Category Archives: Event

Invitation to the lecture series “Hands On. Research Perspectives on Collections”, November 25, 2024 – Vom Tasten zum Sehen. Eine Objektgeschichte der geburtshilflichen Untersuchung

On November 11, 2024 at 18:00 c.t. the second session of the lecture series “Hands-on. Research Perspectives on Collections”, organized by the Coordination Office for Scientific Collections in Germany, will take place:

Vom Tasten zum Sehen. Eine Objektgeschichte der geburtshilflichen Untersuchung
Prof. Dr. Karen Nolte (Universität Heidelberg)

When male doctors in Germany entered the female-dominated field of obstetrics, they had to come to terms with their own and women’s modesty with regard to genital examinations. They initially restricted the obstetric examination to morally acceptable and thoroughly learned touches. The lecture will examine how male obstetricians dealt with female modesty and how this was manifested in obstetrical objects. Based on an object-related analysis of specula vaginae and cervix models from the 18th and 19th centuries in the German obstetric collections in Würzburg and Göttingen, it will be shown how obstetric examinations and thus the objects themselves changed historically in form and function over the course of the 19th century. The specula developed from the tubular speculum, which allowed a limited view of the female genitalia, to the beak-shaped and two-part speculum, with which the vagina could be spread wide open. The establishment of the medical gaze in obstetric examinations reflects the emergence of the scientific concept of objectivity around 1850.

The lecture will be held in German.

Participation is possible without pre-registration and is free for all interested parties!

Organisers:
Sarah Elena Link and Gesa Grimme
Coordination Centre for Scientific Collections in Germany

Time and Place:
The event takes place on Monday November, 25, 2024 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Kurssaal, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik, Campus Nord, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Afterwards, there will be an opportunity to network and exchange ideas over a small drink.

There is also the possibility to join the event via Zoom.

Further information

Prof. Sharon Macdonald will give the Schöne Lecture on November 21, 2024

Prof. Sharon Macdonald, Director of the Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik, will give the Schöne Lecture 2024 at the Technische Universität Berlin on November 21, 2024. The Schöne Lecture is organized annually by the Institute of Art History and Historical Urban Studies at TU Berlin and the Richard Schöne Society for Museum History. With her lecture “Which Museum Histories?”, Sharon Macdonald will further deepen the topic of museum history in terms of cultural theory with a view to museums and cultural heritage.

The event in the evening is both the highlight and conclusion of a conference at which experts will reflect on the concrete significance of museum history at three locations in three afternoon panels: in academic teaching and training, in museum practice and in public discourse.

The occasion of the conference is the 30th anniversary of the Richard Schöne Society for Museum History. Since 1994, it has been committed to historical research into the institution of the museum and continues to provide new space and impetus for this. The association would like to use this anniversary in 2024 to ask questions about the history of museum history itself and to debate the current relevance of museum history.

The lecture will be held in English. Admission is free.

Date:
The lecture and discussion event will take place on Thursday, November 21, 2024, from 12:30 pm to 6:15 pm. Afterwards, Prof. Dr. Sharon Macdonald will give the Schöne Lecture 2024 from 7 to 9 pm.

Venue:
Technical University of Berlin
Large Senate Hall (H1035)
Main building, 1st floor
Street of June 17, 135
10623 Berlin

An event organized by the Richard-Schöne-Gesellschaft für Museumsgeschichte e.V. on the occasion of its 30th anniversary in cooperation with the Technische Universität Berlin, sponsored by the Richard Stury-Stiftung and Ursula Eckert-Stiftung.

Further information and program

Relationships with family A series of lectures on the annual theme of the Humboldt Forum 2025

Family is a blurry umbrella term for various forms of relations. It stands for origin and belonging, but also for obligation and conflict. As a central building block of social life, the family conveys rules and norms, moulds desires, fears and goals. At the same time, there is no fixed definition of what a family is. Depending on time and culture, it can be understood in many different ways.

The lecture series is dedicated to the contradictory reality of the model of the nuclear family today and asks for alternatives from a global perspective. Renowned academics from a wide range of disciplines will present current research to discuss the creative, ethical and innovative potential of alternative family and kinship concepts. The lecture series is the prelude to the Humboldt Forum’s theme year of the same name, which starts in autumn 2025.

