Category Archives: News

Event, Knowledge Exchange, News, Object Lab

Talk Series on the Archive “The Fifth Wall – Navina Sundaram”

In collaboration with professionals from the fields of education, film and archival practice, the seminar “The Fifth Wall – Navina Sundaram. Working with a Digital and Material Archive” led by Prof. Dr. Nadja-Christina Schneider, reflects on theoretical and methodological approaches to archives. The work is based on the archive „The Fifth Wall – Navina Sundaram“, which brings together journalistic, cinematic and personal materials on topics including migration, feminism, decolonization and media criticism.

The public event series, moderated by Prof. Dr. Nadja-Christina Schneider, offers insights into the online archive, into working with selected original materials, and into discourses surrounding archives as sites of societal knowledge production:

(please note that the events will be in German)

Archival Practice Between Online Archive and Collection: “The Fifth Wall – Navina Sundaram”

April 29, 2026, 4:00 p.m., ZfK Object Lab

Presentation and discussion with Merle Kröger, crime novelist, screenwriter, filmmaker, artist and producer. Together with Mareike Bernien and in close collaboration with Navina Sundaram, she conceived and implemented the online archive “The Fifth Wall.”

Curated Memory in the Digital Space: Concept, Approach, and Implementation of the Online Archive “The Fifth Wall – Navina Sundaram”

May 6, 2026, 4:00 p.m., ZfK Object Lab

Presentation and discussion with Mareike Bernien, artist, filmmaker, and lecturer. In her work, she focuses on the politics of memory, media archaeology and critical archiving practices. Together with Merle Kröger and in close collaboration with Navina Sundaram, she conceived and implemented the online archive “Die fünfte Wand.”

From “The Fifth Wall” to “WHO CARED.” Creating Visibility Through Digital Archives

May 20, 2026, 4:00 p.m., ZfK Object Lab

Presentation and discussion with Urmila Goel, cultural anthropologist and visiting professor of European Ethnology at Humboldt-Universität. Since the late 1990s, she has been researching migration from India to Germany. The digital archives “The Fifth Wall” and “WHO CARED” bring visibility to various migration movements from India to West Germany in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.

Seeing, Categorizing, Thinking Ahead: Educational Work on Media Practice, History, and Counter-Public Sphere in the Navina Sundaram Archive

June 3, 2026, 4:00 PM, ZfK Object Lab

Interactive workshop with Rubaica Jaliwala, freelance editor and translator of literary, artistic, and cultural texts and books. She lives in Mumbai and Berlin. As a trainer and educational consultant, she has led workshops on intercultural learning and diversity, anti-racism, and gender on four continents.

Exploring Archives: Student Research Projects in the Context of the Navina Sundaram Archive and Beyond

June 10, 2026, 4:00 PM, ZfK Object Lab

Short presentations and discussion with HU students about completed or ongoing research projects that emerged from their engagement with the Navina Sundaram Archive.

Beyond Media Work: On the Significance of Navina Sundaram’s Documentary Films

July 1, 2026, 4:00 p.m., ZfK Object Lab

Presentation and discussion with Nadja-Christina Schneider, Professor of South Asian Societies and Cultures at Humboldt Universität. Her research and teaching focus on gender, media and the city, among other topics.

 

Photo: Franziska Blume

News

Current lectures at the ZfK for the summer semester 2026

In the summer semester of 2026, the ZfK will once again offer a diverse range of courses: on the one hand, an interdisciplinary programme from our associate members in the fields of geography, international studies, art and visual history, Asian and African studies, European ethnology and media studies; on the other hand, courses from the two chairs of Social Anthropology (Prof. Macdonald) and Theory and Practice of Interdisciplinary Curating (Prof. Tyradellis), as well as a ‘Practical Session with Original Artworks’ organised by the Kustodie.

You can find an overview of all courses on Agnes – Teaching and Examinations Online.

Furthermore, the funding “Learning and Teaching with Society: Transdisciplinary Course Programme” supports courses in which lecturers and students explore forms of learning with society.

