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KWI Welcomes Nine New Researchers |
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+ Bojan Baća is a sociologist focussing on civil society, social movements, and contentious politics. As an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at KWI, he will investigate how conspiracy theories function as systems of collective meaning making and knowledge production within the online public sphere.
+ Paul Buckermann is a sociologist whose research and teaching engage with the arts, politics, and the history of science. A former Thyssen@KWI Fellow, he is returning to the institute as co-leader of the new project “Towards a Genealogy of Guilty Pleasures: Performing Reflexive Consumption”.
+ Olivia Glaze is a medical humanities scholar whose research explores the narration of illness, trauma, and disability. At KWI, Olivia will begin a new project entitled Disability and Difference: Relocating “Crip” Identities in Twentieth-Century Portuguese-Speaking Literature and Film.
+ Matthew Holmes is a historian of science and the environment, with previous postdoctoral positions at the University of Cambridge and the University of Stavanger. At KWI, Matthew will work on his second book project, Avian Engineers: Animal Minds and Technology in America.
+ Ciarán Kavanagh is a scholar of English literature with a forthcoming book, Refiguring Reader-Response: Experience and Interpretation in Contemporary Fiction. His KWI project, In Search of Awe, investigates the powerful emotion of awe in contemporary science and speculative fiction.
+ Floramante SJ Ponce is an anthropologist. At KWI, he will be part of the CryoCultures project, working on the climate politics of artificial cooling among refrigerator users displaced by Chinese hydropower in northern Laos, and the effects of air conditioners among young Laotian scammers in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone.
+ Sebastian James Rose is a historian of technology with a focus on empire, infrastructure, and communication. At KWI, he will be a postdoctoral researcher in the CryoCultures project, conducting archival research into the history of cooling technologies during the Cold War.
+ Alexandria N. Ruble is an assistant professor of European history at the University of Idaho. Her KWI project, Perpetual Prisoners: The Politics and Memory of Persecution in Post-Fascist Germany, explores how former political prisoners, specifically victims of National Socialism, were remembered.
+ Christoph Schaub is a scholar of German literature and cultural studies. As Thyssen@KWI Fellow, he will work on a new project titled A Prehistory of the Present: The Diversity of the Working Class and 1970s German Literature, concentrating on the “Werkkreis Literatur der Arbeitswelt” and the role of diversity.
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With our 2026/2027 theme “Red Lines”, we explore practices and modes of thought that set boundaries and make distinctions visible. What political and aesthetic strategies are used to draw these red lines, and to what ends? How are they crossed, ignored, or defended? Where do red lines lead, and to what extent can one even grasp a “thin red line”? Together with our guests and members of the public, we aim to embark on shared expeditions: tracing various red lines, always exploring both sides of each divide. |
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Volkswagen Foundation Funding for Guilty Pleasures Project
Paul Buckermann (KWI), Morten Paul (RUB), and Roxanne Phillips (KWI) have received funding through the VW Foundation's initiative "Open Up – New Research Spaces for the Humanities and Cultural Studies“. Building on KWI's previous annual theme, their project traces cultural shifts, epistemic conflicts, and social dynamics in historical entanglement with discourses of guilty pleasures.
⇢ MORE INFORMATION
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CfA: Fritz Thyssen Foundation Extends Funding for Thyssen@KWI Fellowships
The Fritz Thyssen Foundation has approved a fourth funding phase of 18 months for Thyssen@KWI Fellowships, from October 2026 until March 2028. With this funding, KWI can offer three additional scholarships over the next two years, for six months each. Application deadline: 11 May 2026
⇢ FULL CALL
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 SNAPSHOT
Visual Literacies entered Dusseldorf classrooms with the ambition to read, question, and understand images. Its first phase involved workshops with eighth-grade classes across three different school types. Feedback was encouraging: students expressed a desire for more hands-on work, more discussion, and more time to engage with the themes. These responses are feeding into the project’s second phase, which begins with an expanded university partnership network and a clear goal: to develop classroom-ready teaching materials grounded in both research and practice.
⇢ MORE INFORMATION
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| Colloquium
The colloquium provides a platform to present and discuss ongoing as well as emerging research projects. In addition to projects within KWI – including the work of our new fellows – it is open to guest lectures that tie in with the institute's research agenda.
