Courses

Courses "B/Orders in Motion" in the SS 2024

Prof. Dr Kira Kosnick

Introduction to Queer Studies

This seminar offers an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of Queer Studies from anthropological and sociological perspectives. Starting from the historical and cultural transformation of sexual identities and sexual politics, we examine their development in the context of North American and European modernities. We also address the emergence of social movements focused on non-normative sexual and gender identities, and the deconstruction of gender-binarisms and sexuality in the context of queer academic critiques. Intersectional perspectives relating to the intersection of sexuality and gender with hierarchies of class, 'race' and ethnicity will be relevant throughout. Please be ready to join one Berlin excursion to visit an exhibition on June 28th (Friday) afternoon/evening.

Digital Manospheres - Intersectional Perspectives on Discourses, Practices and Hierarchies

This seminar provides an in-depth exploration of digital manospheres, examining the discourses, practices, and hierarchies within online spaces that predominantly engage with issues related to masculinity. Through an intersectional lens, students will critically analyze the various dimensions of digital manospheres, including their historical roots, cultural manifestations, and implications for contemporary society. The course will encompass theoretical frameworks, case studies, and hands-on research examining linguistic and/or sociological aspects of digital manospheres.

Research colloquium "On the way to the final thesis. Topics: Migration, ethnicity, racism, gender, queer studies"

In this colloquium, we will first address the development of a scientific question and the structure of an exposé, before discussing content, ethical issues and methodological questions, depending on the needs of the students and the status of the respective projects. In the further course, students present their projects or ideas for the final thesis in presentations that focus in particular on the outstanding questions and problems that are currently associated with their own project. We discuss and plan the exact content of the event in the first session in order to best meet the needs of the participants.

PD Dr Carolin Leutloff-Grandits

European peripheries, European grey zones

Europe is characterised by overlapping political orders and socio-spatial inequalities. It makes a big difference whether or not a region is part of the European Union (EU) and whether or not it is in the focus of states' or the EU's bordering policies. This is particularly pertinent in the Western Balkans, where different statuses of EU membership coincide with internal and external borders. Boundary-drawing is also palpable in the Polish-German border region, where three decades of 'reconciliation' in the frames of EU integration coincide with recent re-bordering and ongoing peripheralisation. The objective of the class is to explore the establishment, overlapping and subversion of socio-spatial hierarchies in Europe. Two concepts from social and cultural studies will be used for inspiration: the concept of 'periphery', with its dimensions of peripheralisation and peripherality, and the concept of 'grey zones' that signifies the overlapping of territorial folds. The concepts will be situated with ideas of bordering and liminality as processes that establish and subvert socio-spatial hierarchies and that are embodied by migrants, in particular. The conceptual exploration is grounded in examples from the Bosnian-Croatian and the Polish-German border regions and studied on spot in Frankfurt (Oder) and Słubice.

Maria Klessmann

Border images: Image regimes between demarcation, transgression and dissolution

Which ideas, images and narratives we associate with borders changes with social circumstances. The imaginations of a borderless world have contributed to borders being imagined as outdated in parts of the (Western) world. When borders are disputed and challenged, they receive more attention and images of being overwhelmed and threatened dominate the media landscape. Images of border installations, security checks, walls and people trying to overcome these installations and fences are omnipresent. In the "Border Images" seminar, we will look at images and other media representations of borders. We ask about the image-generating function of borders themselves and scrutinise (Eurocentric) perspectives and image regimes. Which clichés and stereotypes are disseminated on the basis of the analysed border images? Which historical continuities of visual representations of borders are utilised? Which visual habits are stabilised or questioned? In a methodological part of the seminar, relevant approaches to working with image sources (historical image studies, visual history/anthropology) will be developed in order to test them using images of borders as examples. The aim is to critically question the representational character, the contexts of origin and functions and to locate them in a discursive field of tension between marginalisation and exclusion, transgression and dissolution. Looking ahead, we will address the question of what alternative border images could look like - especially in the age of image-generating AI? How do we visualise a border of the future?