New: The ZfK can now be found on the HU’s central information page for the Interdisciplinary Elective Area (ÜWP). There you will find all the important information for students who wish to take ZfK modules within the ÜWP.

Knowledge Exchange, News, Third Mission

Learning and Teaching with Society in Summer Term 2026

As part of the “Teaching and Learning with Society: Transdisciplinary Course Program,” faculty and students explore how learning can be shaped within and in collaboration with society.

In collaboration with artists, cultural institutions, and civil society initiatives, the selected courses in the summer term 2026 incorporate societal experiences and community knowledge, including artistic archival and collection work, site-specific knowledge and anti-discrimination discourses. They explore artistic approaches to topics such as culture, health and pollution in Berlin, and utilize movement-based methods of knowledge processing in political theory and social movements.

 

1. “The Fifth Wall – Navina Sundaram. Working with a digital and physical archive”

Prof. Dr. Nadja-Christina Schneider (Institute for Asian and African Studies)

The seminar combines work with the online archive “Die Fünfte Wand – Navina Sundaram” (The Fifth Wall – Navina Sundaram), that compiles journalistic, cinematic and personal materials on migration, feminism, decolonization and media criticism and practical engagement with original materials in the object lab at ZfK. The students will reflect archives as places of societal knowledge production.  Cooperating with experts from the fields of education, artistic film and archival practices, the course incorporates non-academic perspectives and offers six public events.

 

2. Theater in Practice: Living Archives

Dr. Constanze Baum (Institute fpr German Literature)

As “Living Archives,” objects, texts and their histories from HU archives and literature-related collections will be brought to life in this course at the Theaterhaus Mitte and in the Object Lab at the ZfK. Using exercises and methods from performing arts and impro theater, students will explore ways to express themselves through voice, body, gestures, and facial expressions, and develop short individual and group scenes. Research, development and documentation of such “object staging,” as well as a pop-up performance of selected scenes during the Long Night of Science are part of the course.

 

3. Taking a stand as a teacher? Dealing with anti-democratic tendencies and extremism in schools and classrooms

Dr. Julia Frohn (Professional School of Education, PSE)

In collaboration with the association “Aufstehen gegen Rassismus” (Stand Up Against Racism), the seminar addresses the role of teachers in dealing with anti-democratic tendencies and extremism. It reflects on what it means for teachers to “take a stand” and what scope for action teachers have in schools and classrooms. The accompanying exercise examines political mobilisation on TikTok with a focus on memes as carriers of extremist content. Students analyse their potential impact and develop own democracy-promoting memes for democracy and media education.

 

4. Critical Film Education – between School, Cinema, and Society

Charlotte Wiesner (Institute for Education Sciences)

In this film education seminar for prospective elementary school teachers, students engage in an open exchange with practitioners from society to consider how film education that is critical of discrimination can be designed for the classroom. The seminar takes a research-based and participatory approach and involves practitioners from the BIPOC community and from the film and cinema landscape (e.g., film libraries, Vision Kino – Network for Film and Media Competence, cinemas, filmmakers).

 

5. Berlin.Culture.City.

Prof. Dr. Friederike Landau-Donnelly ( Geography Department, Cultural and Social Geography)

The aim of the seminar “Berlin.Kultur.Stadt.” is to convey interdisciplinary perspectives on the ‘creative’ city of Berlin. Via student-generated mappings of various cultural spaces, districts, and infrastructures in Berlin and in cooperation with civil society partner Kulturraum gGmbH, that launched the “Kulturkataster” (cultural register), students explore Berlin’s cultural and urban development-related policies that shape it as city of culture. As part of a final exhibition and transdisciplinary knowledge transfer, students provide insights into the spatial geographic exploration of cultural sites.

