been imagined, implemented, or resisted.
• Tensions between participatory and representative models of workplace democracy.
• The role of academic discourse in shaping labor policy, union strategies, and workplace reforms.
• Critical analyses of failed, partial, or co-opted democratization processes.
Historical Comparisons:
• Historical reconstructions of labor policy debates and democratization initiatives in times of transformation (e.g. post-Fordism, digitalization, deindustrialization). Comparative perspectives on democratization efforts across sectors or national contexts.
Future Challenges:
•New forms of workplace participation in the digital age: hype or real empowerment?

Submission Guidelines:
We welcome contributions from scholars, practitioners, unionists, and early-career researchers across disciplines including (but not limited to) sociology, labor studies, history, political science, organization studies, and industrial relations. Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words, along with a short biographical note by 30 November 2025 to Sophia.friedel@rub.de. Accepted contributors will be notified early December 2025. Selected papers may be considered for inclusion in an edited volume or special journal issue following the conference.

Contact: Sophia Friedel, Sophia.friedel@rub.de Institute for Social Movements and Joint Research Centre Ruhr-University Bochum / IG Metall Suttner-Nobel-Allee 4, 44803 Bochum

Call for Papers
Conference: “Transition and Renewal: Progressive Utopias and Leftist Reorientation, 1970s–1990s”
Date: 12–14 May, 2027, Venue: University of Copenhagen
Organizers: Knud Andresen (Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg), Mads Jedzini (University of Copenhagen), Detlef Siegfried (University of Copenhagen)

The pervasive sense of ongoing economic, political and everyday crises in contemporary Western societies has prompted attempts at reorientation within the political left. While the Left has traditionally drawn its legitimacy from the promise of progress, the visions of the contemporary Left today seem largely informed by and rooted in the past. What has become of the labour movement's once-radiant future?

To contextualise the transformation of the European Left's visions of the future, it is worthwhile examining the long 1970s. Following the end of the Trente Glorieuses (Jean Fourastié), whose consequences for the party system were encapsulated in Andrei S. Markovits's and Philip S. Gorski’s study Red, Green, and Beyond, utopian visions of the future and perspectives of social progress lost much of their appeal, and the 'utopian energies' (Jürgen Habermas) were exhausted. Whether interpreted as the emergence of a 'presentist present' (Hans-Ulrich Gumbrecht) or a time when 'the world fell out of joint' (Aleida Assmann), the political left became increasingly characterised not by hope for a radiant future society, but by a desire to preserve the status quo. This conference will explore the strategies and practices through which the European left responded to the loss of its social utopia, and the extent to which comparable attempts at reorientation can be observed during this period.

We proceed from the assumption that scepticism about the future did not entirely replace the progressive utopia; rather, reorientations varied across social domains and milieus. Our focus encompasses the entire spectrum of the left, including left-liberal currents, social democracy, trade unions, communism and the radical left. As well as Western European countries, we also consider reorientation processes within state socialism. The temporal scope extends from the 1970s to the 1990s.

We invite scholars interested in the history and present of the Left to exchange ideas on this significant yet underexplored transnational phenomenon. We welcome national case studies as well as broader comparative and analytical contributions from transnational and European perspectives. Relevant approaches include inter alia intellectual history, the history of social movements as well as economic, social, and cultural history.

Contributions could address (while not being limited to) the following thematic areas:

• The influence of the new social movements on the formation of left-wing political fields since the 1970s is unmistakable. What visions of the future were represented in these movements, for example in the women’s movement? Were overarching societal utopias formed, and how widespread were they? How did left-wing parties respond to these new challenges?
• How did the semantics of the term “progressive” change since the 1970s?
• In the 1990s, a resurgence of nationalism can be observed. How did left-wing groups react to this development? Was a left-wing nationalism strengthened? To what extent can anti-national counter-reactions be observed?
• How did the developments of the 1990s – the collapse of state socialism and the dominance of neoliberalism – influence left-wing conceptions of progress?
• In 1979, the first European Parliament was elected, and the European integration process was intensified after the collapse of the socialist states. To what extent were demands for a “social Europe” implemented, and was the integration process generally welcomed or rejected?
• Technological progress in the form of automation and computerization, which had promised of a future without physical toil, lost its appeal during the long 1970s. Instead, scepticism towards technology prevailed, especially on the Left. To what extent did this coincide with nostalgic tendencies and “Heimat” discourses?
• Was the emergence of  history workshops (“Geschichtswerkstätten”), that emerged primarily from the Left and dealt with the history of the labor movement, resistance against National Socialism, Jewish history, etc., a reaction to the erosion of the utopia of progress, or did it reinforce it?
• The Left fundamentally understood itself as internationalist. European labour migration as well as refugee migration influenced societies in their own countries. What conceptions of the future arose from this? How did, for example, trade unions react to the increasing relocation of production sites to non-European countries?
• To what extent can solidarity with liberation movements in countries of the Global South (e.g. Nicaragua, El Salvador, South Africa etc.) be seen as compensation for the loss of utopias in European countries?
• On these and other thematic areas, the earlier semantics of progress of the labour movement seem to have been redefined. What forms and variations can be observed? How did the balance shift between the “old” and the “new” Left?

We kindly request the submission of abstracts of up to 2,400 characters by January 15, 2026, to Knud Andresen (andresen@zeitgeschichte-hamburg.de) and Mads Jedzini (mje@hum.ku.dk).
Submitters will be informed of the results by mid-February 2026. 
We will seek external funding for the conference to cover travel and accommodation costs.
In case of any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the organizers via email.

Overview:
Deadline for abstracts: January 15, 2026
Length of abstract: max. 2,400 characters 
Decisions by: Mid-February, 2026
Conference date: 12–14 May, 2027, Conference venue: University of Copenhagen 
Contact: Knud Andresen (andresen@zeitgeschichte-hamburg.de) & Mads Jedzini (mje@hum.ku.dk)

The Biographical Archive of the Workers' Movement from Genoa, Italy (www.abmo.it) is working on a biographical dictionary of the representatives who attended the Congress of Communists and Revolutionary Organizations of the Far East in Russia in December 1921. This Congress, which began in Irkutsk in December, continued in Moscow and Petrograd in January and February of the following year. We have not yet compiled a definitive list of participants; for now, we have about 200 names; for this reason, we are asking all scholars for information on the event and, especially, on the individuals who participated.

If you have any information, please contact Massimo Repetto at mr.abmo@abmo.it

Welcome to Spoken Truths; a workshop for and by spoken word artists.   A workshop by spiritchild and  Fatih about the power of the Word in understanding, shaping  and resisting our political realities. In two sessions, participants will first be introduced to the hip-hop movement in relation to migration and social justice around the globe, and second, they will be invited to write and perform their own texts, guided by experienced and renouned mentors.   📆 When? 5th and 6th of November 2025
🕰️ Hours? 10 AM - 1 PM (NYC time) / 17:00 - 20:00 (BE time)
📍Where? Online via this link https://app.gather.town/app/f8RRYmIL1LRzMxDP/Digidaar ✍️ FREE UPON REGISTRATION This workshop comes in the context of Fatemeh Khezri's residency at Digidaar. Drawing from her work,  titled Perceptual Other, where she explores Afghan oral literature, this workshop aims to showcase the people's need for words, be it poetry, rap or storytelling, in order to preserve culture and resist the daily injustices they face.    Inspired by the freestyle essence of Hip-Hop, this workshop is no regular classroom but rather an open stage to meet, learn, perform, listen, speak up, and be heard. Participants of all levels are very welcome to join!    Kindly, DIGIDAAR team

by Susanne Boehm, Jule Ehms, Bernd Hüttner und Robert Kempf

Geschichtsschreibung und Geschichtsdeutung sind Teil von Herrschaft. Ab wann Marxismus, meist in der Form des Marxismus-Leninismus, zu einer verdinglichten "Theorie" wurde, ist Teil der Auseinandersetzung mit der Geschichte der Linken. Im Realsozialismus wurde "Sozialismus" zum Herrschaftswissen, das mühsam vom Eispanzer befreit werden musste und muss, während zugleich in den kapitalistischen Staaten Frauen und andere das Nebenwiderspruchsdenken linker Theorie und die patriarchalen Strukturen in linken Gruppen und Parteien bekämpften. Eine Auseinandersetzung/Kampf, der bis heute andauert.

Eine Abwendung vom Marxismus ist zumindest in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts ein politisch-ideologisches transnationales Momentum bei Neuen Sozialen Bewegungen, egal ob es sich dabei um Umweltbewegungen, die den linken Fortschrittsoptimismus kritisierten, die autonomia operaia in Italien oder die niederländische Schwulen- oder Frauenbewegung handelte.

Doch stellt sich insgesamt die Frage: Was ist eigentlich "Geschichte von links"? Und wie lassen sich die Auseinandersetzungen darum in "die Geschichte von/der Linken" einordnen? In den vorliegenden   historischer Reflexionen werden zum einen Herausforderungen beleuchtet, die herrschaftskritische Geschichtsarbeit mit sich bringt. Und zum zweiten werden konkrete Beispiele für vier "Bewegungen" exemplarisch dargestellt.

