Overview of Second Phase: 2026-2032
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© BCDSS
Overview of Second Phase: 2026-2032
BCDSS Exhibition at GHL
Additional 7 Years of Funding Secured

Welcome to the Cluster of Excellence at the  
Bonn Center for Dependency & Slavery Studies 

"Beyond Slavery and Freedom: 
Asymmetrical Dependencies in Pre-Modern Societies" 

We are a research cluster within the framework of the Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments. In May 2025, we were awarded a further seven years of funding by the German Research Foundation. Hence, as of January 2026, we will be starting our SECOND FUNDING PERIOD (2026-2032).

We investigate profound social dependencies such as slavery, serfdom, debt bondage, and other forms of permanent dependency across epochs, regions and cultures. 

Our focus lies "beyond slavery and freedom", i.e., we aim to overcome the binary opposition of "free" and "unfree". 

Instead, we propose the new key concept of "asymmetrical dependency" to explore all forms of bondages across time and space.      

BCDSS 2024: A Year in Highlights

Bild © Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies / YouTube

BCDSS 2024: A Year in Highlights

2024 was filled with milestones. Watch our highlights video to see what we accomplished together – thank you for being part of our journey!

Enmeshed & Entwined: FABRICS OF DEPENDENCY

Bild © Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies / YouTube

BCDSS exhibition launches digitally!

What can textiles – coarse cloth or fine silks, work and household linen, clothes in different styles and fashions – tell us about different forms of dependency: enslavement, serfdom, forced labour, or in our own day, factory work in the Global South?

Visit our digital exhibition ‘Enmeshed and Entwined: Fabrics of Dependency/Verstrickt und Verwoben: Texturen der Abhängigkeit’ and let our "quilted narratives" help you explore these and further questions.

News
© BCDSS
9
Socare Conference Keynote by Sinah Kloß: "Spectral Bodies, Subtle Power"9
We are delighted to share that BCDSS Research Group Leader Sinah Kloß has been invited as one of three keynote speakers at the upcoming Socare Conference titled "Women in the Caribbean: Fragmentations – Intersections – Entanglements," taking place from October 16–18, 2025, at the Ibero-American Institute PK in Berlin. She will be joined by distinguished scholars Jamaica Kincaid (Harvard University) and Nadia Ellis (University of California, Berkeley).
Oct 07, 2025 9
© GHL
10
Film screening & public talk of "Enmeshed and Entwined: Fabrics of Dependency" exhibition10
Join us on 8 October 2025 at the Global Heritage Lab (GHL):5-7 pm: Film Screening and Public Talkfrom 7 pm: Reception / Finissage of the “Enmeshed and Entwined – Fabrics of Dependency” exhibition
Oct 02, 2025 10
© BCDSS
11
CfA: Heinz Heinen Fellowships 2026/202711
The Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies is now accepting applications for the Heinz Heinen Fellowship for the academic year 2026/2027. The fellowships are open to doctoral fellows, postdoctoral researchers, senior scholars, and alternative knowledge producers (journalists, artists, curators, etc.). Fellowships last between 6–12 months and include stipends, travel support, accommodation allowances, and a workspace at the BCDSS. For this cycle, the focus is on the Methods Lab, a collaborative platform dedicated to developing and critically reflecting on methods to study Strong Asymmetrical Dependencies (SADs) such as slavery, serfdom, and debt bondage. Researchers are encouraged to bring innovative, interdisciplinary, and even experimental approaches, including digital humanities and critical perspectives on AI.
Oct 01, 2025 11
© BCDSS
12
Rome's battle for Germania12
In ‘Prostitution in military camps: Who Roman soldiers had sex with’, an article published in the latest issue of the German history magazine SPIEGEL Geschichte, Professor Julia Hillner underscored how Rome’s vast slave trade, reaching deep into Germania, supplied the empire with enslaved women and children who were often trafficked and sexually exploited. 
Sep 30, 2025 12
© BCDSS
13
Special Issue in Slavery & Abolition13
We are delighted to share that BCDSS Senior Fellow Lotte Pelckmans has co-edited a special issue of the renowned journal Slavery & Abolition on “Resistance to Slavery in Africa: Past and Present.”
Sep 29, 2025 13
© BCDSS
14
In Historisches Jahrbuch14
Congratulations to Dr. Julia Winnebeck, leader of the "Structures of Dependency in the Late Antique and Early Medieval Western Church" research group as well as Research Area C representative, and PhD researcher Henriette von Harnier on their contribution to the latest edition of the Historisches Jahrbuch. This publication offers the first edition and translation of the incomplete Paenitentiale Dusseldorpiense, a ninth-century manuscript from the University Library of Düsseldorf, providing new insights into early medieval penance and society.
Sep 26, 2025 14
© BCDSS
15
Call for Papers15
As part of the Australian Research Council (ARC) project "Unfreedom, Voices, Redress: Plantation Cultures of the Western Pacific" we are inviting paper proposals for an international workshop entitled Plantation Lives, Gender, and Material Culture: Queen Emma’s Networks and the (Post)Colonial Anglo-German Pacific.  The workshop will be held on June 17-19, 2026, at the University of Bonn and the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum (RJM), Cologne.
Sep 25, 2025 15
© BCDSS
16
New Article by Christian Mader16
Congratulations to BCDSS researcher and coordinator of the Research Group "The Archaeology of Dependency (ArchDepth): Resources, Power and Status Differentiation," Christian Mader, who, together with Katerina Ragkou, published an article in the journal Frontiers in Human Dynamics!Their research emphasizes that markets are not simply a matter of existing or not; rather, they manifest in diverse forms. Byzantium’s coin-based economy and the Andes’ networked exchanges both exhibit “market-like” features, albeit in very different ways. By approaching markets as a spectrum rather than a binary, their work captures the richness and variety of economic interactions across societies.
Sep 23, 2025 16
Events
© BCDSS
Monday Oct 20, 2025
18
Joseph C. Miller Memorial Lecture by Ann R. David18
HYBRID event: On site ...
04:15 PM - 05:45 PM
How has Western morality reshaped Indian ideas of the body and performance? This research explores how colonial and postcolonial ideologies impacted Indian ...
18
© BCDSS
Monday Nov 10, 2025
19
Joseph C. Miller Memorial Lecture by Christian Cwik19
HYBRID event: On site in ...
04:15 PM - 05:45 PM
Before transatlantic slavery, European colonial powers used contract workers. After Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807/08, they sought new markets, ...
19