 

6. Health and Art Narratives in Berlin. Institutions, collective practices and artistic approaches

Maria Morata (Berlin Perspectives)

How do contemporary artistic practices approach and challenge the binary of health and illness? Framed within Disability Studies and Crip Theory, the course explores artistic experiences of illness and vulnerability as platforms for social transformation and as emancipatory tools for navigating a normative and ableist world. Featuring Berlin-based artists and collectives, curators and scholars, the course also includes visits to the Berlin Museum of Medical History and the Tieranatomisches Theater at Humboldt-Universität.

„Embodied Futures. Knowledge and Movement“

As part of the new Public Engagement Hub at ZfK “Embodied Futures: Knowledge and Movement,” support is provided for courses that explore creative movement approaches as research method, teaching tool and format for outreach, and understand academic, artistic and practice-based research as a participatory form of knowledge production.

7. Hazardous Hope. Explorations through contaminated Berlin

Dr. Léa Perraudin (Institute for Cultural Studies,  Exzellenzcluster Matters of Activity)

“Hazardous hope” – as Ayushi Dhawan and Simone M. Müller (2024) term a practice that, amid permanently contaminated environments, experiments with new forms of cohabitation rather than hoping for purity or redemption. We undertake explorations through contaminated Berlin to engage its material politics via embodied and speculative methods, in dialogue with civil society actors, community initiatives, and artists.

 

8. Social Media and Social Movements

Prof. Dr. Shintaro Miyazaki (Department of Musicology)

Social media not only inform about global political and social developments but also significantly shape the everyday lives of many citizens and contribute to polarization. From a media studies perspective, the course examines how these dynamics emerge and what role social media might play in fostering sustainable social movements. Together with choreographer Irina Demina, an experimental approach will be explored that extends role-playing activities (Resnick & Wilensky) through choreographic and embodied methods in order to investigate social dynamics and processes of polarization through experience.

 

9. Body, Gender, Public Sphere: An Introduction to Iris Marion Young’s Feminist Political Theory

Dr. Jeanette Ehrmann (Department of Social Sciences)

In this seminar, we explore Iris Marion Young’s feminist political theory through her essays on female body experience. We examine how inequality and oppression shape embodied experience and connect these insights with intersectional perspectives on ableism, classism, and racism as well as on trans* and non-binary gender identities. The seminar is organized in collaboration with an artist within the hub “Embodied Futures: Knowledge and Movement” and integrates embodied knowledge, movement, and theoretical reflection.

 

Chair Theory and Practice of Curating, Lecture Series, News, Theorie und Praxis des interdisziplinären Kuratierens

Lecture series “Beziehungsweise Familie” (Family Matters) – March 18, 2026 with Dr. Lotte Warnsholdt

Cultural practices of silence as modes of care

Dr. Lotte Warnsholdt

The lecture draws on 20th-century literature to examine various cultural techniques of silence and analyzes them with regard to their forms of (self-)care. Self-determined, sovereign silence preserves secrets and provides protected spaces for the development of new attitudes. However, not every silence is self-determined, not every silence sovereign. Alongside sovereign silence, there are forms of silence that signify self-denial or a breakdown of communication. For example, the author Audre Lorde writes of the desire to see one’s own fear in proper proportion and to be able to translate silence into language. Lorde does not speak of a life without fear, but rather of a relationship to fear that depends on the ways in which one practices silence. It would mean not allowing silence to turn into tyranny or catastrophe, but instead finding a measure between speaking and remaining silent—one in which silence can also function as a “mode of resistance to power” (Wendy Brown, 2005).

The lecture will be held in German.

Participation is possible without pre-registration and is open to all interested parties.

Organiser:

Prof Dr Daniel Tyradellis (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

Dr Alia Rayyan (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

Dr Laura Goldenbaum (Humboldt Forum Foundation in the Berlin Palace)

Place and time:

18. March 2026,

6 to 8 pm

in Room 3 (Saal 3), ground floor,
Humboldt Forum, Schlossplatz.