Über die Herausgeber:innen

Susanne Boehm, Historikerin, ist wiss. Mitarbeiterin im SFB 1567 Virtuelle Lebenswelten der Universität-Bochum; Forschungs- und Lehrtätigkeiten in den Feldern Geschlechtersoziologie und Bildungswissenschaften mit den Schwerpunkten Scientific Reasoning und Wissenschaftskonzepte, forschungsorientierte Lehr-Lernsettings, Politiken Neuer Sozialer Bewegungen, Intersektionalität, Bildung und Inklusion.
Jule Ehms studierte Geschichte und Philosophie an der LMU Halle, der Universität Wien und an der University of Notre Dame (USA) und promovierte 2021 am Institut für Soziale Bewegungen zur Betriebsarbeit der syndikalistischen Freien Arbeiter-Union Deutschlands; weitere Forschungs- und Lehrtätigkeiten in den Bereichen Geschichte und Theorie der Arbeiter:innenbewegung, Erinnerungsgeschichte und marxistische
Philosophie.
Bernd Hüttner, geb. 1966, Politikwissenschaftler, Referent für Zeitgeschichte und Geschichtspolitik der Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung. Koordinator des Gesprächskreises Geschichte der RLS. Interessengebiete: Geschichte und Geschichtsschreibung der neuen sozialen Bewegungen und der undogmatischen Linken, freie Archive der sozialen Bewegungen, künstlerische Avantgarden 1890-1933.
Robert Kempf, promovierter Historiker, verdient seinen Lebensunterhalt außerhalb der Wissenschaft. Er wünscht sich, dass das gesellschaftskritische Potenzial der Geschichtswissenschaften stärker genutzt und reflektiert wird. Über die realen Verhältnisse im akademischen Betrieb macht er sich jedoch keine Illusionen.

Open access: https://www.dampfboot-verlag.de/de/bucher/making-history

Linz/Austria

Date: 17–19 September 2026

CALL FOR PAPERS

Ever since the 19th century, the “social question” has been the fundamental cornerstone of labour and many other social movements. While the “social question” has by no means been conclusively solved – to the contrary, recent years have seen a return of its urgency (Breman et al. 2019) – the “ecological question” has arisen as an equally fundamental predicament from the 1970s on. Social movements have responded quickly to this new challenge, although those representing labour retained an ambivalent position, often adhering to the imperatives of “growth”. Meanwhile, official acknowledgement by states and other institutional actors of the ecological question has been much slower, more uneven and fluctuating (at best). By now, the bundle of human-made ecological crises have reached a point where most earth scientist see an actual breaching of ecological thresholds, not only in relation to climate change but also six of nine processes for which “planetary boundaries” have been defined.
In this context, the interdisciplinary field of political ecology (which dates to at least the 1970s) has experienced a spectacular boom. In a certain sense, it has become the interdisciplinary critical social science of our days, a field in which both academic and political concerns converge. In the English-speaking world, political ecology has proved to be strongly inflected by historical reasoning, with authors such as Timothy Mitchell, Jason Moore, or Andreas Malm highlighting the entanglements between material extraction, energy carriers (particularly fossil ones), ecological over-use, capitalist economic development, and exploitation. While the history of work and labour relations have a place in these studies, many commentators have noticed an ongoing non-communication between labour history and political ecology. Indeed, the relationship between labour and ecological perspectives reveals several tensions. One of the reasons for this complicated relation is the long-standing reservation that has seen studies related to “labour” as fraught with an undue nature–society dualism and an obsession with “the industrial” and “production”. Nevertheless, substantial scholarship has emerged at the intersection of “labour” and “environmental history” as well as “political ecology”:
Recently, for instance, the unintended consequences of focussing the ecological question on “consumption” was criticized, calling for re-centering the analysis on the interplay of the use of nature (including animals) and the exploitation of workers with both converging in (and creating resistance around) the work-process (Schaupp 2024). Others called for the need to include unpaid reproductive and care work in any analysis of the ecological implications of labour, and at the same time suggested to pay more attention to those moments in which labour activism has brought up ecological concerns, thus creating a kind of “labour environmentalism” (Barca 2024). The “commodity frontier” approach, in turn, has called for merging the perspective of global labour history with those of ecological economics, commodity chain analysis and other fields to pinpoint the complex interplay of factors at the sites of (mainly) agrarian commodity production (Beckert et al. 2021).
It thus seems both timely and necessary to bring global labour history and historical political ecology into a more structured and fruitful dialogue, to assess existing research at the intersection of both and to explore further avenues of research. This conference will insist on a differential, and thus politicized view of the major referents of past and current ecological predicaments (such as “global warming”) with “labour” appearing as one major category of differentiation. We welcome proposals on all historical periods and all world-regions as long as they relate historical labour studies to recent concerns of political ecology (and vice versa). While no definite list of possible topics can be established, papers might explore one of the following themes:
- Conceptual and theoretical discussions about the ways of bringing labour history and the different strands of political ecology into dialogue, including the debates about “anthropocene vs. capitalocene” (or “plantationocene”), social metabolism, climate and earth science vs. the humanities, differential time-scales, unequal ecological exchange, yet also “energy” as a foundational “connceptual connector” that has, from the 19th century, allowed translating work, heat, and (fossilfuelled) into one another.
- The bio-physical properties of primary or semi-processed materials – from bio-mass through ores and non-metallic minerals to fossil and other energy carriers – and their implications for work processes and logics of labour resistance.
- Animals and/as "workers": Papers might explore conceptual and historical intersections between animal labour and human labour, and the role of animals in production processes. Contributions might address theoretical questions about the boundaries of "work," historical transformations in animalhuman work relationships, or contemporary debates about animal labour rights in the context of
ecological crisis.
- Labour relations and labour struggles in the first transition towards fossil fuels (19th century), both in local constellations and in relation to unequal relations between world-regions. The role of labour relations and labour struggles in subsequent shifts in primary energy provision (from coal to oil to atomic energy to alternative energy carriers) and the primary technology of propulsion (combustion, electricity).
- The interplay between labour relations and labour struggles, on the one hand, and ecological factors, on the other, in the extraction of energy carriers like coal, oil/gas, and radioactive ore. This can include both localized studies and perspectives that focus on the inter-regional and colonial entanglements in the extraction and production of energy carriers. 
- The effects of environmental degradation and ecological crises on work and workers’ activism. This includes: the impact of “climate” and its concrete experimental dimension (heat, cold, extreme weather events) on work and workers; and “Labour environmentalism” and other instances in which labour and environmental struggles have intersected, including contention over issues of health hazards in workplaces and workers’ communities as well as struggles for urban renewal vis-à-vis the impact of industrial production. Here again, a focus on experiences with a transnational aspect as well as on the scalar tensions between the planetary, the global, the regional, and the local are particularly welcome.
- Discussions of temporality and futurity that examine notions like "energy/green transition" or timelines of projected catastrophe, analyzing how workers and labour movements orient themselves toward these horizons of expectation or contest them. This includes investigating intersections between planetary futures and discussions about the future of work, both conceptually and
materially.
- Ecological changes and labour migration: examining the carbon footprint of labour migration patterns and the connection between the geopolitics of remittance economies and environmental degradation. Papers might explore historical and contemporary cases of environmentally-induced migration, the ecological consequences of remittance-based development, and the uneven distribution of
environmental harms along migration corridors. Contributions addressing the intersection of climate justice and migrant labour rights are particularly welcome.
- The interplay of work and ecology in agrarian production both in localized subsistence agriculture, regionalized peasant production and globally connected cash crop production in the context of dynamic “commodity frontiers”. Beyond the classical cash crops such as stimulants (coffee, tea), sugar, tropical fruits, or grains, this may also include studies about livestock farming, forestry, drugs, flowers, etc. Also, studies about labour and labour struggles in the further processing of agrarian produce are welcome, for instance about meat processing.
- Intersections of species extinction/biodiversity loss and work, as evidenced in occupations like beekeeping or changes in rice, coffee, and other agricultural production systems. Papers might examine how biodiversity loss transforms labour processes, how workers adapt to or resist these transformations, and how labour movements engage with broader biodiversity conservation efforts.
- The work of geoengineering (intentional or not) as a field of ecological intervention with significant implications for labour. Papers might address the labour requirements of proposed large-scale geoengineering projects, the forms of expertise and manual labour involved, etc. Contributions that situate geoengineering within longer histories of human attempts to engineer environments through
labour are especially encouraged.
- Following the French approach of collapsologie (Servigne/Stevens 2020), the potential of a future civilizational devolution through an unfettered ecological crisis and its implications from a labour history perspective, e.g. in terms of workers coping with situations of extreme environmental precarity. In a similar vein, papers could explore the labour-related dimensions of either “mitigation” or “adaptation” as well as the labour politics of “environmental emergency”.

SUBMISSION

Proposed papers should include:
- Abstract (max. 300 words)
- Biographical note (continuous text, max. 200 words)
- Full address and Email address
The abstract of the suggested paper should contain a separate paragraph explaining how and (if applicable) to which element(s) or question(s) of the Call for Papers the submitted paper refers. The short CV should give information on the applicant’s contributions to the field of labour history, broadly defined, and specify (if applicable) relevant publications. For the purpose of information, applicants are invited to attach a copy of one of these publications to their application.
Proposals to be sent to our conference manager Laurin Blecha: conference@ith.or.at

CONFERENCE PUBLICATION

The ITH aims, depending on the coherence on quality of the conferences paper, to publish edited volumes arising from its conferences. Since 2013 the ITH conference volumes have been published in Brill’s Studies in Global Social History Series, edited by Marcel van der Linden. The ITH encourages the conference participants to submit their papers to this publication project. High-quality papers will be selected by the volume’s editors.

