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.
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
Monday, 2 June 2025, 19:00 at Kino in der Brotfabrik, Bonn7
Join us on Monday, 2 June 2025, when we screen and discuss two short documentary movies from West Africa, both linked by the themes of (social media) activism, slavery, violent repression, and the fight for visibility and recognition of rights, dignity and freedom.
The event is part of our film and discussion series WHO'S GOT THE POWER, jointly organized by the BCDSS and Förderverein Filmkultur Bonn.
We are very pleased that one of the filmmakers, Lotte Pelckmans from the Centre for Advanced Migration Studies, Copenhagen University, Denmark, will be present. She is currently Senior Fellow at the BCDSS and will be joined for the discussion by three further BCDSS members:
Mary Aderonke Afolabi-Adeolu, PhD Researcher, BCDSSBoluwatife Akinro, PhD Researcher, BCDSSProf. Dr. Ana Lucia Araujo, Senior Fellow, BCDSS
© BCDSS
BCDSS Secures Additional Seven Years of Funding as Cluster of Excellence8
The Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS) at the University of Bonn has been awarded an additional seven years of funding by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of Germany’s prestigious Clusters of Excellence program.
“This is a clear commitment by the German Research Foundation to establishing Historically Informed Dependency Studies as a distinct and visible new field across the humanities,” said Prof. Stephan Conermann, the cluster’s speaker.
© BCDSS
New Publication: Special Issue of Journal 'Life Writing', edited by Jennifer Leetsch and Pia Wiegmink9
Congratulations to former BCDSS member Jun.-Prof. Dr. Jennifer Leetsch and BCDSS Professor Dr. Pia Wiegmink on the publication of a special issue on '(In)Dependent Selves: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Life Writing, Slavery and Dependency' with the journal Life Writing.
Exhibitions on Fashion, Identity, and Dependency at the Global Heritage Lab10
From 16 May to 12 October 2025, the Global Heritage Lab will display two exhibitions dealing with questions of fashion, identity, and dependency:
Dressing Resistance. Fashion and the Heritage of Mission & Enmeshed and Entwined - Fabrics of Dependency
© BCDSS
New article by Michael Zeuske11
Principal Investigator Michael Zeuske has just published a new article, "Deutschsprachige Männer und Sklavinnen in der Welt der Second Slavery." (Engl. "German-speaking men and women slaves in the world of Second Slavery") in the journal KonaK-Realitätsausschnitte aus Kontinentalamerika und der Karibik.
© BCDSS
New Article by Alice Toso12
You can now read the most recent article by BCDSS Investigator Alice Toso et al. online!
© BCDSS
Juneteenth Lecture with Kinohi Nishikawa: What Comes before the Haunting?13
The afterlife of slavery is one of the most powerful heuristics guiding the study of the social, historical, political, and cultural effects of transatlantic slavery in the Americas. Coined by the scholar and critic Saidiya Hartman, who herself builds on the work of Hazel V. Carby and Hortense Spillers, the afterlife of slavery identifies the ways in which American civic and popular culture, public and private life, are haunted by the traumas not only of chattel slavery but also of the unfinished project of abolition. Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987) is routinely cited as both an inspiration for and exemplum of this interpretive lens. However, over twenty years after the publication of the novel, Morrison grappled with the question of whether one could imagine life outside the parameters of what would come to be known as the afterlife of slavery. In A Mercy (2008), we see Morrison fabulating social intimacy and social conflict beyond, which is to say before, a predetermined fate. This lecture assesses the compatibility of this fictional project with the afterlife of slavery, with special attention to records showing how Morrison guided the publication of her book.
Interdisciplinary Workshop14
Humans have long relied on animals to survive and build societies, yet these entanglements, and their impact on human relationships, are often understudied. With current debates around the Anthropocene and shifts in Humanities and Social Sciences, it’s vital to include ecological perspectives in studying colonization, slavery, and asymmetrical dependencies.The interdisciplinary workshop "Entangled Lives", will explore these dynamics, focusing on Indigenous experiences and diverse regions across the Americas.
Prof. Marcy Norton (University of Pennsylvania), author of The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals after 1492, will deliver the keynote as part of the Joseph C. Miller Memorial Lecture Series.
We’ll discuss familiarization, embodied knowledge, dependency, and human-animal bonds shaped by local ecologies.Read the full Workshop Booklet here
Events
Guest Lecture with Toby Green16
Festsaal at the ...