Further information

Lotte Warnsholdt
Lotte Warnsholdt, © Paul Schimweg

Lotte Warnsholdt is a cultural and media scholar in Hamburg. She studied European Ethnology in Copenhagen as well as Philosophy and Law in Hamburg. She completed both her master’s degree and her PhD in Cultural and Media Studies at Leuphana University Lüneburg. She works at Museum am Rothenbaum, World Cultures and Arts, she is, among other roles, co-curator of the temporary exhibition CATS! (2025–2026).

Her research focuses on forms and practices of care within institutions of knowledge. She publishes on the materiality and violence of archives, understood both in situ and in digital contexts. Her book Im Schatten des Schweigens (transcript 2024) explores the role of silence and secrecy in shaping social and historical processes.

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Artwork of the month, News, Object of the Month

Object of the Month: Searching for clues – The Berlin engravings

Object of the Month 03/2026

A particularly large part of the art collection comprises views of Berlin and depictions of the university buildings at different times. The oldest vedute of Berlin date from the end of the 17th century, with Johann Stridbeck the Younger’s drawings Die Stadt Berlin im Jahre 1690, but most of them originate from the 18th century – it was not until the unification of Berlin and Cölln to form the Residenzstadt in 1709 that the city acquired its splendid appearance in the course of the century with many representative buildings, which now attracted interest in many travel reports, letters and literary as well as pictorial representations at home and abroad. The veduta, stage and decorative painter Johann Georg Rosenberg (1738-1808), active in Paris and at various German courts, took advantage of this boom. Between 1773 and 1785, he created a series of 21 etchings of stage-like prospectuses of Berlin streets, palaces, churches and squares. 20 hand-coloured etchings (plus title page) in folio format were published in 1786 by Johann Marino & Co. under the title Receuil des Prospects les plus beaux et les plus intéressants de Berlin. The great success of this publication led to various further versions, which differ greatly in size, print quality and colouring. The Kupferstichkabinett (Museum of Prints and Drawings) of the National Museums in Berlin owns particularly high-quality sheets. These were reproduced in a facsimile edition in 1995, together with a detailed contemporary description of the structural, cultural, social and economic conditions of Berlin by Friedrich Nicolai, a Berlin writer and publisher (Beschreibung der Königlichen Residenzstädte Berlin und Potsdam, aller daselbst befindlichen Merkwürdigkeiten und der umliegenden Gegend, Berlin 1786).

Of the twenty sheets of these reproductions that are in the art collection, two are singled out here that show, among other things, the Palace of Prince Heinrich (the later main building of the university) and the Royal Library (the “Kommode”).

Prince Heinrich’s Palace is shown in the illustration on sheet II (1780) as the second building on the right behind the armoury at the beginning of the boulevard Unter den Linden.

Reproduction of an old etching from the 18th century showing buildings on Unter den Linden boulevard
Unter den Linden with Armoury, Prince Henry's Palace and Opera House, 1780

It is clearly visible through the two wings around the forecourt. Opposite, you can see the Opera House and what is now called the Old Palace (Altes Palais) – at the time of the depiction, this building was occupied by Luise Amalie of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1722-1780), the widow of Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia, the eldest brother of the reigning King Frederick II. That he had already intervened in the urban topography with the architectural restructuring in favour of the Forum Fridericianum is, however, only indirectly clear: the Royal Library attached to the palace, which on sheet XI (1782) prominently closes off the view of the square to the right, the garden and rear building fell victim.

Reproduction of an old etching from the 18th century showing Berlin's Opernplatz and other buildings
The Opera Square with the Royal Library and St Hedwig's Catholic Church, 1782

Since Rosenberg dedicated the print to Frederick II, the building at the corner of Unter den Linden is cut and the ensemble around the library, opera house and Hedwigskirche church is staged with its impression of a forum.

With their accuracy in rendering architectural details and topographical layouts, Rosenberg’s etchings not only document historical Berlin at the end of the 18th century, but also allow a comparative view of buildings that we can still admire today, at least in part, despite the destruction of the Second World War.