TIME SCHEDULE

Submission of proposals: 30 January 2026
Notification of acceptance: 2 March 2026
Full papers or presentation version: 14 August 2026

PREPARATORY GROUP

David Mayer
Marcel van der Linden
On Barak
Therese Garstenauer
Laurin Blecha

THE ITH AND ITS MEMBERS

The ITH is one of the worldwide known forums of the history of labour and social movements. The ITH favours research pursuing inclusive and global perspectives and open-ended comparative thinking. Following its tradition of cooperating with organisations of the labour movement, the ITH likewise puts emphasis on the conveyance of research outside the academic research community itself. Currently ca. 100 member institutions and a growing number of individual members from five continents are associated with the ITH.
Information on ITH publications in the past 50 years:
https://www.ith.or.at/en/publications/
Online ITH membership application form:
https://www.ith.or.at/de/mitgliedschaft/

Vulnerability and Power in Late Antiquity (4th-9th centuries)
Second International Postgraduate Conference of the Ghent Centre for Late Antiquity (GCLA) 
27-29 April 2026, Ghent (BE)

Understanding the dynamics of vulnerability and power is important for the study of any period, not least for Late Antiquity (broadly defined here as spanning the fourth to ninth centuries, across a wide geographical scope), where we see significant negotiations of power in a time of great transformation.

While power has often been the focus of scholarly attention on Late Antiquity (e.g., in the spheres of religion, politics, and literature), vulnerability, closely intertwined with power, has received less sustained attention. By focusing on vulnerability, we seek to provoke a reassessment of ongoing research on power in Late Antiquity, and invite a reconsideration of power from fresh perspectives.

We are interested not only in larger late antique institutions of power, but also the more vulnerable groups of society. Contemporary fields shaped by the insights of vulnerable communities, including decolonial and intersectional thought, have reimagined resilience, agency and systemic vulnerability; thus we seek to bring late antique society into conversation with contemporary approaches drawn from the studies of migration, gender and sexuality, disability, childhood, family structures, socioeconomic inequalities, and so on. Another important area for consideration is environmental vulnerability, including, for example, the significance of extreme weather events and climate change on the levels of ecology, society, and culture. A more literal understanding of vulnerability (i.e., the potential to be wounded), is also relevant here: war, violence, illness, and the vulnerable body are rich fields for inquiry. Furthermore, as researchers, we are part of institutions that are shaped by dynamics of vulnerability and power. We therefore think that inquiries into Late Antiquity can enrich and deepen meta-disciplinary reflections on academia as a sphere of vulnerability and power.

Postgraduate researchers from the following fields are especially invited to participate: Arabic Studies, Archaeology, Art History, Biblical Studies, History, Jewish Studies, Linguistics, Literary Studies, Reception Studies, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Theology. We welcome researchers working with languages such as Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Georgian, Gothic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Persian, Slavonic, Sogdian, Syriac.

Possible topics may include but are not limited to:

• The dynamics of vulnerability associated with Late Antiquity specifically – e.g., interrogating conceptions of Late Antiquity as a period of vulnerability, decline, and crisis; reflecting on the historical vulnerability of Late Antiquity as a discipline
• Theories and practices of vulnerability and power in literature, philosophy, and politics; how individuals or groups in power dealt with their own vulnerabilities.
• Representations of vulnerability and power in art, literature, architecture, and so on.
• Negotiations of vulnerability and power in a variety of social contexts, such as in the family, church, city, state, or on an imperial level.
• Attitudes towards tolerance, exclusion or persecution of vulnerable groups, such as religious, ethnic, and linguistic minorities, or those experiencing poverty, illness, or disability.
• Resilience and the power of resistance among vulnerable groups.
• Management of and responses to environmental risks such as drought, earthquake, fire, and so on.

We invite applications from postgraduate researchers (PhDs and advanced Master’s students). To be considered for a 20-minute paper, please send an email to gclaphdconf@ugent.be with a paper title, an abstract of max 300 words, a short bibliography (max 10 titles), and a brief academic biography by 7 January 2026.

Applicants will be notified by early February 2026. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

The organizing committee
Carlo Emilio Biuzzi, Justine De Rouck, Tanguy Desimone, Angelo Gargiulo, Thomas Girault, Giovanni Gomiero, Karl Robinson, Ricarda Schier, Leila Williamson

Publication, discount until 7 November 2025

The volume Working in Greece and Turkey. A comparative labour history from Empires to nation-states, 1840-1940, eds. Leda Papastefanaki & M. Erdem Kabadayi, (Series: International Studies in Social History, Vol. 33, New York/Oxford: Berghahn, 2020) has a 35% discount on the occasion of the 2nd International Conference "From Tobacco Workers' Movements to Contemporary Social Movements" (Kavala, Greece, 18-19 October 2025).

The publisher, Berghahn Books has offered to anyone interested a 35% discount for the book valid until November 7th, 2025. Although the discount is limited in time, I would like to share this information with you. If in case that you, colleagues or especially your academic institutions are interested, you or they can follow up and use the promotion code “PAPA35” at  https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/PapastefanakiWorking for the discount (from 138 GBP to 89.70 GBP)..

The National Museum of Lithuania invites proposals for the international conference Scattered, Tracked, Connected: New Approaches to Dispersed Heritage, to be held in Vilnius, 29–30 April 2026.

How do we work with heritage that is no longer whole, no longer here – or perhaps never truly was? The conference seeks to explore the fragmented, displaced, or deliberately dispersed nature of cultural heritage, and how museums and memory institutions reassemble meaning through research, digital tools, and collaboration. 

We welcome 20-minute papers on topics including: 

• Mapping dispersed heritage through provenance and documentation 
• Ethics, restitution, and shared authority 
• Digital reconnections and virtual reunification 
• Exhibiting loss and absence 
• Curatorial and community approaches to scattered collections 

Abstracts (250–300 words) and short biographies (up to 100 words) should be submitted by 19 December 2025 via the registration form. 
Deadline for submissions: 19 December 2025

Letters of acceptance will come out by 16 January 2026. 

Participation is free of charge; travel and accommodation are self-funded. 

A peer-reviewed publication will follow the conference. 

More information: https://lnm.lt/en/events/international-conference-scattered-tracked-con…;

Contacts: conference2026@lnm.lt 

The Social History Archive launches curated collections of primary source material for researchers

• The Social History Archive has launched new ‘Primary Source Series’ - a set of curated collections of primary source material to aid research and teaching
• The collections offer direct access to millions of historical records and newspapers, tailored to research themes
• Collections include both archival materials and historical newspapers, curated in partnership with leading repositories and publishers

The Social History Archive, the most comprehensive collection of British, Irish and former Empire historical resources online, has launched its new Primary Source Series, a major digital initiative designed to offer tailored support to academic research, teaching and learning.

These curated collections bring together digitised historical records and newspapers and offer direct access to the voices, documents, and experiences that shaped the past.

Developed to include materials from leading institutions including The National Archives and the British Library, the Primary Source Series are organised thematically—by topic, region, or time period—making it easier for researchers and educators to locate and explore original source material.

The collections span centuries of history and include millions of pages of content, from illustrated journalism and regional newspapers to military service records, crime records, emigration documents, and colonial publications.

Twenty-four Primary Source Series are already available, with more planned in the future. Key Series include:

• Women and War in Britain in the Twentieth Century: This series delves into the experiences of women taking on essential roles during First and Second World Wars in Britain, both within the military and on the Home Front. It brings together images and transcripts from original records held at The National Archives related to the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS or Wrens), the Women’s Royal Air Force (WRAF), and the Women’s Land Army (Land Girls).
• Voices of Empire: Newspapers from British Colonial Territories 1771-1962: Discover over 55 newspaper titles from the British Library’s British Newspaper Archive collection offering insight into the British Empire, its expansion, and the narratives that shaped its rule. Covering territories across multiple continents, this collection reveals how the British press was used as a tool of imperial control and influence to justify colonisation under the guise of ‘progress’ and ‘civilisation’, and highlights the complex ties between colonialism, slavery, and race, among many other topics.
• Crime, Prisons and Punishment in England and Wales 1770-1935: This series consists of more than 1.9 million images from The National Archives related to individuals who passed through the justice system in England and Wales between 1770 and 1935. Revealing information on trials, sentences and prison life can be found within.

Designed specifically for use in higher education, Primary Source Series enable academics to conduct original research using authentic historical evidence, while also providing educators with rich resources for teaching source analysis and historical thinking. Students benefit from hands-on access to primary materials, fostering independent inquiry and deeper engagement with the past.

Primary Source Series are fully searchable and supported by structured metadata, allowing users to navigate complex archives with ease. Whether exploring societal developments, political change, cultural history, or the legacy of empire, the series opens up a wealth of data and new possibilities for study and scholarship.

Nick Stewart, Lead of The Social History Archive, said: “We’re delighted to launch our new Primary Source Series. These thematic content collections offer faculties exactly what their academics and researchers need: tailored, high quality primary source data for their area of study. And there are more to come – we’re developing these on an ongoing basis so we can cater to multiple specialisms.”

For more information or to request a free trial, please email sales@thesocialhistoryarchive.com or visit https://www.thesocialhistoryarchive.com/primary-source-series

Labour & Society Research Group (LSRG)
7-8 May 2026
Newcastle University
Armstrong Building, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU

The British General Strike of 1926: New Directions of Research

To commemorate the centenary of the British General Strike and miners lock-out, Newcastle University’s Labour & Society Research Group (LSRG) are organising a conference that revisits the historical experience of 1926 through the lens of new scholarship that is concerned with the global, spatial and maritime turns in labour history.

What has emerged from these histories is a better understanding of how labour movements and political groups of various kinds have interrupted or redirected the flows of materials, capital, and people.

While there is a vast and thriving literature on the General Strike of 1926, there is still a lack of research that investigates concretely how, under what conditions, the spatial-temporal dynamics of this event disrupted the carboniferous commodity chains and wider circulation of capital during the dispute.

This conference aims to bring together papers that focus on concrete histories of solidarity and the General Strike, whether at sites of coal extraction, transportation, distribution, and everywhere inbetween.

