Von Erik Martin. Vom 25. bis 27. Juni 2025 richtete die Europa-Universität Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) im Rahmen des Projekts „Europäische Zeiten/European Times“ (EUTIM) einen Workshop zu Fragen der Theorie und Geschichte der „Kleinen Literaturen“ aus. Die von Claudia Dathe, Oksana Pashko, Schamma Schahadat und Annette Werberger organisierte Veranstaltung brachte Literaturwissenschaftler·innen mit Expertise in ukrainischer, jiddischer, polnischer, rumänischer und bosnisch-herzego...| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
By Raquel Rojas et al. Care seemed to have become one of the most urgent issues of our time amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This empirical analysis focuses on the cases of Argentina, Mexico, and Germany, based on original surveys conducted in the largest city of each country: Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Berlin. The analysis shows that different models of care provision translated into heterogeneous levels of support for the population during the crisis. Unequal access to care services determin...| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
By Arthur Guerra Filho. Corruption scandals in political finance have shaken both the U.S. and Brazil, the two largest constitutional democracies in the Americas, forcing their Supreme Courts to deal with political finance issues. They share structural parallels—presidentialism, federalism, and multiethnic societies rooted in profound inequality—yet have charted different courses in regulating political finance. By deciding what kinds of financial influence are permissible, the respective...| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
By Youssef Cherif. In recent years, a new migratory dynamic has emerged in Africa: the movement of Maghrebi entrepreneurs toward sub-Saharan Africa. This is a development that remains largely underexplored, despite its growing significance. While most public and scholarly attention has focused on the northbound migration of West Africans or the outward mobility of North Africans toward Europe, the southward shift of North African entrepreneurs—particularly from Tunisia and Morocco—offers ...| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
Tatjana Tönsmeyer is a Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Wuppertal. She is one of the most prominent scholars on the history of the Second World War and of occupation in Europe during that period. She also works on the history of memory and the post-history of National Socialism, as well as on questions concerning statehood, supply, and security. She is particularly committed to developing an integrated history of Western and Eastern Europe in their transatlan...| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
By Hanan Natour. As part of this publication series on the decolonial Mediterranean, focusing on Tunisian literature serves as a gateway to creative engagements with the country’s significant geography. Tunisian literature links to the region in several directions — it is part of North African literature and modern Arabic literature. Grounded in the violent experience of colonialism, it also finds multiple ways of engaging with French literature from the other end of the Mediterranean Sea.| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
By Juliane Prade-Weiss. One of the puzzling questions about Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and other conflicts is why people participate in, support, or condone mass violence when it appears, for observers, so glaringly wrong. Reasons for becoming complicit with violence against civilians vary with individual positions as well as historical and regional contexts. Participation in, aiding and abetting mass violence and the structures of authoritarian, totalitarian or other regimes exerting ...| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
Amir Moosavi in conversation with Anne-Marie McManus. In his book “Dust That Never Settles: Literary Afterlives of the Iran-Iraq War”, Moosavi explores the massive literary output of the Iran-Iraq War, choosing a comparative approach: In contrasting Iranian and Iraqi writers, it shows the common experiences of war and writing under authoritarian regimes as well as the writers' various entanglements with this war that overlapped and diverged over time.| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
In this conversation, MIASA Academic Coordinator Dr. Agnes Schneider-Musah interviews Dr. Chika Mba, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana and MIASA’s Principal Investigator for Human Rights, on issues concerning Academic Freedom and Knowledge Production in Ghana. They touch on the state of Academic Freedom in Ghana, the history of Ghanaian universities and the necessity of a decolonial approach in science.| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
By Liudmyla Pidkuimukha. What is the ‘Russian World’ – russkij mir – and how is it understood today from a Ukrainian perspective? Officially, this doctrine is built on a mix of shared language, culture, Orthodox Christianity, historical memory, and reverence for the so-called ‘Great Patriotic War’, often framed as the Soviet Union’s greatest victory. In Ukraine, this ideology has taken on a very different meaning in the shadow of the full-scale Russo-Ukrainian war. Ukrainian off...| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