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Lecture: From Libraries to Data Centres – An (Architectural) History of Information Storage
14 April 2026, 18:30 (CET), KWI & ZOOM
Speaker: Alina Wandelt
Moderation: Stefan Höhne
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Conference: Crisis and Form – Politicizations of Art
22–24 April 2026, KWI
Contact: Mona Leinung
⇢ MORE INFORMATION
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Lecture: Wenn und Aber – Truth and Judgement at the Limits of Liberalism
22 April 2026, 18:30 (CET), KWI
Speaker: Dorit Geva
Moderation: Mona Leinung
⇢ MORE INFORMATION |
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Lecture: KI und die Berechenbarkeit des Individuellen. Eine Mediengeschichte des Stils
30 April 2026, 18:30 (CET), KWI
Speaker: Kathrin Yacavone
Moderation: Anja Schürmann
⇢ MORE INFORMATION
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Podium Discussion: Zwischen Prestige und Intervention. Vom Sozialen Gebrauch der Literatur
05 May 2026, 18:30 (CET), KWI
Speakers: Günter Leypoldt, Carolin Amlinger
Moderation: Julika Griem
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Schreibwochenende für Promovierende
08–10 May 2026, KWI
Workshop: Talea van Lengen, Leana Neuber, Katharina Cyra
Contact: Laura Reiling
⇢ MORE INFORMATION
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Podium Discussion: Böse Bücher? Politiken des Zeigbaren im Kinder- und Jugendbuch
20 May 2026, 18:30 (CET), KWI & Zoom
Speakers: Johanna Hähner, Corinna Norrick-Rühl, Mareike Stoll
Moderation: Anja Schürmann
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Discussion: Reaktionsmaschine. Grenzmarkierungen, Überschreitungen und Lagerbildung in sozialen Medien
02 June 2026, 18:30 (CET), KWI & Zoom
Speaker: Rupert Gaderer
Moderation: Hanna Engelmeier
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Podium Discussion: Recht unter Druck. Verfassung zwischen Praxis und Interpretation
03 June 2026, 18:30 (CET), KWI & Zoom
Speakers: Samira Akbarian, Susanne Baer
Moderation: Julika Griem
⇢ MORE INFORMATION
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Lectures: Die Kunst des roten Fadens
17 June 2026, 18:30 (CET), KWI & Zoom
Speaker: Andrea Polaschegg, Matías Martínez
Moderation: Roxanne Phillips
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Podium Discussion: Produktiv spalten? Polarisierung als kommunikative Herausforderung
24 June 2026, 18:30 (CET), KWI & Zoom
Speaker: Nils C. Kumkar, Hannes Krämer
Moderation: Julika Griem, Friedrich Balke
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Lecture: Expropriation in Modern History
30 June 2026, 18:30 (CET), KWI & Zoom
Speaker: Nicholas Mulder
Moderation: Danilo Scholz
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 FROM THE MEDIA
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Press release on the German Photo Council's new working group “Fotografie und Wissenschaft”, initiated by Anja Schürmann and Kathrin Yacavone
(photoscala)
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Interview with Tim Schanetzky on political education in Germany
(rbb podcast “Matthay fragt”)
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Article on the latest issue of “Zeitschrift für Ideengeschichte”, with reference to Danilo Scholz’s essay on Judith Butler and Hannah Arendt
(Die Zeit)
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“Marie Sophie Beckmann / Petra Löffler (eds.): Sub(e)merging. Experiences, Practices and Politics from Below” by Franziska Barth
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Was war Faschismustheorie? Epistemologie, Poetik und Medialität einer heterodoxen Gattung edited by Morten Paul, with contributions from among others Stefan Höhne and Mona Leinung
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Addiction and the Medicalisation of Conspicuous Behaviour: New Critical Perspectives edited by Bruce M. Z. Cohen, Martin Harbusch, and Jo Reichertz
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“The Nomadic Camera and Digital Visual Journalism: Ethical Considerations in the Making” by Evelyn Runge
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“Der Unfriede. Butler, Arendt und die israelische Staatsgründung” by Danilo Scholz
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“Soziologische Reaktionen auf den Umbruch von 1918/19. Der Neue Mensch in der Gesellschaftstheorie” by Alexander Wierzock
⇢ MORE INFORMATION |
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