The lecture series is part of the cooperation between the Humboldt Forum and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Invitation to the lecture series “Hands On. Research Perspectives on Collections”, November 11, 2024 – Die anatomischen Präparate und Modelle der HfBK Dresden. Zur De- und Reaktivierung einer Lehrsammlung

On November 11, 2024 at 18:00 c.t. the second session of the lecture series “Hands-on. Research Perspectives on Collections”, organized by the Coordination Office for Scientific Collections in Germany, will be held:

Die anatomischen Präparate und Modelle der HfBK Dresden. Zur De- und Reaktivierung einer Lehrsammlung
Prof. Ivo Mohrmann (HFBK Dresden) & Jakob Fuchs (Deutsches Hygienemuseum Dresden)

The Anatomical Collection of the Dresden University of Fine Arts (HfBK) is one of the oldest and best-preserved collections of artists’ anatomy in Europe. The lecture describes its eventful history from its foundation to the present day. Thanks to a project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the university has been able to hold courses and public tours in the rooms of the collection again since 2020 and the almost 700 specimens and models are available for lending again.

The lecture will be held in German.

Participation is possible without pre-registration and is free for all interested parties!

Organisers:
Sarah Elena Link and Gesa Grimme
Coordination Centre for Scientific Collections in Germany

Time and Place:
The event takes place on Monday November 11, 2024 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Kurssaal, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik, Campus Nord, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Afterwards, there will be an opportunity to network and exchange ideas over a small drink.

There is also the possibility to join the event via Zoom.

More information on participation can be found here.

Plakat Ringvorlesung Sammlungen
Ringvorlesung „Hands On. Forschungsperspektiven auf Sammlungen“, 11.11.2024

Researching together, finding solutions together

The INTERSECT project brings together researchers, civil society organisations and refugee women from Ukraine. A panel discussion on 4 December 2024 marks the provisional conclusion of the project, which is supported by the Open Humboldt Freiräume funding line.

How do refugee mothers from Ukraine manage to gain a foothold in Germany? What particular challenges stand in their way? And what can politics, civil society and academia do to better support them? Gökce Yurdakul, Professor of Social Conflict at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, is investigating these questions in her ‘INTERSECT’ project.

The researcher works closely with the „Welcome Alliance“, an alliance of civil society organisations, foundations and state institutions that campaigns for the humane integration of refugees.
On 4 December 2024, she is organising a public discussion event together with her project partners. Here, women refugees, experts from politics, civil society and academia will have their say in order to jointly develop solutions that enable long-term and sustainable integration.

Gökce Yurdakul is receiving support for her project from the Open Humboldt Freiräume funding programme. In order to be able to concentrate fully on this research project, she has been granted a semester of teaching leave. The initiative is sponsored by the Berlin University Alliance and specifically encourages researchers to promote dialogue between the university and society and to develop innovative solutions to social challenges.

In a detailed article about the project, Gökce Yurdakul, Lilija Oleksiienko as an affected woman from Ukraine and other project partners report on their work and goals.

Read now

Register for the panel discussion

Lecture series “Hands On. Research Perspectives on Collections” – winter semester 2024/25

The lecture series ‘Hands-on. Research Perspectives on Collections’ explores the question of how researchers in their respective disciplines access collections and objects, how they question and utilise them for their research topics and which theoretical and methodological approaches they use to do so. Academics from the fields of Ancient American Studies, Conservation and Restoration Science, History of Medicine, Numismatics and Film Studies will present examples of collection and object research in their disciplines and will also discuss their research projects from the BMBF funding programme ‘Vernetzen – Erschließen – Forschen. Allianz für Hochschulsammlungens’ (https://wissenschaftliche-sammlungen.de/de/allianz2/).

Organisers:
Sarah Elena Link and Gesa Grimme
Coordination Centre for Scientific Collections in Germany (https://wissenschaftliche-sammlungen.de/de)

Time and Place:
The events take place on Mondays from 6 to 8 p.m. at Kurssaal, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik, Campus Nord, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Afterwards, there will be an opportunity to network and exchange ideas over a small drink. There is also the possibility to participate via Zoom.

Participation:
Participation is possible without pre-registration and is free for all interested parties!

