Serhij Zhadan is a Ukrainian poet, prose writer, translator, social activist and Ska-Punk singer. His works have been translated into thirteen languages, making him one of the most famous contemporary Ukrainian writers. On December 5th, 2022, Zhadan was a guest in Frankfurt/Oder. A review by Ekaterina Grineva.
Viktoria Sereda illustrates why Volodomyr Zelensky won the 2019-election, how he shifted the narrative in Ukraine and what role the fictional character of a history teacher played in all of it. By bridging the gap bewteen fiction and reality, she then exposes the experiences and feelings of two real history teachers, forced to leave their homes in the Donbas and Crimea.
By Burcu Alkan. From Vienna to Cairo cafés have always been microcosms representing the foundational fabric of their respective societies, as well as being distinctive worlds in their own right. They are public spaces where people socialise and groups interact, ideas are born and changes are observed.
By Viktoriya Sereda. The unprecedented Russian full-scale attack on Ukraine brought the recent conflicts over memory in East Central Europe and in Ukraine to the attention of an international audience. Mass displacement also exposed millions of Ukrainians to new challenges that triggered intensive reinterpretations of the past – both the distant and the very recent – and a reevaluation of their memory through new experiences.
By Samad Alavi. Carolyn Forché’s Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness anthologizes poems that testify to some of the last century’s darkest political tragedies. In her introduction, Forché establishes her basic criteria for selection. First, she includes only poems, as she wishes to demonstrate that the old “arguments about poetry and politics ha[ve] been too narrowly defined” and that it is possible to understand poems as residing between the personal and the political.
By Yousra Sbaihi. Not many Maghrebis have the chance to perform on some of Europe’s most prestigious comedy shows. However, the few who have successfully climbed their way up to the stage, I advance, are disrupting the theatrics of white francophone stand-up shows.
Par Yousra Sbaihi. Peu de Maghrébins ont la chance de se produire dans les spectacles d’humour les plus prestigieux d’Europe. Cependant, les rares qui ont réussi à se frayer un chemin jusqu’à la scène, à mon avis, viennent bousculer la théâtralité des spectacles de stand-up francophones blancs.
From the 15th to the 17th of September 2022, the second EUTIM Annual Conference, “Time Out of Joint: Literary (Re)Visions of Time in Eastern and Central Europe”, will take place at Potsdam University as a hybrid event. We spoke to the conveners, Bohdan Tokarskyi and Alexander Wöll, to learn more about the conference and how it connects to current political and cultural developments.
In mid-March of this year, I interviewed Olha Honchar, the head of Territory of Terror Museum in Lviv and the initiator of the Museum Crisis Center. We discussed the Territory of Terror in the context of Ukrainian political events, heritage protection during the war, and how Russian aggression compares to historical events.
By Arbia Selmi. Despite its important role in the history of Tunisia, the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) is one of the most telling examples of the perpetuation of gender inequalities in Tunisia. The trade union environment is considered a male universe and is dominated by a patriarchal culture where women, until today, do not really find their place.
TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research is a platform for scholars in the humanities and social sciences who are interested in transregional exchange and research on current issues. TRAFO is the blog of the Forum Transregionale Studien (Berlin) and the Max Weber Stiftung – Deutsche Geisteswissenschaftliche Institute im Ausland (Bonn).
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