News from the BCDSS
What's the latest news? View all BCDSS news announcements here.
"Magdalena More's Complaint." In Journal of Moravian History
This workshop traces alternative Maroon worlds and worldviews along two specific lines of inquiry, ecology and imagination. Convening scholars from across disciplines (including geography, archaeology, anthropology, literary history and sound studies), we will probe the different environmental and cultural contexts of Marronage. Our goal is to engage with Marronage as an ecological, political and creative practice, underlining how Black ways of engaging with the environment provide a conceptual and practical reorientation to anthropogenic climate change.
We are carrying on with the "WHO'S GOT THE POWER?" series in cooperation with Förderverein Filmkultur at Brotfabrik, Bonn!
Our second film this year, THE EMPTY GRAVE (original: 'DAS LEERE GRAB'), a German-Tanzanian co-production by Agnes Lisa Wegner and Cece Mlay, was launched at the Berlinale Film Festival earlier this year. It addresses the legacy of the German colonial rule in Tanzania: the search for the physical remains of family members, the intergenerational trauma, the quest for justice, the question of future coexistence.
Everyone is warmly welcome to join us for the post-screening talk and reception with drinks and fingerfood in the informal setting of Studio 5.
On the panel representing the BCDSS:
Mary Aderonke Afolabi-Adeolu, PhD Researcher
Boluwatife Akinro, PhD Researcher
Dr. Mercy Mashingaidze, Postdoctoral Researcher & Lecturer
TIME: 4 July 2024
20:00: Screening
21:30: Discussion/Reception
LOCATION: Kino in der Brotfabrik, Kreuzstraße 16, 53225 Bonn
REGISTRATION: To help us plan, kindly register for the discussion/reception by 3 July (below).
Congratulations to PhD Researcher David B. Smith, whose article "'An Open Wound in the Body…' A 'Dependency Turn' in Ecumenical Discourse on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery" has just been published in The Ecumenical Review.
We are pleased to announce that our Tour of Roman Bonn now has its own website - the World of Roman Bonn!
June 12 marks the 'World Day Against Child Labor'. It aims to catalyze the growing global effort to eliminate child labor.
Researchers at the BCDSS work with and on visual material in their research on slaveries and dependencies. In this roundtable, a curator, an artist, and several researchers from the BCDSS will talk about visuality and dependency.
By PhD Researcher Ricardo Márquez García together with Nanette Snoep, Vera Marušić and Lydia Hauth
Organized by Eva Marie Lehner (BCDSS) and Hanna te Velde (IISH)
We are pleased to announce that the renowned philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah will give a guest lecture at the BCDSS on 27 June 2024 titled "Identities in History." Appiah's lecture will be based on his latest book The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity (2018).
Recent cataclysms in Eastern Europe prove glaringly just how important it is to continuously discuss and analyze asymmetrical dependencies in premodern inner Eurasian connecting spaces north and east of the great mountain ranges (e.g., Carpathians, Caucasus, Pamir, Tien Shan, Altai, etc.), now in large parts claimed by Russia.
The conference reaches beyond what is now Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, encouraging scientific debates across regional and temporal disciplinary boundaries with area studies globally within the framework of the histories of entanglements and memory
The scholarship on transatlantic slavery has long benefited from the often-exhaustive data published in the fugitive slave archive. Ubiquitous throughout the transatlantic world, fugitive slave advertisements were commonly placed by enslavers seeking to recapture enslaved people who resisted through flight. Such notices commonly provided specific, invasive detail about an enslaved person’s body, dress, skills, languages, and even gestures and mannerisms. Although enslaved females standardly comprised a smaller percentage of runaways, nevertheless, the fugitive notices that do exist for female freedom seekers shed light on their lives and experiences. Through an examination of the fugitive slave archive and other sources, this lecture seeks to fill some of the scholarly gaps on the experiences of enslaved females of African descent in Canada. More specifically, it will offer some distinctions between the lives and experiences of enslaved females in slave minority (temperate) and slave majority (tropical) sites in the British transatlantic world.
The third BCDSS Discussion Paper on "Asymmetrical Dependencies and Intersectionality" has just been published.
The Discussion Papers are dedicated to discussing the theoretical side of "strong asymmetrical dependency." They serve as impulses for researchers in and beyond the BCDSS who intend to work with the new key concept of strong asymmetrical dependency.
BCDSS' Translator & Academic Editor Imogen Herrad and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Coordinator Dima Al Munajed will host this workshop for the University of Bonn's Diversity Days 2024.