Programme and Zoom link:
https://wissenschaftliche-sammlungen.de/de/allianz2/ringvorlesung/

Poster Ringvorlesung Hands On
Lecture series “Hands On. Research Perspectives on Collections”

Researching with Society: International Perspectives

HU Office for Knowledge Exchange with Society at Zentrum für Kulturtechnik | TD-Lab – Laboratory for Transdisciplinary Research of the Berlin University Alliance

Time:    Wednesday, 20. November 2024, 1:00 pm to 5:30 pm
Place:    Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Campus Nord, Philippstraße 13, Haus 3, 10115 Berlin
(Keynote/Workshops: Entrance Tieranatomisches Theater;
Reception: Entrance Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik)

This is an in-person event that will take place in English. Please note that the workshops are currently fully booked and that your name will be added to a waiting list. Please register your interest here.

Researching with Society: International Perspectives

We are pleased to announce the event “Researching with Society: International Perspectives” on November 20th 2024, a get-together at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin on participatory research and public engagement offering learning and networking opportunities for Berlin researchers. The day will feature a keynote speech and workshops by international experts from the University of Oxford followed by a reception allowing time and space for networking and discussions.
Science and universities have a central role and responsibility in dealing with major societal challenges of our time. Knowledge exchange between academia and society is thus increasingly becoming an important part of research and knowledge production. The event welcomes all researchers, members of BUA institutions and interested science-related organizations to explore approaches and impact of participatory research and public engagement, discuss civic responsibilities of universities and network with partners from the University of Oxford. Please join us for the following program:

12:40 pm   Doors open at Tieranatomisches Theater

1:00-1:45 pm   Keynote Speech: Enhancing Research Through Public Engagement – Strengthening Participatory Approaches in Academia
by Dr. Victoria McGuinness, Head of Public Engagement, Head of The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), University of Oxford
preceded by a welcome by Prof. Dr. Julia von Blumenthal, president of HU Berlin

This talk will explore the vital role of universities in addressing today’s societal challenges and their civic responsibilities. It will outline the opportunities for collaboration and co-creation and the added value of participatory approaches and public engagement in research, including their impact and outcomes. The speaker will share examples of how universities can support participatory research methods and strengthen these essential practices in academia

1:45-3:45 pm    Parallel Workshops: please note that the workshops are fully booked at present and that your name will be added to a waiting list (register your interest here)

Workshop 1: What is Public Engagement with Research in the Humanities?
Dr. Victoria McGuinness, Head of Public Engagement, Head of TORCH, University of Oxford
This workshop will delve into the feasibility of public engagement and participation across various disciplines in the Humanities. We will explore the motivations for researchers to engage in participatory projects with non-academic audiences and organisations, and identify the support needed to initiate and lead these initiatives. Participants will discuss the challenges faced in implementing participatory research approaches and public engagement, sharing methods and solutions to overcome obstacles. Join us to enrich your research through meaningful and equitable collaboration.

Workshop 2: Developing Compelling Impact Stories
Pavel Ovseiko, DPhil MSc PGDip, Senior Research Fellow in Health Policy and Management, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford
This interactive workshop will introduce you to the UK’s best practice in defining, capturing, communicating, and incentivising research with impact on society, culture, and the economy. We will look at the fundamentals of a narrative impact case study, examine a mixture of real-world case studies, and critically discuss comparative advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to measuring and rewarding impactful research. You will walk away with real insights into what it takes to develop a narrative impact case study; which types of indicators you can use to demonstrate your impact; and how to pull different strands of evidence into compelling impact stories.

4:00-5:30 pm  Reception and Networking (snacks and drinks provided)
With Dr. Victoria McGuinness (TORCH, University of Oxford), Pavel Ovseiko (John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford), OPEN HUMBOLDT Advisory Board, HU Office for Knowledge Exchange with Society, BUA TD-Lab

Registration: Please register for the event and select a workshop here (waiting list)
Contact: wissensaustausch.hzk@hu-berlin.de

Photo: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Lecture Series Heritage in Transformation – winter semester 2024/25

Käte Hamburger Kolleg | Centre for Advanced Study inherit. heritage in transformation

Lecture Series
Heritage in Transformation
22.10.2024 – 04.02.2025
Tuesday, 16.00-18.00 c.t.
Lecture Hall 3075, Main Building, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10117 Berlin

Public livestream is available here (no registration required), with the option to ask questions via chat: https://hu.berlin.zoom-x.de/j/63948996575.

Which pasts are valued and why? How has this changed historically and in what ways is it changing today? What gets to count as heritage and in what broader global and local transformations is this entangled? How can heritage be proactively changed to help address pressing social, political and environmental problems, including those of decolonization, cultural conflict and climate crisis? And how do the arts, humanities and social sciences need to be done differently to comprehend and enable the potential of such transformations?