Moreover, the conference also welcomes papers that do not exclusively focus on Britain as it seeks to address the General Strike’s global entanglements, to further understand the extent transnational networks, unions and activists participated in the labour stoppage. In view of the diverse character of labour history, the conference aims to highlight 1926’s eclectic mix of voices, namely its racial, ethnic and gender diversity.

Questions that can be addressed include:

• Contentious politics. Does global, spatial and maritime contention change our understanding of the General Strike: its chronology, spatiality, and legacy?
• Mobility. How did contested mobility over coal, commodities, water, vessels, coal staithes, ports, docks, road, railways, mines shape power relations?
• Geographies of resistance. How do these geographies of extraction, transport, and distribution shape common struggles during the strike? How did workers and communities in both rural- and urban- environments interact?
• Spatial Agency. What self-organization, spatial agency and repertoires of action did worker networks and organisations develop? What effect did this have on the government’s strike-breaking machinery? How was solidarity practiced in the distinctive spaces at the everyday and experiential level? What factors undermined this solidarity?
• Class, gender, race, and ethnicity. Did everyday experience and solidarity transcend racial, gender, and status-based fault lines in distinctive ways to stop the mobility of coal and the circulation of capital?
• Global and transnationalism. What were the Strike’s global entanglements? What role did global events and transnational activism play in strengthening or restraining cooperation from below during the strike’s trajectory?
• Memory and postmemory. How has the labour movement remembered and represented their historical entanglements with the General Strike? What role have narratives of the General Strike played in shaping local, regional, and global identities? What are the legacies of the General Strike and how may they affect contemporary politics?

Please send in proposals for papers consisting of an abstract of 150-250 words, plus a short bio by 6 February 2026 to: joe.redmayne@newcastle.ac.uk. Papers should focus on 1926 and can focus on any geographic location. The organisers will promote the publication of the papers in a ‘new directions’ collection in a journal of the field (more details TBA).

As the recent General Strikes in Italy and Greece exemplified (during September-October 2025), a general stoppage of labour by workers in all or most industries remains a powerful strategy of the working-class movement. This action has coincided with a global wave of blockades, port disruptions, strikes, and slowdowns, particularly at critical nodes like transport hubs and arms manufacturing sites of Israeli militarism.

While we intend this to be a scholarly conference, we also wish to make space for an active dialogue between people studying protest and industrial disputes in the past and practitioners of solidarity in the present (including, for example, present day activists and trade unionists, and more). We are convinced that such mutual learning can generate insights that will enrich both scholarship and activism.

For this reason, we hope to include one round table, open to a public audience, where activists involved in solidarity today reflect on connections to solidarity in the past during the General Strike, based on the presentations at the conference.

People who would be interested in joining the conference based on their involvement in present-day solidarity are invited to write a short e-mail to the conference organisers explaining the nature of their work.

For more information about the Labour & Society Research Group (LSRG) and its activities, please visit: https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/labourandsociety

Limited travel/accommodation support will be available, meant to support early career scholars or participants who cannot draw on institutional funding.

The conference is kindly supported by the Leverhulme Trust, Newcastle University, the Labour & Society Research Group.

For enquiries, feel free to contact organisers: Joe Redmayne, joe.redmayne@newcastle.ac.uk. 

Call for Abstracts
Peace in the Age of Forever Wars
Temple University, Philadelphia, USA

April 3–4, 2026

We invite submissions for an interdisciplinary symposium, which will bring together academics from the humanities and social sciences to present new scholarship on how to achieve and maintain peace in the age of forever wars. The hope is to reexamine old frameworks and to bring to light new ones, to understand more deeply the core questions of peace and conflict in historical and transnational context. The symposium is organized under the auspices of Temple’s Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy (CENFAD). We will cover the cost of travel and accommodations for all participants.

Questions of interest may include:

• What is the aim of forever wars? Can forever wars aim at or produce peace?
• Does understanding peace require a separate and distinct framework from war?
• Can war still be defended as a means for promoting a stable international order? For example, as the EU pledges to increase its military spending, should we predict a corresponding increase in stability?
• How does the examination of historical precedents of peace processes (both failures and successes) help us to understand what a viable peace process might look like in Israel/Gaza and in Russia/Ukraine?
• What are the conditions, if any, under which victory in war can produce peace? What are the conditions, if any, under which losing a war can produce peace?
• Why has peace acquired a bad reputation – as a weak position, as akin to appeasement, as utopian?
• What kinds of mechanisms can international law and global human rights organizations develop to promote peaceful cooperation among states?

Interested participants are warmly invited to submit abstracts of approximately 500 words and a short CV (1–2 pages) to Profs. Lee-Ann Chae at leeannchae@temple.edu and Petra Goedde at pgoedde@temple.edu, by November 21, 2025.

More information can be found on the Challenging War website.

The Call for Papers for the international conference A social question before the Social Question. Addressing poverty in the long eighteenth century, organized by Damiano Bardelli (EHESS, CRH-GEHM/University of Oxford, Visiting Researcher at the Voltaire Foundation) with the support of the Voltaire Foundation and the Swiss National Science Foundation, aims to shed light on the innovations introduced by Enlightenment reformers in the way of understanding and addressing poverty, and thus to highlight their role in the emergence of the conceptual framework of the social question in the 19th century.

University of Oxford, 22-23 October 2026

Argument

Precariousness and hardships were inescapable features of the life of the lower orders in early modern European society. In the Age of Enlightenment, just like in previous centuries, the majority of the population either lived in poverty or faced the constant risk of becoming unable to meet basic needs. Throughout the long eighteenth century, rulers and reformers alike showed sustained interest in the problem of poverty, with the purpose of improving the condition of their poorer subjects and countrymen and indirectly stabilising the social order. This concern took on multiple forms, ranging from the introduction of new institutions of confinement and labour to the critique of long held systems of relief like the English Poor Laws, and is testified by the widely participated academic prize contests on poverty and indigence of those years. At the same time, traditional conceptions of charity were redefined in secular terms – e.g. bienfaisance, Gemeinnützigkeit, philanthropy – while the French Revolution and radical movements inspired innovative approaches that resonated well into the nineteenth century.

Yet the attention paid to poverty by eighteenth-century rulers and reformers cannot be reduced to a pragmatic response to pressing social needs. Those concerns were also closely tied to broader philosophical developments, including the emergence of a secular conception of history in which human beings, rather than divine providence, were seen as major agents of change. This new perspective made progress in the human condition conceivable, stimulating novel interest in society and encouraging the development of new solutions aimed to reform existing institutions. At the same time, the decline of manorial serfdom and the emergence of a “free” labour market, alongside the transition from mercantilism to political economy, brought about new ideas of population, scarcity, social mobility, and work discipline. Unlike their predecessors, Enlightenment reformers no longer viewed poverty as part of a godly plan but rather as a consequence of human institutions and practices. Whereas some of them considered it as an injustice standing in stark contradiction with natural law theories of equality, others saw it as the unavoidable outcome of the dynamics of production, which mandated the existence of poverty as a necessary spur to industry. Breaking with the past, Enlightenment thinkers thereby framed poverty as a distinctively social question well before the nineteenth century made the Social Question a crucial political issue.

This international conference seeks to shed light on the innovations introduced by Enlightenment debates on poverty that paved the way for the later emergence of the Social Question. It solicits presentations on reform projects developed – and occasionally applied – in the long eighteenth century that were aimed to address poverty as the key social issue of the age, breaking with traditional approaches based on Christian theology and morals. Of special interest will thus be Enlightenment reform projects that sought to find a solution to the social consequences of contemporary economic dynamics and questioned existing institutions and theoretical frameworks of poor relief. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on the novelty of these eighteenth-century schemes, their relation to both older systems, modern notions, and novel disciplines (including natural law and political economy), and their potential impact on and legacy in early nineteenth- century reflections on pauperism and the development of the Social Question.

Papers will ideally (but not exclusively) deal with the following topics:
Reform projects aimed at eradicating poverty, mitigating or governing its social consequences, reducing inequality, and reframing practices of assistance
Reflections on the concept of poverty in its interpenetration with notions of property, social (in)equality, natural law, and “the rights of man”
Proposals for the introduction of new property regimes (e.g. privatisation of communal properties, redistribution and/or communalisation of private property)

• Social schemes aimed to promote the independence of the lower orders and minimise their risk of falling into poverty (e.g. pedagogical institutions, mutual organisations, savings banks), and their disciplinarian implications
• Critiques of traditional forms of solidarity, either vertical or horizontal (e.g. feudal social relations, guilds, mutual help, fraternal societies, confraternities)
• Reflections on practices of assistance and the notions that sustained them (e.g. charity,
• bienfaisance, Gemeinnützigkeit, philanthropy)
• Radical perspectives on poverty and solutions to it “from below”
• Case studies on the interrelation between poverty, race, and gender

Organization

The conference is organised by Damiano Bardelli (University of Oxford, Voltaire Foundation visiting fellow) with the support of the Voltaire Foundation and the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Calendrier et modalités de soumission

Proposals in English, including an abstract of 250 words and a short biography and list of selected publications, should be sent to damiano.bardelli@ehess.fr by 31 December 2025.

Applicants will be notified about the outcome of their submission by 31 March 2026.

Organizer: Desirable AI, Center for Science and Thought, Universität Bonn Funded by: Stiftung Mercator Postcode: 53113 Location: Bonn Country: Germany Takes place: In person Dates: 18.05.2026 - 20.05.2026 Deadline: 01.12.2025 Website: https://www.desirableai.com/news/call-for-papers-irrationality-and-the-age-of-ai  

As part of the Desirable AI programme – a collaboration between Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and the University of Cambridge – this interdisciplinary conference, will explore the profound implications of large language models (LLMs), affective computing, and emotionally responsive AI. As machines venture into realms once thought uniquely human – emotion, creativity, irrationality – we ask: What does this mean for language, ethics, and the future of human expression?