Author: Christina Kuhli

Collection, Event, News

Visit from Lund University to the Zentrum für Kulturtechnik and the Humboldt Lab

On Friday, 13 February 2026, the Zentrum für Kulturtechnik welcomed colleagues from Lund University to the Gerlach-Bau and the Humboldt Lab. Following a brief orientation on campus, the programme commenced at 9:15 a.m. with a working session in the Objekt-Labor.

Collections in Research, Teaching, and Societal Engagement

The discussions focused on university collections, addressing their administration, institutional coordination, and especially their integration into teaching. Sarah Elena Link introduced the Coordination Centre for Scientific University Collections, Nina El Laban Devauton and Martin Stricker presented the project Teaching with Objects, and Oliver Zauzig outlined his role as Central Collections Coordinator at HU.

The Lund delegation provided insights into current developments at their university, particularly concerning research, teaching, and societal engagement in relation to collections. The exchange revealed numerous parallels alongside structural differences. It also became evident that the German model—characterised by a central coordination office and an extensive collections network—represents a widely recognised framework that has attracted considerable international interest.

Networking and Institutional Exchange

Given the strong interest in the Berlin University Alliance and the Berlin collections network, participants visited the anatomical collection of the Charité prior to lunch; it is currently the only publicly accessible collection on Campus Nord.

In the afternoon, the group toured the exhibition On Water. WasserWissen in Berlin at the Humboldt Lab. The visit was guided by Anna-Lisa Dieter and followed by a concluding discussion in the seminar room, joined by Sharon Macdonald. The guests expressed particular interest in the institutional possibilities opened up by the Humboldt Lab.

Perspectives for Continued Collaboration

The visit underscored that HU’s collections and exhibition platforms function as important reference points within the field, while also highlighting the necessity of sustainable resources to support their continued development. The intensive discussions provided valuable impulses for all participants, and both institutions agreed to continue the exchange, recognising the mutual benefits of strengthening a European network.

Participants from Lund University:
Sara Virkelyst (Central Contact for Museums and Archives), Charlotta Sokulski Bateld (Coordinator, Cultural Forum for Art and Science), Louice Cardell Hepp (Communications Officer, Cultural Forum), Frida Stenmark (Museum Coordinator, Museum for Artistic Processes and Public Art), and Anki Wallengren (Pro Vice-Chancellor for Culture and Educational Development).

From the Zentrum für Kulturtechnik:
Sarah Elena Link, Nina El Laban Devauton, Martin Stricker, Anna-Lisa Dieter, Sharon Macdonald, and Oliver Zauzig.

Special thanks to Xenia Muth and Eileen Klingner for their support.

Chair Theory and Practice of Curating, Lecture Series, News, Theorie und Praxis des interdisziplinären Kuratierens

Lecture series “Beziehungsweise Familie” (Family Matters) – February 18, 2026 with Prof. Dr. Annette Schad-Seifert

An interdisciplinary lecture series on contemporary family forms and concepts of kinship

Singles under pressure – “solo weddings” as the secret to happiness in Japan

Prof. Dr. Annette Schad-Seifert (Professor of Modern Japanese Studies at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf)

Lifelong singlehood is a social experience that affects more and more people in Japan.

In recent years, so-called solo weddings have attracted media and academic attention in Japan. These are staged wedding ceremonies in which single women without partners hold a wedding with professional clothing, photography, and ritual elements. The lecture examines solo weddings as a cultural phenomenon at the intersection of the individual search for happiness, consumer culture, and changing marriage and gender norms in Japanese society.

Solo weddings are just one phenomenon among a variety of solo activities in Japan’s consumer culture that have emerged in recent years. The lecture explores how these activities can be classified in a society that traditionally places a high priority on the group.

Based on quantitative data, media analyses, and case studies, it shows that solo weddings should be understood less as an expression of social isolation and more as an ambivalent practice of self-affirmation in a society in which traditional family norms are increasingly disappearing.

The lecture will be held in German.

Participation is possible without pre-registration and is open to all interested parties.