04:00 PM - 06:30 PM
This talk explores the life of Crispina Peres, the most powerful trader in Cacheu, a key West African slave port, who was arrested by the Inquisition in 1665. ...
Film & Discussion: Human Rights Activism in Western Africa17
Kino in der Brotfabrik, ...
07:00 PM - 09:30 PM
Join us on Monday, 2 June, when we screen and discuss two short documentary movies from West Africa, both linked by the themes of (social media) activism, ...
Seminar DenkReise with S. Labadi: Dependencies/Critical Heritage18
Center for Life Ethics, ...
02:15 PM - 03:45 PM
Gemeinsam mit renommierten Expert*innen aus Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft gehen wir im Semester wöchentlich auf eine DenkReise zu wünschenswerten Zukünften ...
Workshop "Family in the Islamicate World"19
Niebuhrstr. 5, 53113 Bonn
10:00 AM
This workshop will bring together a diverse group of scholars to consider the family in the Islamicate world as a locus for understanding coexisting and at ...
International Lunch Seminar20
Heussallee 18-24
12:00 PM - 01:30 PM
Join us for The International Lunch Seminar titled "Bondage, Resistance, and Violence in Angola, 1600s-1880s: Centering Women in Histories of Slavery," ...
Interdisciplinary Workshop: Entangled Lives21
Impulse - House for ...
11:00 AM
Humans have long relied on animals to survive and build societies, yet these entanglements—and their impact on human relationships—are often understudied. With ...
Joseph C. Miller Memorial Lecture by Marcy Norton22
In person event: Impulse ...
04:15 PM - 05:45 PM
Over the course of millennia Indigenous and European cultures profoundly diverged in how they organized their relationships with other animals. ...
Juneteenth Lecture with Kinohi Nishikawa23
Bonner Universitätsforum,...
06:00 PM - 07:30 PM
The "afterlife of slavery," a concept coined by Saidiya Hartman and rooted in the work of Hazel V. Carby and Hortense Spillers, explores how the legacy of ...
Contact Us
Managing Director: Jeannine Bischoff29
Email: dependency@uni-bonn.de
Press and PR Manager: Cécile Jeblawei30
Email: pr@dependency.uni-bonn.de
Address
University of Bonn
Niebuhrstraße 5
53113 Bonn
BCDSS Fellowship Programs
Coordination: Sarah Dusend31
Email: researchandstudy@dependency.uni-bonn.de
Deputy: Laura Hartmann32
Email: l.hartmann@dependency.uni-bonn.de
Address
University of Bonn
Heussallee 18–24
53113 Bonn
Links
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/about-us/third-mission/diversity-equity-inclusion/home
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/research/publications
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/videos-and-recordings
- https://dependency.blog
- https://dependency.blog/the-weight-of-water-and-the-cost-of-labour-reconstructing-the-past-with-roman-concrete
- https://dependency.blog/reflections-on-the-memorial-landscape-of-amsterdam-from-a-slavery-and-dependency-perspective
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/news-bcdss/film-screening-discussion-human-rights-activism-in-western-africa
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/news-bcdss/bonn-center-for-dependency-and-slavery-studies-bcdss-secures-additional-seven-years-of-funding-as-cluster-of-excellence
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/news-bcdss/new-publication-special-issue-of-journal-life-writing-edited-by-jennifer-leetsch-and-pia-wiegmink
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/news-bcdss/exhibitions-at-the-global-heritage-lab
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/news-bcdss/new-article-by-michael-zeuske-1
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/news-bcdss/new-article-by-alice-toso
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/news-bcdss/juneteenth-lecture-what-comes-before-the-haunting
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/news-bcdss/entangled-lives-exploring-the-inter-dependency-between-people-and-animals-in-the-americas
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/outreach/news-bcdss/all-news
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/events/guest-lecture-with-toby-green
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/events/film-discussion-human-rights-activism-in-western-africa
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/events/seminar-denkreise-with-s-labadi-dependencies-critical-heritage
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/events/workshop-family-in-the-islamicate-world
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/events/international-lunch-seminar
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/events/interdisciplinary-workshop
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/events/joseph-c-miller-memorial-lecture-by-marcy-norton
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/events/juneteenth-lecture-with-kinohi-nishikawa
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/events
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- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/about-us/people/management/managing-director
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/about-us/people/management/press-and-pr-manager
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/about-us/people/management/head-of-research-and-study
- https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/about-us/people/management/phd-coordinator