 

Irrationality and the Age of AI: Language, Ethics, and the Future of Human Expression

The AI revolution has accelerated in recent years, propelled by the widespread use of large language models (LLMs). Today, AI systems are not only transforming technical environments but also shaping our thoughts, emotions, and everyday linguistic practices. Increasingly, AI research and industry are shifting their attention from rational problem-solving toward aspects of human life once considered the last bastions of humanity. We can contrast this approach to AI as a simulation of ‘rationality’ with the expansion of applications into the realm of the expression of emotions and other aspects of human life often seen as ‘irrational’.

Our conference will explore the role of affective computing, emotionally laden human-machine interaction, conversational AI models, reinforcement algorithms, and recommender systems in the wake of the LLM revolution. In this light, we will discuss what we can learn about language—both in its explicit, logical, grammatical structure and in its emotional, expressive dimension—when AI accesses these depths of human expression. We also ask what it means for humanity when even the ‘irrational’ aspects of life are no longer beyond the reach of digitalization. This raises the important question of how emotions and their various forms of bodily and linguistic expression are related and what it means for AI to detect and mass reproduce patterns in human behavior that are closely correlated with the emotional depth dimension of human life.

We will address a paradox of technological progress: the deeper AI mirrors the structural layers of the human mind through interdisciplinary breakthroughs, the more actually existing human irrationality becomes visible as social and political collateral damage. Simulating this irrationality, in turn, provides AI with new behavioral data, generating a non-rational feedback loop alongside the rational one—bringing both novel opportunities and risks.

These developments have profound normative consequences for social, political, and ethical thought and action. They raise urgent questions about the design of ethical AI that goes beyond regulatory compliance. Addressing these questions requires us to account for the transcultural differences that shape AI as a sociotechnological phenomenon. To this end, the conference will convene interdisciplinary expertise, industry perspectives, practical approaches, policy insights, and fundamental reflections in AI politics, ethics and philosophy. Our discussions will highlight technical dimensions of AI, its impact on human experience, culture, and society, and the philosophical, ethical, and normative frameworks for shaping desirable futures.

We welcome theoretical, empirical, and practice-oriented contributions from scholars, practitioners, and policymakers across disciplines, including computer science, linguistics, philosophy, ethics, psychology, sociology, political science, and cultural studies. Possible areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

Human Experience, Culture, and Society

- AI, Culture, and Society
Transcultural perspectives on emotional human–machine interaction; emotional feedback loops in algorithmic decision-making; behavioral steering and impacts on identity, language, and social cohesion, feminist and intersectional critiques of technology and power dynamics in AI research and application.

- Affect and Aesthetics in the AI Age
Advances in emotion recognition and sentiment analysis; the role of embodied cognition in human–AI interaction; artistic, emotional, and aesthetic dimensions of AI systems; transformations of creativity, expression, and perception in human–AI interaction.

- Linguistics and Large Language Models
Insights into grammar, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse through large-scale models; implications for theories of language and meaning.

Philosophical, Ethical, and Normative Frameworks

- Philosophy of Mind and AI
Insights from AI research into consciousness, intentionality, and emotion.

- Ethical and Normative Frameworks for AI
Cultural, philosophical, and policy approaches to ethical AI design and deployment, (social) risk and governance challenges in emotionally intelligent AI systems.

- Sustainable AI (ecological and social dimensions)
Environmental costs of AI development and deployment; social sustainability in data practices, labor conditions, and long-term technological responsibility.

Submission Guidelines
We invite individual proposals for 20-minute presentations (followed by Q&A) or collective proposals for 2h panels that address one or more of the above themes.

We accept proposals for traditional academic presentations, as well as project/product demonstrations and artistic interventions. We are looking for contributions from established academics, early career researchers, policy specialists, civil society organisations, as well as communicators and artists.

Accepted speakers will be considered for travel and accommodation funding.
We particularly encourage submissions for interdisciplinary papers as well as submissions from scholars and practitioners from the Majority World.

Submissions should include:
- A title
- Half-page abstract per talk (approx. 250–300 words) outlining the proposed topic, methodology, and its relevance to the theme of the conference
- A brief biographical note (max. 100 words)

Deadline for Abstract Submission: December 01, 2025
Please submit your abstracts here.

Contact and Updates
For questions or further information, please contact: desirableai@gmail.com

Kontakt

desirableai@gmail.com

Agents of change: Folk cultures in the long 20th century

Folk art and cultures have often been seen as passive, unchanging, and frozen in a preindustrial era, linked with ideas such as nostalgia, decoration, and kitsch. From this point of view, grounded in late 19th and early 20th-century nationalist and modernist discourses, folk art seems to be a relic of the past that cannot respond to the challenges of modern societies, let alone contribute to social change.

There is another perspective – one that, admittedly, has received much less attention: numerous publications, exhibitions, institutions, and movements around the globe have recognised folk art as a continuous and contemporary practice with the potential to emancipate and activate individuals and groups. Ranging from projects dedicated to wellbeing and mental health to activist interventions from all sides of the political spectrum, folk art is connected to class, gender, and ethnic divisions, regional and national identities, as well as decolonial and economic emancipation. Far removed from the limiting associations with preindustrial traditionalism and decorativeness, it instead can be understood as an agent of change in both past and contemporary practices.

The workshop turns attention to folk craftspeople and artisans that have actively engaged with social upheavals, market shifts, government policies, and technological advances around the globe from the late 19th century to the present. Building on the idea of agency in folk art, the workshop welcomes papers that offer new perspectives on the meanings of folk art throughout the long 20th century in various geographical and political contexts. With the goal of developing new theoretical frameworks for the study of folk art across disciplines, the workshop seeks to open a long-overdue debate about the role of folk art in contributing to political, social, and economic change during the long 20th century. It asks:

How do folk cultures interact with politics and ideologies through specific actors, from the extreme right to alternative subcultures, from conformity to resistance?
How does folk art serve as a tool for emancipation and oppression?
How and why does folk art enter the market? What roles do commercialisation, tourism, and souvenir culture play in its formation?
How was folk art presented, exhibited and collected? How was folk creativity institutionalised?
What are the ecological dimensions of folk art and material culture?

The workshop is part of "Beyond the Village. Folk Cultures as Agents of Modernity, 1918-1945," a project funded by the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR).

We invite scholars from various fields engaged with the topics of folk creativity, folk art and material culture to submit proposals (up to 300 words) for 20-minute papers, accompanied by a brief CV.

Please send the proposals to folkandchange@gmail.com by 19 December 2025.

Notification of acceptance of proposals will be issued by the end of January 2026.

For enquiries, please feel free to contact the members of the project team:
Marta Filipová m.filipova@phil.muni.cz
Julia Secklehner secklehner@phil.muni.cz
Valéria Bláha valeria.krsiakova@mail.muni.cz

Erlangen/Germany

Veranstalter: Katja Makhotina / Moritz Florin / Maria Parkhomenko, Lehrstuhl für Neuere und Neueste Geschichte mit dem Schwerpunkt der Geschichte Osteuropas, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen–Nürnberg (FAU) (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen–Nürnberg) Ausrichter: Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen–Nürnberg PLZ: 91054 Ort: Erlangen Land: Deutschland Findet statt: In Präsenz Vom - Bis: 19.03.2026 - 20.03.2026 Deadline 15.11.2025 Website: https://www.osteuropa.phil.fau.de/events/workshop-die-unsichtbaren-ostarbeiter-und-die-landschaft-des-gedenkens-in-deutschland/?fbclid=IwY2xjawNHLlJleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHilBoj1fcgUUB6LkYTlcPvk8o-1Bc_tfVTQ_fxRQMo-g3SIipduWwuYAKA7z_aem_LQDvhYF7OSpEqUPZQFkvbg  

Während des Zweiten Weltkriegs wurden Millionen Menschen aus der Ukraine, Belarus und Russland zur Zwangsarbeit nach Deutschland verschleppt. Unter der Bezeichnung „Ostarbeiter“ arbeiteten sie in Industrie, Landwirtschaft und Haushalten unter besonders harten Bedingungen. Ihre Schicksale sind bis heute nur teilweise erforscht und in der Erinnerungskultur weitgehend unsichtbar. Der Workshop „Die (Un)sichtbaren – ‚Ostarbeiter‘ und die Landschaft des Gedenkens in Deutschland“ (19.–20. März 2026, FAU Erlangen–Nürnberg) bringt Forschung, Praxis und Erinnerung in den Dialog.