Contact Us 

Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS)

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Managing Director: Sar25ah Dusend25
Email: dependency@uni-bonn.de

Press and PR Manager: Cécile Jeblawei26
Email: pr@dependency.uni-bonn.de

Address

University of Bonn
Niebuhrstraße 5
53113 Bonn  

BCDSS Fellowship Programs

Address

University of Bonn
Niebuhrstraße 5
53113 Bonn

Links

  1. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/about-us/bcdss2
  2. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/about-us/vacancies-calls
  3. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/about-us/third-mission/diversity-equity-inclusion/home
  4. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/research/publications
  5. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/videos-and-recordings
  6. https://dependency.blog
  7. https://dependency.blog/from-complexity-to-curiosity
  8. https://dependency.blog/tracing-the-anti-colonial-through-the-ethnological-landscape-of-museums
  9. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/news-bcdss/bcdsss-sinah-kloss-among-keynote-speakers-at-socare-conference
  10. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/news-bcdss/film-screening-public-talk-celebrating-enmeshed-and-entwined-fabrics-of-dependency-exhibition
  11. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/news-bcdss/call-for-applications
  12. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/news-bcdss/julia-hillner-cited-in-spiegel-geschichte
  13. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/news-bcdss/new-articles-by-bcdss-senior-fellow-lotte-pelckmans
  14. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/news-bcdss/new-publication-by-julia-winnebeck-henriette-von-harnier
  15. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/news-bcdss/call-for-papers-3
  16. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/news-bcdss/new-article-by-christian-mader-1
  17. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/news-bcdss/all-news
  18. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/events/joseph-c-miller-memorial-lecture-by-ann-r-david
  19. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/events/joseph-c-miller-memorial-lecture-by-christian-cwik
  20. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/events
  21. https://listen.uni-bonn.de/wws/subscribe/dependencystudies
  22. https://www.facebook.com/DependencyBonn
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  24. https://bsky.app/profile/dependencybonn.de
  25. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/about-us/people/management/deputy-managing-director
  26. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/about-us/people/management/press-and-pr-manager
  27. https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/about-us/people/management/phd-coordinator
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