Jan Hornát and Mélanie Sadozaï discuss the intersections, complementarities, and frictions between area studies and international relations (IR), tracing the theoretical and empirical synergies that interdisciplinarity can generate
Discover Ruth Ferrero-Turrión’s insights on the EU’s response to migration, legitimacy, and geopolitical challenges. Can the Union overcome its “polycrisis” and embrace a unified future?
Mélanie Sadozaï examines how the 2024 LISER conference on “disruptive borderlands” highlighted borders as sites of both crisis and resilience, openness and restriction, urging a shift towards inclusive, cross-border cooperation in policy.
What can multiscalar area studies tell us about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic around the world? Read more in this report
Part of the Law and Justice (PiS) government’s soft power agenda, this recent exhibition features artworks that could undermine its efforts to promote a singular, martyrdom-focused politics of history and national identity.
Will “the cradle of neoliberalism” also become its grave, as the new President of Chile promises? Igor Stipić, doctoral researcher at the Leibniz ScienceCampus, explores the radical compromises Gabriel Borić might need to make as he seeks to guide a society marked by a decade of protests towards democratic stability and fairness.
How are life writing studies positioned in relation to the spatial, transnational and global turns in cultural studies and area studies? Tamara Heger and Verena Baier discuss these questions in their workshop report.
How can binaries be effectively unbuilt? How does this impact constructions of identity, conceptual frameworks and scholarly fields? These are some questions explored by the graduate researcher team behind the workshop “Unbuilding binaries”
Must Germany be studied as a nation-state? Or could it be viewed as an area, through lenses positioned on the inside and outside? How does the Nazi past affect the analytical and conceptual frameworks open to researchers today? Marcus Hahn and Frederic Ponten discuss their efforts to reconfigure German studies as transregional or trans-imperial area studies with Tamara Heger.
In this thought-provoking text, Jana Stöxen reflects on her experiences of developing her research topic for her master’s thesis. She explores the social, disciplinary and material barriers she faced before outlining how she overcame them to produce an innovative piece of research. Her words offer encouragement to her peers – and others – who might be struggling with similar challenges.