 

Workshop: Die (Un)sichtbaren – „Ostarbeiter“ und die Landschaft des Gedenkens in Deutschland

Während des Zweiten Weltkriegs wurden über 13 Millionen zivile Zwangsarbeiter:innen, Häftlinge und Kriegsgefangene vom Deutschen Reich zur Arbeit gezwungen. Sie kamen in nahezu allen Bereichen zum Einsatz: in der Landwirtschaft, in der Rüstungsindustrie, in der Produktion, in Stadtwerken und in privaten Haushalten. Zwangsarbeit war Teil des Alltags im „Dritten Reich“ – sichtbar und hörbar in den Städten, an den Orten der Unterbringung und in der Arbeitswelt. Besonders die aus Osteuropa verschleppten Menschen – vor allem aus Polen und der Sowjetunion – waren extremen Lebens- und Arbeitsbedingungen ausgesetzt. Innerhalb der NS-Rassenhierarchie standen sie am unteren Ende und wurden durch Abzeichen, Vorschriften und Diskriminierung auch im sozialen Umfeld stigmatisiert. Viele wurden Opfer willkürlicher Gewalt und wegen (vermeintlicher) Delikte oder aufgrund von Beziehungen zu Deutschen von der Gestapo inhaftiert und hingerichtet. Nach 1945 erhielten die Überlebenden lange weder Entschädigung noch gesellschaftliche Anerkennung. Der materielle und soziale Profit der deutschen Mehrheitsgesellschaft aus der Zwangsarbeit, insbesondere der osteuropäischen Opfer, gehört bis heute zu den unbequemen Kapiteln kollektiver Verantwortung für die NS-Verbrechen. Erst im Jahr 2000 beschloss der Deutsche Bundestag mit dem Gesetz zur Stiftung „Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft“ (EVZ) individuelle Zahlungen an ehemalige Zwangsarbeiter:innen. In der Geschichtswissenschaft ist das Thema inzwischen verankert: Bereits in den 1980er-Jahren entstanden grundlegende Überblickswerke. Ein Meilenstein war die Publikation „Das Zeichen bleibt…“ der Gesellschaft Memorial (2019). Auch das Dokumentationszentrum NS-Zwangsarbeit in Berlin und weitere Institutionen leisten wichtige Beiträge. Dennoch hat die lokale Aufarbeitung vielerorts erst begonnen. So gibt es in deutschen Städten rund 3 500 Gräberfelder für über eine halbe Million Menschen (darunter viele Kinder) aus der Sowjetunion – meist ohne Wissen über ihre individuellen Schicksale. Fehlerhafte Akten und mangelnde Dokumentation erschweren die Rekonstruktion. Lokale Geschichts- und Bürgerinitiativen spielen eine entscheidende Rolle dabei, diese Leerstellen sichtbar zu machen.

Ein besonderer geschlechtsspezifischer Aspekt betrifft die nach Deutschland verschleppten Menschen aus dem östlichen Europa: Die Mehrheit waren Frauen. Anhand ihrer Schicksale – insbesondere von Schwangeren und Neugeborenen – lässt sich der rassistische und menschenverachtende Umgang nationalsozialistischer Behörden, Kliniken und Universitätenaufzeigen. Die Frage nach der (Mit-)Täterschaft betrifft nicht nur Politik und Behörden, sondern die deutsche Gesellschaft insgesamt. Kaum ein landwirtschaftlicher oder gewerblicher Betrieb kam ohne den Einsatz von Zwangsarbeiter:innen oder Kriegsgefangenen aus. Die kritische Auseinandersetzung mit der Unternehmensgeschichte während der NS-Zeit steht vielerorts noch am Anfang.

Ziel der Tagung
Die Tagung findet im Rahmen des Forschungsprojekts „NS-Zwangsarbeiter:innen aus der Ukraine in Franken. Regionale Geschichte und Erinnerungskultur“ (https://www.osteuropa.phil.fau.de/forschung/ns-zwangsarbeiterinnen/) am Lehrstuhl für Neuere und Neueste Geschichte mit dem Schwerpunkt der Geschichte Osteuropas an der FAU statt. Ziel der Tagung ist es, Geschichtsinitiativen, Historiker:innen, Archivar:innen sowie Vertreter:innen von Gedenkstätten zusammenzubringen, die sich der Aufarbeitung der NS-Zwangsarbeit widmen. Von besonderem Interesse sind Initiativen, die Verbindungen nach Osteuropa – insbesondere in die Ukraine, nach Polen, Belarus und Russland – herstellen. Wir möchten lokale Erinnerungsakteur:innen und Wissenschaft enger vernetzen, um Forschung, Praxis und Vermittlung zueinander in Beziehung zu setzen.

Themenfelder
- Recherche und Dokumentation: Möglichkeiten und Praktiken zur Rekonstruktion von Namen und Biografien; Arbeit mit Datenbanken
- Geschlechtsspezifische Dimensionen: Frauenschicksale; Umgang mit Schwangerschaft und Geburt in den Narrativen der Deportierten
- Möglichkeiten und Grenzen des Widerstands: Formen des Widerstands; Kollektive des Widerstands
- Nach der Befreiung: Alltag in den letzten Kriegswochen, in DP-Lagern und unter der Kontrolle sowjetischer Geheimdienste
- Biografische Brüche: Zensur und Anonymisierung der eigenen Lebensgeschichten nach der Rückkehr in die Sowjetunion; Biografien der in Deutschland gebliebenen DPs
- Erinnerungskulturen: Narrative Strategien, „Ich“- vs. „Wir“-Form, Sprache und Logiken des Erzählens; methodologische Fragen der Oral History seit den 2000er-Jahren; Spezifika in der Ukraine, Belarus und Russland
- Bürgerschaftliche Initiativen: Potenziale lokaler und regionaler Geschichtsarbeit zur Schließung von Wissenslücken
- Internationale Zusammenarbeit: Bedeutung der Kooperation mit Forschenden und Institutionen aus Osteuropa für Forschung und Vermittlung
- Aktualität: Auswirkungen des gegenwärtigen Krieges Russlands gegen die Ukraine auf Forschungsperspektiven und Erinnerungskulturen zur NS-Zwangsarbeit

Call for Papers / Einreichung
Bitte senden Sie bis zum 15. November 2025 einen Abstract (max. 300 Wörter) sowie kurze Angaben zu Ihrer Person und Ihrem Werdegang an maria.parkhomenko@fau.de. Für eine begrenzte Zahl an Teilnehmer:innen können Reise- und Übernachtungskosten erstattet werden. Bitte beim Bedarf gleich im Anschreiben angeben. Die Konferenzsprache ist Deutsch; Vorträge können auch auf Englisch gehalten werden.

Kontakt

maria.parkhomenko@fau.de

Organiser: Tetiana Perga / Heike Weber, History of Technology unit, TU Berlin Postcode: 10623 Location: Berlin Country: Germany Takes place: In attendance  Dates: 09.07.2026 - 10.07.2026 Deadline: 01.12.2025

The two-day international workshop, organized by Tatiana Perga and Heike Weber, aims to bring together different perspectives on waste recycling in the Cold War era, focusing on the socialist and capitalist recycling.

Recycling in the Cold War Era: Capitalist and Socialist Waste Regimes

Throughout most of human history, waste and its reuse have played a central role in economic activity. During the Cold War, rivalry between the Eastern and Western blocs extended beyond the arms race and ideological confrontation. Competition for economic and technological supremacy also encompassed waste recycling—shaping resource flows, production and consumption systems, and later, environmental protection. In both capitalist and socialist economies, recycling was integral to resource governance, embedded in efforts toward efficiency, self-sufficiency, modernization, and international leadership.

While waste studies have grown rapidly, they have focused more on discarding than on recycling and related issues such as reprocessing waste into recyclates and integrating them into production flows. This conference will therefore explore waste recycling during the Cold War in greater detail. It will examine the actors, practices, and material streams of recycling in both socialist and capitalist regimes, addressing questions such as: What differences and similarities can be identified in actors, materials, practices, technologies, or symbolic meanings? Was recycling driven by ideological confrontation, or was it more often a pragmatic response to shortages, technological challenges, or environmental concerns? What regional specifics can be observed? How did different regimes influence or learn from one another? And in what cases did asymmetrical waste trade between blocs shape recycling schemes?

To date, Anglophone research remains fragmented, often focusing on single waste types or individual countries. The most comprehensive study of recycling in the Cold War context is Zsuzsa Gille’s work on the Hungarian waste regime (2007). More recent research has explored entanglements between East and West Germany (Lange 2020; Stuck & Weber 2025). Studies on national programs include plastics in Poland (Kijeński & Polaczek 2005), France (Dufour 2023), and Norway (Haavard B. A. 2024); paper or glass in the Netherlands, Germany, and Hungary (Oldenziel & Veenis 2013; Weber 2021; Pal 2023); and metals in the United States (Zimring 2005). Yet many regions remain underrepresented, and comparative analysis of recycling practices and technologies across—and within—blocs is still lacking.

Existing work has shown how waste symbolized industrial crisis and became a site for of civic engagement and environmental activism (Park 2004; Westermann 2013; Boyce 2013) But it remains unclear how Cold War recycling reflected and shaped civic culture, ideology, and policy in different systems. The symbolic meaning of waste—how it shifted under political, economic, and cultural pressures, and how it shaped understandings of modernity, progress, efficiency and responsibility—also remains underexplored.

In sum, scholarship offers only a fragmented picture of socialist and capitalist recycling practices during the Cold War. What is missing is a broader understanding of how recycling models were formed, developed, and interacted across historical contexts - including continuities, ruptures, and their impact on global and regional material flows. This also applies to the role of different actors in shaping these practices and to the changing symbolic meanings of waste within the bipolar world order.

The two-day, international workshop, organized by Tatiana Perga and Heike Weber, thus aims to bring together different perspectives on recycling in the Cold War era.

Our keynote speaker is Zsuzsa Gille with the report “Recycling in the Socialocene.”

Papers should engage with the following topics:

1. Institutions and Recycling Systems
We invite analyses of how institutional mechanisms for waste recycling developed in both Eastern and Western bloc countries. This includes the roles of private businesses, state bodies, ministries, municipalities, parties, and NGOs in shaping and enforcing recycling policies. Particular attention may be given to legal frameworks, planned and market-based instruments, international agreements, and institutional transformations during periods of reform and crisis.

2. Economic Systems, Technologies, and Innovations
We seek papers on how different economic systems influenced recycling principles, technology choices, and investments in infrastructure. Comparisons of strategies and technological solutions that stimulated innovation and efficient resource use in contexts of scarcity, competition, and ideological mobilization are especially welcome. Relevant aspects include R&D, economic incentives, patents, technology transfer, international cooperation, and informal economies.