By Clara-Auguste Süß, André Bank & Julius Dihstelhoff. In an era shaped by global crises, geopolitical realignments, and socio-economic transformation, strengthening partnerships between the Maghreb, the Sahel, and European counterparts is no longer optional. The Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM) dedicated this year’s edition of its Policy Talk to exploring the nexus between the Maghreb and Sahel. The event’s theme “Entanglements between Maghreb and Sahel: Nav...| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
Diana Abbani in Conversation with Nina Studer. In her book "The Hour of Absinthe: A Cultural History of France’s Most Notorious Drink”, Studer explores the history of absinthe through the lenses of cultural, social, and colonial history. She uses absinthe as a lens which allows to look at racial inequalities, gender inequalities, class inequalities and more. She is led by the question how a consumption shared between various groups – men, women and children, bourgeoisie, artists and wor...| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
In this conversation, MIASA Academic Coordinator Dr. Agnes Schneider-Musah interviews Dr. Chika Mba, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana and MIASA’s Principal Investigator for Human Rights, on issues concerning Academic Freedom and Knowledge Production in Ghana. They touch on the state of Academic Freedom in Ghana, the history of Ghanaian universities and the necessity of a decolonial approach in science.| trafo.hypotheses.org
By Sebastian Conrad. In this moment of rapid political and cultural change, a reassessment of what global history stands for, what it can contribute and where its limits lie is a timely exercise. Global history as a subfield has had a fast and successful career. Virtually unknown at the turn of the century, it has by now acquired an almost ubiquitous presence in the discipline. This first phase, the era of the field’s establishment was followed by a series of critical assessments. In the wa...| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
By Denys Brylov and Tetiana Kalenychenko. With the beginning of its independent history, Ukrainian society experienced a religious renaissance, which also began to define identity. Identities did not always remain purely religious, but could also have a cultural and traditional character, such as the self-definition of a Ukrainian as a Christian, despite the country's multi-religious and multicultural map. Since 2022, the problem of the transformation of religious identities is further exacer...| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
By Andrii Portnov. Ukrainian history and literature in the German higher education system are the disciplines whose institutional weakness is more than obvious. Ukraine itself, in the eyes of a large part of German (including academic) society, still does not have enough cultural and historical agency and remains ‘in the shadow of Russia’.| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
By Lidia Kuzemska. We are quickly approaching the third anniversary of forced displacement from Ukraine due to the Russian full-scale invasion - a tragic benchmark no one wanted to believe in, let alone reach. I think it is time to reflect on how the situation related to the displacement of Ukrainians abroad has evolved during this period, and what trends can be expected in the near future. With this introductory post, I invite you to a conversation about the complex and entangled puzzle of U...| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
C. Ceyhun Arslan is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Koç University and Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the Forum Transregionale Studien and Saarland University. His first book, The Ottoman Canon and the Construction of Arabic and Turkish Literatures, has just been published by Edinburgh University Press. He is working on his second book project entitled Becoming Mediterranean: Views from Arabic, French, and Ottoman Literatures.| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
By Julia Buyskykh. For decades, anthropologists have been studying borders and borderlands, concentrating on marginalised groups (whether minorities, migrants, or refugees), cross-border state relations, border shadow economies, and the multiple identities of populations settling along borders, whose silenced voices often contradict official state narratives of history, identities, and religion. In this article, the author reflects upon her own experience, entangling it with current anthropol...| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
By Qianrui Hu. Although Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine shocked the whole world, Russia’s war against Ukraine started already in 2014 with the illegal annexation of Crimea and the military interventions in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Eastern Ukraine. This blog post tries to unpack the dialectical relationship between war, migration, and memory, the central research theme at Prisma Ukraїna, from the perspective of the people who have been experiencing this war since 2014.| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