Narratives of Dependency: Textual Representations of Slavery, Captivity, and Other Forms of Strong Asymmetrical Dependencies
Edited by Prof. Dr. Elke Brüggen and Prof. Dr. Marion Gymnich. This book is part of the book series Dependency & Slavery Studies.
With Sara Eriksson, Sarah Zimmerman, and Natalie Joy, three of this year's BCDSS Fellows will present their personal research projects at the Dies Academicus on 15 May 2024.
The newest issue of the Journal of Global Slavery includes the Special Issue “Beyond Slavery and Freedom?”, edited by BCDSS members Pia Wiegmink and Jutta Wimmler. The Special Issue demonstrates the variety of research done at the cluster. The Introduction is available as open access.
Congratulations to Michael Zeuske, Principal Investigator at the BCDSS, who authored the chapter "Migration, Slavery and Commodification" in The Oxford Handbook of Commodity History!
Das Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies sucht zum schnellstmöglichen Zeitpunkt eine Studentische oder Wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft zur Unterstützung im Bereich IT für 12–19 Std. pro Woche.
The Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies is looking for a student assistant (SHK, in the BA programme) or research assistant (WHF, in the MA programme) to support the IT sector for 12–19 hours per week as soon as possible.
Im Rahmen des Projekts "Race and Freedom: Africans in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on the Eve of Modernity", das seit Januar 2024 durch die DFG gefördert und am Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS) ansässig ist, suchen wir zum nächstmöglichen Zeitpunkt eine studentische (SHK) oder wissenschaftliche (WHF) Hilfskraft (m/w/d) für 20 Std im Monat.
As part of the project "Race and Freedom: Africans in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on the Eve of Modernity", funded by the DFG since January 2024 and based at the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS), we are looking for a student assistant (SHK, in the BA programme) or research assistant (WHF, in the MA programme) (m/f/d) for 20 hours per month as soon as possible.
Continuing our commitment to thought-provoking cinema and dialogue, we kick off our 2024 series with an exclusive preview of the Afrika Film Festival Köln, due this September. We are lucky to be able to feature a Screening & Discussion of five Festival films:
LIONS by Beru Tessema (2022)
OUSMANE by Jorge Camarotti (2021)
P.D.O. (PROTECTED DESIGNATION OF ORIGIN) by Sammy Sidali (2021)
FLOWERS by Dumas Haddad (2022)
SÈT LAM by Vincent Fontano (2023)
Join us for our post-screening talk and get-together with BCDSS members:
Malik Ade, Mary Aderonke Afolabi-Adeolu and Luvena Kopp (moderation)
Together with Prof. Dr. Chioma Daisy Onyige and our partner institution from the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, we host an international workshop on "Contemporary Slavery and Asymmetrical Dependency in Nigeria."
Former BCDSS Fellow Prof. Dr. Christian Laes, University of Manchester, has published a new book on Disability and Healing in Greek and Roman Myth.
A roundtable with historians from France, Britain, Germany and the US.
Am Lehrstuhl von Prof. Dr. Julia Hillner ist zum 1. Oktober 2024 die Stelle eines*r Wissenschaftliche*n Mitarbeiter*in (65%) zu besetzen. Die Stelle ist vom 1. Oktober 2024 bis zum 30. September 2028 befristet ausgeschrieben. Nach einem Jahr wird eine Zwischenevaluation durchgeführt. Bis zum 31. Januar 2026 ist die Stelle am Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS) angesiedelt, ab dem 1. Februar 2026 am Institut für Geschichtswissenschaften/Abteilung Alte Geschichte.
The Chair of Prof. Dr. Julia Hillner invites applications for the position of a Research Associate (65%). The position is for a fixed-term period from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2028. An interim evaluation will be carried out after one year. Until January 31, 2026, the position is located at the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS), from February 1, 2026 at the Institute of Historical Sciences / Department of Ancient History.
Für die Zusammenarbeit mit dem Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (IISG) suchen wir zum nächstmöglichen Zeitpunkt und für ca. 19 Stunden die Woche eine studentische (SHK, im BA Studium) oder wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft (WHF, im MA Studium) (m/w/d).
For our cooperation with the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (IISG) we are looking for a student assistant (SHK, in the BA programme) or research assistant (WHF, in the MA programme) (m/f/d) for approx. 19 hours per week as soon as possible.
25 March marks the International Slavery and Transatlantic Slave Trade Remembrance Day.
We regularly invite renowned international scholars from across the world to present their ongoing research related to asymmetrical dependency and slavery. In return we offer the possibility to publish a revised version of their lectures as part of our Joseph C. Miller Memorial Lecture Publications.
See what's coming up between April and June 2024!