3. (Trans)national Material Flows and Recycling Infrastructures
We aim to examine the emergence of recycling infrastructures, networks, and logistics, and their role in exchange and interaction between socialist and capitalist regimes. This perspective highlights both cooperation and competition in global and regional recycling histories, as well as the role of material flows as hidden diplomacy across the Cold War divide. Shadow economies, black markets, and informal recycling networks will also be considered.

4. Actors, Knowledge, and Their Networks
We want to explore the diversity of actors involved in recycling processes: state and municipal authorities, businesses, industrial enterprises, corporations, trade unions, schools and households, the military and prisons, institutions for the disabled cooperatives, international organizations, individual waste collectors, and more. We are interested in how these groups engaged with recycling—whether voluntarily, under compulsion, ideologically, or economically motivated—and how their participation shaped perceptions of responsibility, labour, scarcity, profit, and modernization.

5. Environmental Discourses, Knowledge, Risks
We welcome contributions on how waste and recycling were conceptualized environmentally in socialist and capitalist countries. Were elements of environmental knowledge and concern about waste present as early as the 1950s or 1960s, and how were they framed? This theme also addresses how the environmental consequences of waste production and accumulation entered public debate, science, education, and activism. Focus may be placed on perception of risks in the 1970s-1980s, the rise of environmental consciousness, the role of scientific expertise, transnational exchanges of knowledge, and conflicts over waste and its politicization.

We welcome contributions from economics, technology studies, sociology, history, political science, and related disciplines.

The workshop will be held at TU Berlin on the 9th – 10th of July 2026.

We will apply for funding to cover travel and accommodation.

Papers (6,000-8,000 words) are due by June 1st to be pre-circulated before the workshop. Each presenter will give a 10-minute presentation, followed by a discussion. We aim to publish the papers as a special issue of the journal.

Proposals should include an abstract (max. 300 words) and a one-page CV.

The deadline for sending proposals is the 1st of December 2025, with notification of acceptance by mid-December.

Please send proposals to tetiana.perga@tu-berlin.de.

Halle (Saale)/Germany   Organiser: John Palatini/Ortrun Vödisch (Landesheimatbund Sachsen-Anhalt), Jan Kellershohn/Justus Vesting (Institut für Landesgeschichte, LDA-Sachsen-Anhalt) Location: Salinemuseum, Mansfelder Straße 52 Funded by: Land Sachsen-Anhalt Postcode: 06108 City: Halle (Saale) Country: Germany Takes place: In atendance Dates: 20.11.2025 - 21.11.2025 Deadline: 07.11.2025 Website: https://landesheimatbund.de/veranstaltung/tagung-arbeit-gewalt-verantwortung/  

Die Tagung stellt Fragen nach den verschiedenen Formen von Gewalt und Zwang seit dem Ersten Weltkrieg bis heute und damit einhergehend nach Formen der öffentlichen Erinnerung und Verantwortung. Wie können diese negativen Folgen und Voraussetzungen von industrieller Entwicklung in ein Narrativ von Industriekultur in Sachsen-Anhalt eingebettet werden?

 

Arbeit, Gewalt und Zwang. Industriekultur und Verantwortung

Industriekultur wird häufig von einer Fortschrittsgeschichtsschreibung begleitet. Tatsächlich existieren zahlreiche Verbindungen zwischen industrieller Entwicklung und Gewaltstrukturen, wie Zwangsarbeit oder prekären Arbeitsbedingungen. Auch die Rüstungsindustrie als eine auf Zerstörung gerichtete Produktion spielt in industriekulturellen Großerzählungen nur selten eine Rolle. Dies gilt insbesondere für das Gebiet des heutigen Sachsen-Anhalt dessen industrielle Entwicklung wie die kaum einer anderen Wirtschaftsregion Europas mit den Gewaltverbrechen des 20. Jahrhunderts verbunden ist. Die Tagung stellt Fragen nach den verschiedenen Formen von Gewalt und Zwang seit dem Ersten Weltkrieg bis heute und damit einhergehend nach Formen der öffentlichen Erinnerung und Verantwortung von Institutionen. Wie können diese negativen Folgen und Voraussetzungen von industrieller Entwicklung in ein Narrativ von Industriekultur in Sachsen-Anhalt eingebettet werden?

Die Tagung wird initiiert vom Landesheimatbund Sachsen-Anhalt e. V. und dem Institut für Landesgeschichte am Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt in Kooperation mit dem Netzwerk Industriekultur, dem Museumsverband Sachsen-Anhalt, der Landeszentrale für politische Bildung, dem Salinemuseum Halle (Saale) und dem Landesbeauftragten für die Aufarbeitung der SED-Dikatur.

Anmeldung über: https://t1p.de/Anmeldung_ik2025

Programm

Donnerstag, 20.11.2025

09:30 Uhr:
Begrüßung
Jan Kellershohn (Halle): Einführung

10:00 Uhr:
Panel I: Arbeits- und Gewaltverhältnisse bis 1933
Moderation: Jan Kellershohn (Halle)

Jan zum Mallen (Bochum): Freie Arbeit? Bedeutung und Wandel der Vertragsbruchkriminalisierung in der Zuckerrübenproduktion (1880-1914)

John Palatini (Halle): Die Kriegsgefangenen und der Aufbau der Mitteldeutschen Industrie im Ersten Weltkrieg

11:30 Uhr: Mittagessen

12:30 Uhr
Panel II: Rüstungsproduktion und Untertageverlagerungen
Moderation: Justus Vesting (Halle)

Joachim Grossert (Bernburg): Leau – ein Außenlager des KZ Buchenwald

Andreas Froese (Nordhausen): Zwangsarbeit unter und über Tage: Das KZ Mittelbau-Dora (1943-1945)

Gero Fedtke (Langenstein-Zwieberge): Sklavenarbeit und Spitzentechnologie. Zum Untertageverlagerungsvorhaben B2 (Konzentrationslager Langenstein-Zwieberge)

Martin Schneider (Halle): Militärische Infrastruktur in Sachsen-Anhalt vor und während des Zweiten Weltkriegs und deren denkmalpflegerische Aufarbeitung – Analysiert an zwei Beispielen

15:00 Uhr: Pause

15:30 Uhr:
Panel III: Dimensionen der Verantwortung
Moderation: Ortrun Vödisch (Halle)

Kathrin Misterek (Halle): Materielle Spuren der Gewalt: Archäologie der NS-Zwangsarbeit am Beispiel des Flughafens Tempelhof, Berlin

Anne Heinlein (Potsdam): Industriekultur und Erinnerung. Künstlerische Auseinandersetzungen mit Orten von Macht, Militär und Zwang in der ehemaligen DDR

Christina May (Halle): Wie angemessen ist eine Erinnerungskultur für industriell gehaltene und getötete Tiere?

Daniel Pöhl (Halle): Halloren am Kamerunberg. Koloniale Verstrickungen der Schokoladenfabrik Friedrich David & Söhne mit dem Kakaoanbau in der Kolonie „Deutsch-Kamerun“

17:30 Uhr: Pause

18:00 Uhr
Podiumsdiskussion: Arbeit, Gewalt, Zwang. Wie erinnern wir die Schattenseiten der Industriegeschichte?

Ingo Beljan, Felix Bachmann (Salinemuseum Halle)
Sven Sachenbacher (Fachdienstleiter Kultur, Kreismuseum Bitterfeld)
Thies Schröder (Vorstandsmitglied Bundesverband Industriekultur/Ferropolis)
Elisabeth Rüber-Schütte (Landeskonservatorin/Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt)
Daniel Logemann (Museum Zwangsarbeit im Nationalsozialismus, Weimar)

19:30 Uhr: Abendessen

Freitag, 21.11.2025

8:30 Uhr:
Panel IV: Regionale und betriebliche Perspektiven auf Zwangsarbeit
Moderation: Stephanie Eifert (Merseburg)

Johanna Hohaus (Halle): Zwangsarbeit im Raum Wittenberg – Aufarbeitung und Erinnerung

Katharina Krüger (Halle): Die Mansfeld AG im Zweiten Weltkrieg

Arndt Macheledt (Heringen): NS-Zwangsarbeit im deutschen Kalibergbau unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Werra-Kalireviers

10:15 Uhr: Pause

10:30 Uhr: Panel V – Parallelsektionen
Panel Va: Im System der Zwangsarbeit
Moderation: John Palatini (Halle)

Daniel Bohse (Magdeburg): Zwangsarbeit von Justizgefangenen während des Zweiten Weltkrieges im Gebiet von Sachsen-Anhalt

Johanna M. Vojcsik (Freiburg/Pécs): Zwangsarbeit von ungarischen Jüdinnen für die Rüstungsindustrie

Frank W. Ermer (Havelberg): Das Außenlager Glöwen des KZ Sachsenhausen und die Verstrickungen mit der Rüstungsindustrie 1933–1945

Panel Vb: Zwangsarbeit und Unternehmensgeschichte
Moderation: Roland Wiermann (Bernburg)

Christian Marlow (Magdeburg): Polte-Patronen, Panzer IV, Junkersflieger und T 55 – Waffen- und Rüstungsbetriebe in und um Magdeburg 1914-1989

Antonia Beran (Genthin): „Dienstverpflichtet im Reich“ – Frauenschicksale in der Rüstungsindustrie und Perspektiven der Erinnerungskultur am Beispiel der Silva GmbH (Genthin-Wald)

Katharina Hindelang (Halle): Formen der Zwangsarbeit um das Silva-Metallwerk in Genthin. Eine Spurensuche

