Category Archives: inherit

Event, inherit

Inheriting Empire? Transformations and Contestations of “Ottoman” Heritage

Keynotes organized by Roxana Coman, Gizem Zencirci, Dr. Belgin Turan-Ozkaya, Dr. Malte Fuhrmann, Habiba Insaf, Emma Jelinski.

Since heritage has a complex relationship with the concept of inheritance, and hence it presumes the notion of ownership, it has been at the center of various political projects; imperial, local, national and civilizational. Through a focus on (post)-Ottoman lands and imaginaries, this workshop aims to engage with civilization, empire, nation, and heritage as constructs in flux, forever dependent on individuals, objects, ideas, and places that carry inherited meanings and become catalysts for new kinds of meaning making, as well. By studying the reimagination and reproduction of the Ottoman empire across time and place, we examine how multiple political projects have engaged in memory-making and heritage-making practices.

During the keynotes, Dr. Belgin Turan-Ozkaya and Dr. Malte Fuhrmann will approach the multiplicity of heritage(s) in the Ottoman Empire and its former imperial center, Istanbul. Dr. Turan-Ozkaya will engage with the ethnic, cultural, religious plurality, and how its post-imperial framework had shifted the conversation to one increasingly Turkified. Dr. Fuhrmann will breach the commodification of heritage in Istanbul via the current audio-visual digital trends, and how this complicates further the discussion on and around the archaeological and historical legacies.

© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst / Christian Krug CC BY-SA 4.0

13.01.2025, 17.00 -19.00
HZK Kurssaal
Campus Nord, Philippstr. 13, Haus 3

Keynotes free and open to all, please register by March 7, at the following email address: info-inherit@hu-berlin.de

More information here: https://inherit.hu-berlin.de/events/inheriting-empire-transformations-and-contestations-of-ottoman-heritage

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Open Call for inherit Fellowships 2026-2027

The Centre for Advanced Study inherit. heritage in transformation, a BMBF-funded Käte Hamburger Kolleg based at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, is pleased to invite applications for its fellowship program, which will run from 1 October 2026 to 31 July 2027. This opportunity is open to both experienced and early-career postdoctoral researchers, as well as artists, filmmakers, and curators.

📅 The deadline for submission is 14 April 2025.

The Centre explores historical, contemporary, and potential future transformations in heritage and hosts up to fifteen international fellows each year to pursue their research. The topic for applications for fellowships for 2026-7 is Addressing Heritage Loss. Applications should also relate to one or more of our guiding themes: decentring the west. decentring the human, and transforming value.

Researchers and topics from areas currently underrepresented in heritage scholarship, including the global South and Eastern Europe, are especially encouraged to apply.

🔗 For more information about the call, see https://inherit.hu-berlin.de/open-call

Event, inherit, Lecture Series

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

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inherit: New call for Fellows started!

The Käte Hamburger Kolleg | Centre for Advanced Study inherit. heritage in transformation, based at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, invites applications from both experienced and early career post-doc researchers for fellowships to begin in October 2025. The application deadline is 29 April 2024. 

Applications for fellowships for 2025–6 should address questions of inheritance – such as, its legal, economic, material and biological dimensions and implications; its articulation with generation(s) and related concepts and practices, as well as with certain conceptions of time and space; its mobilization for constructions of identity and, or justifications for exclusions; its visualization or other multimodal renderings; and alternative (‘inheritance otherwise’) or overlapping notions and practices. Applications should also relate to one or more of our guiding themes: decentring the west, decentring the human, and transforming value. Successful projects are likely to be based in original empirical or archival study/analysis of source material (which may have already been undertaken) or creative work.

Researchers and topics from areas currently underrepresented in heritage scholarship, including the global South and Eastern Europe, are especially encouraged to apply. We also welcome applications from artists, film-makers and curators.

For more information about the call, see https://inherit.hu-berlin.de/open-call

Photo: inherit – Sharon Macdonald & Eva Ehninger. (c) Michelle Mantel

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InHerit: Call for fellows now open!

The new Käte Hamburger Centre for Advanced Study inHerit. Heritage in Transformation, based at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, invites applications from both experienced and early career post-doc researchers for fellowships to begin in 2024. The application deadline is 12 May 2023.

Applications should address questions of heritage in transformation in relation to one or more of the Centre’s guiding themes: Decentring the West, Decentring the Human, and Transforming Value. Successful projects are likely to be based in original empirical or archival study/analysis of source material (which may have already been undertaken) or creative work, and to probe historically and socio-culturally situated notions and practices of inheritance, heritage, value and temporality – and associated key concepts – through alternatives, such as those based in non-Western, indigenous, historically marginalized or imaginative perspectives. Projects examining or creatively addressing transformations at the intersection between increasingly globally widespread practices, such as restitution, digitalization, genetic ancestry testing and legal changes, and those that address transregional experiences and practices are especially welcome.

Researchers and topics from areas currently underrepresented in heritage scholarship, including the global South and Eastern Europe, are especially encouraged to apply. We also welcome applications from artists, film-makers and curators.

For more information about the call, please see: https://inherit.hu-berlin.de/

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BMBF to fund a new Käte Hamburger Kolleg at the HU from 2024 onwards

“InHerit” – Heritage in Transformation

What shapes society? What constitutes identity or difference? How can we define belonging, ownership or the changing relationship between history, present and future? Funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU) from 2024, the Käte Hamburger Centre for Advanced Study “Heritage in Transformation” (InHerit) revolves around these central questions of our time. InHerit will be led by art historian Eva Ehninger and HZK director Sharon Macdonald.

Together with international fellows, heritage will be analyzed as a pluralizing, ongoing activity; heritage’s influence on changing social relations will be a key focus of examination; and the transformation and expansion of heritage itself, through innovative knowledge exchange formats, will be actively pursued. The resulting new form of heritage research positions the humanities at the centre of addressing fundamental global transformation processes, leading to the reshaping of the humanities’ own epistemological frames of reference.

InHerit’s core research themes are based on these paradigm shifts:
(1) the decentring of the West or Global North;
(2) the decentring of the human, and accompanying focus on connections to, and interdependencies with, nature; and
(3) the transformation of attributions of value, especially in relation to changes in reflections on the parameters of collecting.

InHerit’s emphatically transdisciplinary, practice-oriented approach, in which the humanities are central, will tackle urgent social, cultural, political and environmental challenges, and, thus, directly address the key idea of the BMBF programme “Understanding Society – Shaping the Future.”

About the Käte Hamburger Kolleg

Globalisation, law, religion, work or the environment – with the Käte Hamburger Kolleg, the BMBF offers outstanding scholars the freedom to conduct research on a broad spectrum of social issues in the humanities since 2008. As Centres for Advanced Study, the Käte Hamburger Kollegs give scholars in the humanities and social sciences the freedom to work on topics of their choice, free from many of the obligations of everyday academic life, together with fellows from all over the world who are invited to Germany for up to twelve months.

Further information

Read the BMBF announcement about the Käte Hamburger Kolleg (BMBF, 06.02.2023)
Read the HU announcement about the Käte Hamburger Kolleg (HU, 06.02.2023)
Report on the application process for the Käte Hamburger Kolleg (HU, 06.03.2023)

Contact

Eva Ehninger (eva.ehninger@hu-berlin.de)
Sharon Macdonald (sharon.macdonald@hu-berlin.de)

Copyright: Eva Ehninger: Liquid Blues Production/Boris Hars-Tschachotin; Sharon Macdonald: Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung/Sven Müller