This lecture series introduces and showcases exciting trans- and multi-disciplinary humanities approaches to such questions. It does so with a particular focus on the following three strands of ongoing transformation: the decentring of the West (Europe/Global North); the decentring of the Human; and the transformation of value. These three strands structure the research programme of the Humboldt University’s Käte Hamburger Kolleg | Centre for Advanced Study inherit. heritage in transformation. Lecture series contributors will be drawn from international fellows and inherit’s core team, which include artists of various media as well as researchers from a wide range of humanities and social sciences, such as anthropology, art history, history, literature, philosophy, political science, and sociology.

Lectures are followed by open sessions on Wednesdays from 10:00 to 12:00 c.t. at inherit. heritage in transformation, Charlottenstraße 42, 10117 Berlin.

Further information: https://inherit.hu-berlin.de/events/inherits-lecture-series
Contact: Elisaveta Dvorakk elisaveta.dvorakk@hu-berlin.de

Lecture Series
Heritage in Transformation
22.10.2024 – 04.02.2025
Tuesday, 16.00-18.00 c.t.
Lecture Hall 3075, Main Building, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10117 Berlin

22.10. Sharon Macdonald and Eva Ehninger
Introduction

29.10. Juliana Robles de la Pava
Material Ecologies and Ethics of Entanglement through an Aesthetics of South America
chair: Eva Ehninger

05.11. Yujie Zhu
China‘s Heritage through History: The Orchid Pavilion Gathering and Calligraphy
Lecture and Book Discussion
18.00 – 20.00 s.t. – Kurssaal, HZK, Campus Nord, Haus 3, Philippstr. 13, 10115 Berlin

12.11. Munyaradzi Elton Sagiya
Nature-Culture Dichotomy: Rethinking Heritage Conservation in Zimbabwe’s National Parks
chair: Sharon Macdonald

19.11. Raviv Ganchrow
Agencies of Aquatic Hearing
chair: Yoonha Kim

26.11. Dani Gal
White City – Architectural Utopias and Racial Hierarchies
chair: Tal Adler

03.12. Lisa Stuckey
Theory and Aesthetics of Tribunalisation
chair: Margareta von Oswald

10.12. Megha Yadav
The Sacred and the Profane in Tibetan Buddhism: Materiality and Divinity of Thangka Paintings
chair: Habiba Insaf

17.12. Juana Awad
Transcultural Heritage: Curating Time-Based Arts, the Werkstatt der Kulturen and the Making of the Postmigrant Nation
chair: Elisaveta Dvorakk

14.01. Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko
Being, Uncanny: Plastics, Personhood and the Beyond on an Indian Ocean Island
chair: Yoonha Kim

21.01. Daina Pupkevičiūtė
Practices of Attention: Attending to Wounded Landscapes and Listening to Nonhuman Others
chair: Sharon Macdonald

28.01. Roxana Coman
Inter-Imperiality and Heritage: Collecting and Displaying Artefacts in Mid-19th Century Romania
chair: Elisaveta Dvorakk

04.02. Closing Forum for Students

poster inherit RVL WS 2024-25

CANCELLED! Synthetic materials as heritage? A book launch conversation – 4 November 2024 | The event is postponed

Book launch and fish bowl conversation on the occasion of ‘Rest in Plastic’ .

Synthetic materials such as plastics, but also concrete and even aluminum, are often not considered to be valuable and as such usually excluded from thinking about heritage. Ethnological museum collections feature little if any synthetic materials, due to the origin of the collections in colonial times, but also due to Western perceptions of these materials as unauthentic and not local to Non-Western social contexts. Little has been written about plastics and the likes in these collections, while there is some work on conserving plastic materials in collections, showing that these are quite hard to preserve, different to what may be expected of these undying materials.

On the occasion of launching the book ‘Rest in Plastic: Death, time and synthetic materials in a Ghanaian Ewe community’ (Berghahn 2024) by social and cultural anthropologist Isabel Bredenbröker, this panel discussion brings the author in conversation with anthropologist Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko, curator Elisabeth Heyne, material scientist Bright Asante and industrial designer Heidi Jalkh. Conversation participants will be introducing to their work in relations to synthetic materials and discussing how their insights speak to the idea of synthetics as heritage, both difficult and welcome. The conversation invites the audience to participate by offering an empty chair for questions and comments.