12:15 Uhr: Mittagessen

13:00 Uhr
Panel VI: Strafgefangenenarbeit in der DDR
Moderation: Johannes Beleites (Magdeburg)

Christian Sachse (Berlin): Strafgefangene in der Industrie der Bezirke Halle und Magdeburg

Justus Vesting (Halle): Strafgefangene und Bausoldaten im Chemiedreieck

14:00 Pause

14:15 Panel VII: Arbeit und Gewalt in der DDR
Moderation: Daniel Bohse (Magdeburg)

Josepha Kirchner (Gräfenhainichen): Arbeitsbedingungen von Vertragsarbeitenden im Bezirk Halle zwischen 1970–1990

Anna Horstmann (Bielefeld): Zwischen Bevormundung und Gefährdung. Arbeitsschutz im Mitteldeutschen Chemiedreieck

Björn Schmalz (Merseburg): Vom Hörschaden über den Gelenkverschleiß bis zur Infektionskrankheit. Rechtliche Grundlagen, archivalische Überlieferung und (Un)Benutzbarkeit von Unterlagen über Berufskrankheiten im DDR-Bezirk Halle

15:45 Uhr: Abschlussdiskussion
Moderation: Jan Kellershohn (Halle)

Kontakt

Landesheimatbund Sachsen-Anhalt e. V.
Magdeburger Straße 21 06112 Halle (Saale)
Tel.: 0345 135 016 48
E-Mail: info@lhbsa.de

Stuttgart/Germany   Veranstalter: Arbeitskreis für interdisziplinäre Männer- und Geschlechterforschung AIM GENDER; Fachbereich Geschichte, Akademie der Diözese Rottenburg-Stuttgart Veranstaltungsort: Akademie der Diözese Rottenburg-Stuttgart, Tagungszentrum Stuttgart-Hohenheim PLZ: 70599 Ort: Stuttgart Land: Deutschland Findet statt: In Präsenz Vom - Bis: 18.06.2026 - 20.06.2026 Deadline: 09.01.2026 Website: https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/fakultaeten/soziologie/fakultaet/personen/lengersdorf/forschung/aim_gender/index.xml

Ziel des Arbeitskreises AIM GENDER ist die fächerübergreifende gegenseitige Wahrnehmung und Kooperation von Forschenden aus Geschichts-, Literatur-, Kultur- und Politikwissenschaften sowie Soziologie, die zum Thema Männlichkeiten und deren Auswirkungen auf Kultur und Gesellschaft in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart arbeiten. Beiträge aus anderen Fachrichtungen sind willkommen.

 

Interdisziplinäre Männlichkeitenforschung: Bestandsaufnahme und aktuelle Herausforderungen

25 Jahre Arbeitskreis für interdisziplinäre Männer- und Geschlechterforschung AIM GENDER
18.–20. Juni 2026, Stuttgart-Hohenheim

2026 kann AIM GENDER, der Arbeitskreis für interdisziplinäre Männer- und Geschlechterforschung, auf 25 Jahre regelmäßige Treffen zurückblicken, die dazu beitrugen, die interdisziplinäre kritische Männlichkeitenforschung sichtbar zu etablieren. Selten lag der Forschungsgegenstand in dieser Zeit so klar in seiner gesellschaftlichen Relevanz vor Augen wie gegenwärtig. Ob wir eine „masculine energy“ beschwören wollen, wie Mark Zuckerberg dies tut, oder am permanenten Ringen um Männlichkeit des Schriftstellers Karl Ove Knausgård in seinen literarischen Texten teilhaben, ob in den Feuilletons über eine „toxische Männlichkeit“ diskutiert wird oder ob wir dem Ringen um die Vorherrschaft in der augenblicklichen „Broligarchie“ in den USA zusehen: Männlichkeit ist längst aus der Unsichtbarkeit des Selbstverständlichen herausgetreten. Zentrale Begriffe und Kategorien wurden in über zwei Dekaden kritischer Männlichkeitenforschung entwickelt und sind in die öffentlichen Debatten eingeflossen, andere drängen gerade aus dem politischen in das wissenschaftliche Feld ein. Der für den akademischen Blick so wichtige Plural findet inzwischen auch in den Lebenswelten Beachtung und Anerkennung, zugleich entzünden sich an ihm nach wie vor immer neue Kontroversen.

Wir wollen das 25. Jubiläum des Arbeitskreises für interdisziplinäre Männer- und Geschlechterforschung zum Anlass nehmen, um die Verhandlung von Männlichkeiten in der Forschung und in der öffentlichen Wahrnehmung zu diskutieren. Bei dieser Gelegenheit wollen wir erstens (selbst-)kritisch auf die Entwicklung des akademischen Felds zurückblicken, zweitens einen Raum zur Diskussion gegenwärtiger Debatten und Trends liefern (sowohl begrifflich-konzeptionell wie an Themen orientiert), und schließlich drittens Ausblicke auf mögliche Aufgaben und Fragen ermöglichen.

Es sind Beiträge aus allen Feldern und Disziplinen erwünscht, die Trends, Phänomene, Diagnosen und wissenschaftliche Beobachtungen zu aktuellen Männlichkeiten und Männlichkeitsdiskursen vornehmen und/oder auch Ausblicke zur Zukunft der Männer und Männlichkeiten wagen. Diese thematischen Aspekte sind als Anregung für Beiträge zu allen Epochen, allen Bereichen des Sozialen sowie allen ästhetisch-kulturellen Medien und Artikulationsformen gedacht.

Wir laden ein, Abstracts (höchstens eine Seite, max. 1.800 Zeichen, bitte nur als PDF!) für einen Vortrag bis zum 9. Januar 2026 an Toni Tholen (tholen@uni-hildesheim.de) zu schicken. Das Abstract muss Name, Fachrichtung, Position und E-Mail-Adresse der vorschlagenden Person und einen Vortragstitel enthalten. Die Problemstellung und die benutzten Materialien sollten klar herausgearbeitet werden. Aus diesem Pool von Vorschlägen wird das Programm zusammengestellt. Spätestens im Februar 2026 werden Sie informiert, ob Ihr Vorschlag für das Programm angenommen worden ist.

Tagungssprache ist Deutsch. Abstracts und Vorträge können aber auch in englischer Sprache gehalten werden.

Eine Finanzierung kann nicht übernommen werden.

Allen an der Teilnahme Interessierten empfehlen wir, sich direkt bei der Akademie der Diözese Rottenburg-Stuttgart, Fachbereich Geschichte, vormerken zu lassen (geschichte@akademie-rs.de). Diese Vormerkung ist unabhängig von der Präsentation oder Annahme eines Diskussionspapiers.

Die Einladenden
Johannes Kuber (Historiker), Akademie der Diözese Rottenburg-Stuttgart
Diana Lengersdorf (Soziologin), Universität Bielefeld
Olaf Stieglitz (Historiker), Universität Leipzig
Toni Tholen (Literaturwissenschaftler), Universität Hildesheim

Kontakt

tholen@uni-hildesheim.de

Saint-Denis/France

Le Séminaire « Fight the Power ? Musiques hip-hop et rapports sociaux de pouvoir » explore les musiques hip-hop en France et dans le monde, du point de vue des sciences sociales.

Présentation

Le séminaire « Fight the power ? Musiques hip hop et rapports sociaux de pouvoir » (CRESPPA / Cemti) reprend cette année à l’Université Paris 8, en salle A2-204, les vendredi après-midi de 15h à 17h30. Vous trouverez le programme en corps du mail et sur https://fight-the-power.sciencesconf.org/. Les inscriptions sont obligatoires et se font ici.

Un lien visio pourra être envoyé aux participants inscrits qui en font la demande mais sans garantie de la qualité de la connexion internet.

Programme Vendredi 17 octobre 2025

• 15h-17h30 : Chiharu Chujo (Lyon III) - « Assez fort(e) pour rapper ? Injonctions genrées et stratégies de légitimation dans la scène japonaise »

La séance sera discutée par Keivan Djavadzadeh (Paris 8)

Vendredi 12 décembre 2025

• 15h-17h30 : Nodra Moutarou (LabSIC) - « Stratégies de consécration, enjeux de pouvoir et médiation marchande : les Grammy Awards et Les Flammes comme espaces de légitimation »

Discussion par Marie Sonnette-Manouguian (CRESPPA, Université Paris Nanterre)

Vendredi 13 février 2026

• 15h-17h30 : Keivan Djavadzadeh, Lune Riboni (Paris 8), Emmanuelle Carinos Vasquez et Emily Shuman (Radboud University) - « Voir le rap : clips et cultures visuelles des musiques hip-hop »

Vendredi 10 avril 2026

• 15h-17h30 : Emmanuel Parent et Marta Amico (Rennes 2) - « Le rapport à l’Afrique et aux Antilles dans la musique d’Aya Nakamura. Fabrication musicale et médiatique d’une musique noire de France »

Discussion par Emmanuelle Carinos Vasquez

Vendredi 12 juin 2026

15h-17h30 : Yannick Blec (Paris 8) - « Hypermasculinité / hypersensibilité ? Les masculinités noires dans le rap US, entre retournements et revendications »

Discussion par Princia Andrianirina (Paris 8)

Lieu

• salle A2-204 - 2 Rue de la Liberté, 93200 Saint-Denis
  Saint-Denis, Frankreich (93)

Format de l'événement

Événement hybride

Dates

• Vendredi 17 octobre 2025
• Vendredi 12 décembre 2025
• Vendredi 13 février 2026
• Vendredi 10 avril  2026
• Vendredi 12 juin 2026

Appendice

• Affiche Fight The Power 2025-2026 1.png

Mots-clés

• rap, hip-hop, musique, culture, rapport sociaux de pouvoir, genre, classe, race