Digital resources in the Social Sciences and Humanities OpenEdition Our platforms OpenEdition Books OpenEdition Journals Hypotheses Calenda Libraries OpenEdition Freemium Follow us

Category: Series

Two men fighting, wearing jiu-jitsu gear.

Brazilian Jiu-jitsu as a Marker of Whiteness and Anti-Blackness. Embodying Inclusive Conservative Conviviality in Rio de Janeiro

By Raphael Schapira. In Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) practitioners often perceive their sport as a discrimination-free space, stating: “On the mats, everyone is equal”. However, this belief in equality can sometimes obscure the fact that BJJ has been predominantly associated with Whiteness. This paper explores how the Gracie and Fadda lineages – crucial for the sport’s development – have distinctively constructed BJJ as a White sport, each for their own purposes. Schapira argues that Whiteness and anti-Blackness are constitutive elements linking the appeal of Bolsonaro and neoconservativism with communities typically expected to instead support other political forces more interested in progressive socio-political change.

Witnesses, Participants and Creators: the Two-Day Workshop “Ukrainian Scholars and Artists at War”

By Olena Sobolieva. In May 2025, the two-day workshop “Ukrainian Scholars and Artists at War” was held at Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin. The event was organized in partnership with several organizations: the Forum Transregionale Studien, the Interdisciplinary Research Network “Prisma Ukraїna – Eastern Europe Research Network”, the academic website “Ukraine Moderna”, the NGO “The Center for Applied Anthropology”, and the European University Institute. By organizing such an event, Lidia Kuzemska, Oksana Ovsiiuk, and Iulia Lashchuk created a platform for Ukrainian scholars and artists to engage with how Russia’s full-scale invasion has impacted their professional, ethical, and existential horizons.

An Exploration of Global German History

By José Guzmán. The emergence of a Global German History in the last 20 years calls for examination to see the development of new avenues in the field of Global History. The connections and new perspectives that have flourished inside the discipline are posing innovative challenges that move this school of thought forward. What topics and new approaches does a Global History of Germany bring to the table? Which are the recurring topics in the minds of historians of Global German History?

Traumatised Decolonial Transit: Constructing Historical Narrative in Ukrainian Culture in the Early ХХІ Century

By Tamara Hundorova. The Orange Maidan was a form of consolidation of the national community and had distinct signs of anti-colonial protest, but it ended in significant disappointment. The period between the two Maidans, or the two Ukrainian revolutions of the early twenty-first century, revealed past traumas and recorded different models of historical memory, primarily national–Eurocentric and nostalgic–Soviet–centric. The time has come to build historiographical narratives out of fragments, films, and paintings, out of the remnants of the memory erased by the era of colonialism and totalitarianism.

Травмований деколоніальний транзит: конструювання історичного наративу в українській культурі на початку ХХІ століття

від Тамара Гундорова. Помаранчевий майдан був формою консолідації національної спільноти і мав виразні ознаки атиколоніального протесту, який однак закінчився значними розчаруваннями. Період між двома Майданами, або двома українськими революціями початку ХХІ століття, проявив минулі травми і зафіксував різні моделі історичної пам’яті, передусім націо-євроцентричну і ностальгійно-радяноцентричну. Прийшов час розбудови історіографічних наративів із фрагментів, плівок і картин, із залишків стертої епохою колоніалізму і тоталітаризму пам’яті.

Haaland v. Brackeen, Indigenous Sovereignty, and the Ethics of Care

By Dana Lloyd. On June 15, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision in Haaland v. Brackeen. In this case, non-Indigenous foster and adoptive parents argued that the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), which gives preference to Indigenous parents in fostering and adopting Indigenous children, is unconstitutional. They said the law discriminated against them on the basis of race. In a 7–2 ruling, the court rejected all of the petitioners’ challenges to ICWA, some on the merits of the case and others for lack of standing. In this essay, Lloyd reads the Brackeen case against the background of two hundred years of federal Indian law and assimilation policy and proposes two notions of care as a framework for thinking about the case: the first, associated with U.S. assimilation policy, sees care as charitable, but it is actually coercive and harmful; the second is based on solidarity and is at the heart of Indigenous sovereignty.

Truths That Hurt: Socialist Affects and Conviviality in the Literary Journalism of Gabriel García Márquez and Ryszard Kapuściński

By Joanna M. Moszczynska. The paper deals with narrative journalistic texts by Gabriel García Márquez and Ryszard Kapuściński about their journeys to the Eastern Bloc and Latin America, respectively, during the first two decades of the Cold War. García Marquez’s crónicas and Kapuściński’s reportages deliver ideas on socialism(s) and engage in affective workings of a travel experience through representations of convivial socialist spaces. By elaborating a philological approach towards socialist affects, the paper concentrates on affective narrative attunements to lived historical moments and aims at comparing both authors as they raise social and political issues pertinent to the conjuncture of the Cold War. The convivial aspect refers here not only to living together with and knowledge production about the Other as represented in the text, but also to the methodological approach with intercultural sensitivity and transregional and transnational awareness of the aesthetic developments in the hybrid field of global literary journalism.

Dichotomy of Methodology Between the American and the French Approach in Frontier/Border Studies: Sloboda-Ukraine in the 18th Century

By Yuliia Koniva. Historical geography as an interdisciplinary discipline offers many of the conceptions for studying space and territory. In this essay, I want to address that there is no common ground on how to apply these conceptions. In every national historiography we can find plenty of historians who utilize the approaches of studying space or territory according to the research goals which were put forward in front of each scholar.

Towards a Global History of War, Disability and Gender

By Natalie Tongue. Only in recent years has the history of disability become a focus of global history. This essay seeks to examine the connection between disability and masculinity, particularly in relation to histories of war. This will be achieved through a review of a series of books, articles and edited collections to piece together a full picture of the trends in this intersection of the respective fields and to understand where a global history approach would enhance disability histories. A global history approach would highlight the diverse and complex ways in which disability and masculinity interact in contexts of war. Further, as war, conflict and colonialism are inseparable, racialised understandings of how masculinity differed across colonial epicentres and peripheries would be undeniable. This is essential for a meaningful and committed undertaking of the field.

Ukraine and Ukrainians in the Panels: Global Comics Perspectives on the War

By Svitlana Pidoprygora. Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014 and the subsequent full-scale invasion in 2022 have brought Ukrainian issues to international headlines and sparked extensive reflections in various genres of fiction and non-fiction, with documentary comics and graphic reportages being no exception. International authors bring varied perspectives to Ukrainian historical and contemporary issues, striving to explain to their audience what is happening right now – why there is war, why the Russian Federation attacked Ukraine. I am focusing on arguably the most significant documentary comics that emerged after the beginning of the full-scale invasion and primarily focus on depicting the war experience. In this essay, I will delve into several key aspects of how these comics depict Russia’s war against Ukraine.