Confirmed participants:
Saskia Abrahms Kavunenko (Humboldt-Universität, in.herit fellow working on plastic on Christmas Island, anthropologist).

Heidi Jalkh (associated member Matters of Activity, co-curator of Matters of South / Kunstgewerbemuseum, experimental industrial designer).

Elisabeth Heyne (Museum für Naturkunde, Natur der Dinge collection).

Bright Asante (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung BAM).

Isabel Bredenbröker (Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik).

Moderation: Magdalena Buchczyk (Institut für Europäische Ethnologie, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)

About the book:
In Peki, an Ewe town in the Ghanaian Volta Region, death is a matter of public concern. By means of funeral banners printed with synthetic ink on PVC, public lyings in state, cemented graves and wreaths made from plastic, death occupies a prominent place in the world of the living.Rest in Plastic gives an insight into local entanglements of death, synthetic materials and power in Ewe community. It shows how different materials and things that come to shape power relations, exist in a delicate balance between state and local governance, kin and outsiders, death and life, the invisible and the visible, movement and containment.

More about the book on the Berghahn Books website.

Date:
tbc (the event is postponed!)

Event Location:
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik
Philippstr. 13, Haus 3, Kurssaal
10115 Berlin
Germany

Plastic_Crush_Exhibition_IB
View of the Plastic Crush exhibition at the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam. Photo: Isabel Bredenbröker, 2023.

Queer Sonic Fingerprint – Transdisciplinary Research – Isabel Bredenbröker and Adam Pultz

How do bodies sound? And how can a group of cultural belongings in an ethnological museum collection resonate in unexpected queer kin relations? In their interactive multichannel sound installation Queer Sonic Fingerprint, sound artist Adam Pultz and anthropologist Isabel Bredenbröker (Hermann von Helmholtz Zentrum für Kulturtechnik) speculatively imagines non-normative relations around cultural belongings in ethnological museums and beyond. The installation amplifies the collection‘s materiality through sonic fingerprints—that is—the reflections of a body’s acoustic characteristics. In a transdisciplinary encounter with sound processing and evolutionary computing, dynamically changing fingerprints bring selected parts of museum collections to life in a multichannel sonic ecology.

Queerness contains a tension, something which gender and sexuality studies scholar Susan Talburt identifies as a fundamentally productive quality. Cultural belongings in ethnographic collections are things deeply affected by the colonial encounter and its political aftermath. They, too, are caught in a tense state, as current debates about ownership, their history, their representative functions, and proper place come to show. Voices from indigenous communities and scholars have reframed so-called ethnographic “objects” in museum collections as person-like entities. The installation includes those relations that are currently being claimed with increasing insistence, alongside relations between collection items.

The playback of the sonic fingerprints will form part of a multichannel sound installation also involving field recordings and spoken narrative. Here, kinship and relations between objects become sonic relations, contributing a different register to what is traditionally a visual experience. Museum displays and collections are governed by strict rules: most things may not be touched and many things remain inaccessible in storage. In response to such restrictions, the sonic domain can provide access through a different sensory modality. Here, imagining a sonic image of these bodies offers a sensitive way of not looking or touching, not representing or claiming ownership.

Throughout the installation the sonic fingerprints will merge, recombine, and create new generations of virtual fingerprints with their own acoustic properties, evading museal categories and representational claims, just like queer identities and ways of kinning evade normative ideas of gender, relations, and sexuality. Through evolutionary computing and audience interaction, Queer Sonic Fingerprint highlights new object-relations that transcend the logic of the museum as a place of clear-cut display, education and safekeeping. A multisensory and interactive format challenges such established forms of museal practice. Through the speculative sonic-material futures that emerge, non-normative kinship and queer narratives work toward a critique of the ethnographic collection’s colonial roots.

Venue
Art Laboratory Berlin
Prinzenallee 34, 13359 Berlin

Dates and opening hours
Opening: 19 October 2024, 8 pm
Running time: 20 October – 1 December 2024
Fri – Sun, 2 – 6 pm

ALB Team
Tuçe Erel, Christian de Lutz, Regine Rapp, Alice Cannavà, Camila Flores-Fernández

Photo documentation
Isabel Bredenbröker and Adam Pultz Melbye

Supported by
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Dansk Komponistforening/ KODA Kultur
Sound Art Lab
The Speculative Sound Synthesis Project

Queer_Sonic_Fingerprint_Transdisciplinary_Research_Poster
Exhibition poster. Copyright: Alice Cannava