Author: Forum Transregionale Studien
Hanan Natour is a German-Palestinian scholar of Arabic and Comparative Literature and a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Queen Mary University of London, where she contributes to the UKRI-funded project “Digital Al-Andalus: Radical Perspectives Of and Through Al-Andalus”. Hanan obtained her PhD in Arabic and Literary Studies with a thesis on modern Tunisian fiction at Freie Universität Berlin, co-supervised at the University of Oxford (2024). During her PhD, she served as a Research Associate to the ERC-funded project “PalREAD – The Reading and Reception of Palestinian Literature from 1948 to the Present” where she explored literary networks between the Maghreb and Mashreq.
By Miriam Hanses. Mysticism and Sufism are often portrayed as historical and spiritual traditions detached from present-day realities. The MECAM Traveling Academy “Mysticism and the City: Temporality, Spatiality, Culture, and Society”, held in Gabès, challenged this perspective by addressing present-day dynamics.The question of how mystical traditions continue to shape urban life in the Maghreb and beyond today, particularly in contexts marked by crisis, marginalization, and heritage politics, was at the heart of the Academy.
By Adrian Masters and Moritz Herrmann. The purpose of Project GloVib is to investigate the global history of racial categorization. Our point of departure is the thesis that racism and racial thinking in the German-speaking world should not be understood as autochthonous developments. Rather, the categories and practices of human differentiation emerged through the political, economic, and intellectual integration of the German territories into European—and especially Iberian—expansion. Through the global circulation of people and ideas, Iberian notions of natural hierarchies, “purity,” and “mixture” were introduced into the German-speaking world at an early stage.
By Berit Callsen. Guided by the concept of liquid conviviality, referring to the conflictual connectivity, interrelation, and interaction between human and nonhuman actors in aquatic ecosystems, this article focuses on the staging of aquatic, and especially fluvial, agency in three examples of recent Chilean documentary films produced between 2008 and 2021. Building on theoretical insights in the blue humanities and material ecocriticism, it scrutinizes the filmic strategies and procedures that frame water as an active player.
Dukagjin Abdyli is a distinguished legal expert specializing in European Law, Constitutional Law, and International Law. He holds a Doctor of Legal Sciences degree from Karl Franzens University of Graz, where his research focused on the interaction between European and international legal frameworks. Dukagjin has held key positions in Kosovo’s public institutions, with a particular focus on constitutional and European integration processes. During his tenure at the Ministry of European Integration, he played a crucial role in the legal approximation process, ensuring the harmonization of Kosovo’s legislation with the EU acquis.
By Veronica Marcinschi. Communism promised to resolve the dilemma of reconciling the core modern value of equality with cultural and sociological diversity, yet was in a sense dissolved by it. What can the communist experience teach us about the nature and historical evolution of political modernity, and about the fundamental dilemmas of modern society? The conference “National Internationalism? Nation, Race, and Class in the Soviet Sphere” at Bard College Berlin discussed such questions.
By Tivadar Hüttl. This article explores the intricate relationship between data protection regulations and press freedom in Europe, with a particular emphasis on the misuse of data protection laws to initiate Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs). The Hungarian Forbes demonstrates the onerous legal obligations placed on the press and the potential for Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) to function as de facto instruments of SLAPPs.
Souad Matoussi in conversation with Julius Dihstelhoff. Mystical dances in Tunisia are not relics of a distant past. They are living practices that continue to shape urban life today. Moving from sacred zawiyas to private homes and public stages, they connect bodies, memories, and the city across time. This interview with Souad Matoussi shows how these practices function as cultural resources, sites of negotiation, and forms of collective imagination. Mysticism is not outside modern urban life. It is one of the ways cities are continuously produced and reimagined.
Ammar Kandeel is a literary and art critic whose work lies at the intersection of visual culture, decolonial studies, and literary/art theory. His main research area spans issues of Palestinian transnational creations and self-representations. He earned his PhD from the University of Montpellier 3 with a dissertation analyzing Edward Said’s writing of the critical discourse on orientalism. Recipient of postdoctoral mobilities (funded by the FMSH, ACSS, UNIMED, and Columbia Global Centers – Amman), Ammar’s research focuses on Palestinian testimonial strategies and agency across various mediums. In the academic year 2025/26, he is a EUME Fellow at the Forum Transregionale Studien.
Alia Mossallam and Britta Lange in Conversation with Olga Schubert. Both Mossallam and Lange have done extensive research on two sound archives: the Berlin Sound Archive at Humboldt University Berlin (Lautarchiv) and the Berlin Phonogram Archive at the Ethnological Museum Berlin, which is now part of the Humboldt Forum. Both of these archives hold recordings of prisoners of war who were held captive by the Germans during the First World War.