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Lecture Series on the Dynamics of Spaces

Area Studies Lecture Series at Freie Universität Starts April 29

№ 109/2010 from Apr 26, 2010

“Spaces in Motion” is the title of a lecture series being held from the end of April until mid-July at Freie Universität. The Center for Area Studies has invited scholars from various disciplines to deal with regional and transregional dynamics in the globalized world. On Thursday, April 29, Gudrun Krämer, Professor of Islamic Studies at Freie Universität, will be holding the opening lecture entitled “Protestantische Ethik, islamischen Aktivismus und die Produktion des modernen Muslims.” The lectures will be on Thursdays, they are open to the public, and there is no admission charge. The lectures will be held in German or in English (according to the language of the lecture title).

Spaces can be viewed geographically, constructed politically and culturally, or mapped in literature. With globalization, ideas about spaces and boundaries change: The bipolar world model is replaced by a multi-polar, multi-networked one. Moreover: Spaces are no longer defined only geographically but constructed politically or culturally, and in very different ways. Even identities depend increasingly on these conceived areas rather than the borders of certain territories, and spaces and identities are in motion. These developments are reflected in the various humanities and social sciences. In particular, the discipline studying the regions of the world, called regional studies or area studies, now concentrates on transregional dynamics and the design of spaces.

Additional lecture topics (Thurdays, 6:15 p.m - 8:00 p.m., from April 29 to July 15, 2010, Habelschwerdter Allee 45 (Silberlaube), Room KL25/134, 14195 Berlin; subway stop: Thielplatz (U3); buses: X11, M11, 110):

  • May 6:  Prof. Dr. Klaus Segbers (Political Science, Freie Universität Berlin)
    Der Formwandel von Staatlichkeit und die Proliferation von Scapes. Zum Bedeutungsverlust von Area Studies und Internationalen Beziehungen
  • May 20:  Dr. Isabel Schäfer (Social Sciences, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
    Wessen Mittelmeer? Konzepte und Szenarien für einen politischen Raum
  • May 27:  Prof. Dr. Manan Ahmed (Islamic Studies, Freie Universität Berlin)
    Situating a Universal: Liminal Sindh in Medieval and Early Modern South Asia
  • June 3:  Prof. Dr. Ludger Pries (Sociology, Ruhr-Universität Bochum)
    Between Ethnicizing and Cosmopolitanism: Spaces and Levels of Identity
  • June 10:  Prof. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Ph.D. (English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University New York)
    An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization
  • June 17: Prof. Dr. Niels Werber (Neuere Deutsche Literaturwissenschaft, Universität Siegen)
    Amerika als glatter Raum. Zur literarischen Konstruktion geopolitischer Topoi
  • June 24: Prof. Dr. Hansjörg Dilger (Ethnologie, Freie Universität Berlin)
    Ungleiche Geschichte(n): Christliche & muslimische Bildungseinrichtungen in Ostafrika im Kontext geopolitischer Transformationsprozesse
  • July 1:  Prof. Dr. Verena Blechinger-Talcott and Prof. Dr. Marianne Braig (Political Science, Freie Universität Berlin)
    Zentrum und Peripherie. Perspektiven auf Ostasien und Lateinamerika
  • July 8:  Prof. Dr. Oliver Lubrich (Comparative Literature, Freie Universität Berlin)
    Mord im Okzident-Express. Thomas Wolfe und die Topographien des Terrors
  • July 15:  Prof. Dr. Monica Juneja (Art History, Universität Heidelberg)
    Art History and the Challenge of Transcultural Mobility –  Reconfiguring Vision in Early Modern Eurasia

Further Information

Anja vom Stein
Center for Area Studies (CAS)
Freie Universität Berlin
Tel.: +49 (0)30 / 838–52881
Email: geschaeftsstelle@cas.fu-berlin.de

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