Right-wing violence in Frankfurt (Oder) in the 1990s

With the opening of the border between Poland and the FRG on 8 April 1991, right-wing extremist violence occurred in several places near the border. At the city bridge between Słubice and Frankfurt (Oder), neo-Nazis tried to prevent Polish travellers from crossing the border. Violent riots broke out and people were injured; the understaffed police were overwhelmed. The so-called "baseball bat years" were characterised by hostility and violent attacks on people with international histories and left-wingers. In the 1990s, right-wing street violence also characterised parts of everyday urban life in Frankfurt (Oder), from which Viadrina students and staff were not spared. In the seminar "Right-wing violence in Frankfurt (Oder) in the 1990s", we will use archive material and academic sources to approach the events of the time and develop our own empirical approaches in order to look back on a period, its discourses and debates. Using qualitative interviews and archive work, we will expand our methodological knowledge and deal with practices of remembering, archiving and mediating as well as questions of contemporary witnesses. In addition to the empirical part, we will examine theories of (right-wing) violence, deal with the history of the 1990s, the period after the "Wende", and also look at institutional history.

Dr Luis Hernandez Aguilar

A brief history of feminist thought

The seminar welcomes students interested in learning on core social scientific strands of theories of women's and gender studies by exploring and analysing key texts of feminist knowledge production ranging from liberal feminism, Marxist feminism, black feminism, postcolonial and decolonial feminism as well as post secular and ecofeminism. The seminar is designed to provide and discuss knowledge of social movement research (feminist movement) and of gender studies' connectivity with humanistic, cultural and social scientific as well as economic disciplines.

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ConspiRacism: Conspiracy Theories and their entanglement with racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia

The seminar welcome students interested in the scientific study of conspiracy theories, and the historical and contemporary instances where conspiracy theories were articulated through racial characterisations. The seminar is structured to cover four arenas and major themes in the study of conspiracy theories: a) conceptual and theoretical approaches to conspiracy theories; b)a brief historical account of conspiracy theories; c)conspiracy theories and antisemitism, and d)conspiracy theories on the great replacement.

The seminar welcomes students interested in the scientific study of conspiracy theories and the historical and contemporary instances where conspiracy theories were articulated through racial characterisations.

Dr Özlem Savas

Sociality and Politics of Emotion

This course aims to explore how affects and emotions shape and are shaped by social, collective, public, and political spheres. How can we address trauma as a public feeling or loss as a collective emotion? Can depression be political? How do pain and hate bring about social closeness and distance? How can emotions and affects serve as sources for affinities, counter-publics, and political engagement? How can we conceive radical care and affective hope as political sources to deal with the pressing troubles of our time? In this course, we will address these questions and many others that open up new ways of contextualising and researching both our emotional and affective experiences and our collective, public, and political worlds. We will largely draw on feminist and queer studies of affect, emotion and feeling, as well as sociology and anthropology of emotions, cultural studies, and media studies. We will engage with the theoretical debates on collective emotions, public feelings and political affect, and focus on particular affective states such as loss, trauma, depression, pain, hate, anger, uncertainty, anxiety, hope and hopelessness. Furthermore, we will discuss examples of artistic and literary works, popular culture, digital media spaces, and urban spaces that create, circulate and archive affects, emotions and feelings.

Creative Imaginaries of Migration

This seminar examines the creative and affective practices of migrants as part of broader frameworks of living with and acting on troubling times, which characterise our contemporary cultural, social, and political horizons. How do migration experiences serve as a generative mode of knowledge production, aesthetic creation, and political intervention in contemporary societies? How can cultural practices of migrants open up possibilities for relationality, care, and repair, and inspire a politics of affinity? What can we learn from creative imaginaries that emerge from various migration experiences, if we do not confine them to supposed ethnic, migrant, or diasporic communities or to a distinct sphere of 'migrant' culture? In this seminar, we will explore unbounded, complex, fluid, and plural cultural spheres that are created through diverse forms of migration. We will critically address a range of concepts and debates that are significant to the study of migration, diaspora, and exile such as belonging, transnationalism, translocality, cosmopolitanism, diversity, and postmigrant society, and rethink the relationships between culture, place, identity, and mobility. We will discuss artistic, intellectual, and more everyday forms of expression and creativity across diverse mediums such as art, film, music, performance, digital media, photography, and everyday aesthetics. To do so, we will draw on participatory, artistic, activist, and experimental methodological approaches to migration.

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