By Lidia Kuzemska. In April 2024, major German foundations organised a networking event for their Ukrainian fellows. Two days of discussions and exchange served not only to give the scholars from different fields space to mingle, but also to brainstorm about how they see their current role and future in academia (be it in Ukraine, in Germany or elsewhere). This text provides an overview of what Ukrainian researchers in Germany currently consider to be the most important challenges and how the...| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
Wendy Pearlman is Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University where she specializes in Middle East politics, social movements, and narrative approaches to understanding conflict and displacement. She has been EUME-CNMS Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the Forum Transregionale Studien during the summers of the years 2016-2018 and 2021-2022. She is the author of "The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora" (Liveright Books, 2024)| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
By Dr Ruji Auethavornpipat. The European Commission’s Rule of Law Report, while assessing EU member states’ adherence to key rule of law principles, significantly lacks a focused evaluation of fundamental rights protections, especially for migrants. This oversight not only undermines the report’s comprehensive integrity but also reflects poorly on the EU’s commitment to its core democratic values.| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
By Sebastián Eduardo Dávila. After experiencing the Alasitas Celebration in Puno, Peru, the author puts forward five theses on syncretism, or the amalgamation of different religions and cultures in the Andean region. By advancing an understanding of syncretism not as fusion, but as layering of experience through centuries marked by colonisation, diaspora, and resistance across the hemisphere, the author attempts to redraft the concept of syncretism.| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
Syrian writer Rasha Abbas and Palestinian artist Muhammad Jabali, in conversation with Diana Abbani, discuss the evolving dynamics and narratives shaping Berlin, a city once envisioned as an Arab cultural hub. By exploring how Berlin's cultural landscape has been influenced by migration, identity politics, and recent political changes, emphazizing the need for both imagination and realistic approaches to create more livable cities.| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
C. Ceyhun Arslan introduces his recently published book "The Ottoman Canon and the Construction of Arabic and Turkish Literatures" which challenges assumptions about the modernization of Arabic and Turkish literatures, examining their evolution into national literatures comparable to Western ones. The book explores how Ottoman authors navigated multilingual influences, shaping literary traditions and national identities in the Middle East and North Africa. It highlights how late Ottoman and p...| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
By Taygeti Michalakea. In the 2023 elections, Greece's 'New Democracy' party won a second term with 40.5% of the vote, while the opposition Syriza received only 17.8%. Smaller far-right parties also gained seats, raising concerns about the rule of law. Issues such as weakened independent institutions, lack of media freedom, widespread surveillance, and political interference in the judiciary are contributing to this decline. This text explores how these factors are undermining democracy and e...| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
In this article, Cyrine Kortas reviews the Tunisian writer Faten Fazaa's book "Hysteria". Written in Tunisian dialect and focusing on the everyday struggles of an ordinary woman from the old Medina, the book is labeled as Tunisian chick lit, a new literary genre that has flourished. Offering a glimpse into the lives of Tunisian young women, she addresses social and political issues while questioning cultural norms. By means of this novel Cyrine Kortas examines the topic of female gender ident...| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
By Illia Ilin. The recent history of Ukraine can be metaphorically described as a journey to break away from the abusive "triune Russian people" family and reconnect with the democratic "European peoples" family. This long process of decolonization has been ongoing for over 30 years and signifies the reclamation of Ukrainian territories, history, and identity by the Ukrainian people. This article will explore the family metaphors of (de)colonization of Russia and unified Europe in relation to...| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
By Guita Hourani. The approximate 4,000 Ukrainians residing in Lebanon, mostly women married to Lebanese men, epitomize a community facing a complex web of challenges. Amid Lebanon's enduring economic and political upheavals and the relentless war in Ukraine, these women display remarkable resilience in navigating dual crises.| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
By Nihakira Srivastava. "The divide between India’s haves and have-nots created vastly different worlds of opportunity – all shaped by their level of internet access from birth. For some it opened doors, while for others it remained a locked portal." This article addresses the critical issue of digital exclusion and its impact on the younger generation in India. Through her research and writing, the author aims to highlight and combat the systemic barriers that hinder digital inclusion, s...| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research