Organiser:

Prof Dr Daniel Tyradellis (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

Dr Alia Rayyan (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

Dr Laura Goldenbaum (Humboldt Forum Foundation in the Berlin Palace)

Place and time:

18. February 2026,

6 to 8 pm

in Room 3 (Saal 3), ground floor,
Humboldt Forum, Schlossplatz.

Further information

Annette Schad-Seifert has been a university professor at the Institute for Modern Japan at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf since 2006. She studied Japanese Studies and Religious Studies at the Free University of Berlin, as well as Philosophy and Political History of Ideas at Keio University in Tokyo. Her work focuses on family policy, single society, gender relations, demographic change, and new forms of social differentiation. She has worked as a research assistant at the Free University of Berlin, the University of Leipzig, and the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo. In 2018, she was a specially appointed professor at Ochanomizu University in Tokyo. She is the editor (with Uta Meier-Gräwe and Miyoko Motozawa) of the book Family Life in Japan and Germany (Springer Verlag 2019).

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Artwork of the month, News, Object of the Month

Object of the Month: Economics as a science – the chain of office of the Berlin Handelshochschule, 1910

Object of the Month 02/2026

The silver-gilt chain of office bears the portrait of Emperor Wilhelm II in uniform with a Prussian eagle helmet in profile to the right on the front of the medallion, indicating who awarded it. The inscription in the centre of the reverse side also gives the date: ‘Wilhelm II, Emperor and King of the Berlin School of Economics, awarded in 1910’ („Wilhelm II. Kaiser und König der Handelshochschule Berlin verliehen 1910“).

Photo of a two-piece metal chain with a medallion bearing the profile portrait of Emperor Wilhelm II.
Chain of office of the Berlin Handelshochschule, silver-gilt, 1910
Photo of the reverse side of a medallion with text in the centreext im Mittelfeld
Chain of office of the Berlin Handelshochschule, silver-gilt, 1910, medallion reverse

The business school, founded in 1906, ‘established by merchants and intended for merchants’ (as stated in the report on its opening on 27 October 1906), with its focus on business administration, provided a counterbalance to the Seminar for Political Science and Statistics at Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität (renamed the Institute for Economic Sciences in 1936), which had been in existence since 1886 and taught and conducted research in economics within the Faculty of Philosophy.

In 1920, the merchants’ guild was dissolved and the Berlin Chamber of Commerce took over the administration of the business school, which was also granted the right to award doctorates in the following years. As a public institution, it was also subordinate to the Prussian Ministry of Trade and Industry. In 1935, it was renamed the Wirtschafts-Hochschule and affiliated with the university. In 1946, it was integrated into the university with the establishment of the Faculty of Economics, which, like the former Handelshochschule, was located on Spandauer Strasse, directly adjacent to the Berlin Stock Exchange.
In contrast to the chains of office of traditional faculties, which cannot be traced at Berlin University, Humboldt-Universität possesses the chain of office of the former Handelshochschule, which has become a faculty or dean’s decoration as a result of institutional changes.

While sceptres have been handed down since the Middle Ages as the most important insignia of universities – they were a sign of the rector’s judicial power and thus of the university’s autonomy – chains of office were uncommon until the 18th century. Occasionally, universities were awarded so-called Gnadenpfennige (pennies, respectively medals of favor) by the ruler as a sign of special privileges. These all bore the portrait of the respective head of state. For the most part, however, they were regarded as jewellery rather than honours. This changed in the 19th century with an overall transformation in the appearance of universities. Nevertheless, at least in Prussia and Bavaria, the king remained the one who decided on the introduction of chains of office. Thus, the profile portrait of Wilhelm II commemorates the Berlin Handelshochschule.

 

Author: Christina Kuhli

Literature:

Günter Stemmler: Rektorketten – Grundzüge ihrer Geschichte bis zur Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, in: Jahrbuch für Universitätsgeschichte 7, 2004, pp. 241–248;
Frank Zschaler: Vom Heilig-Geist-Spital zur Wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Fakultät. 110 Jahre Staatswissenschaftlich-Statistisches Seminar der vormals königlichen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität. 90 Jahre Handels-Hochschule Berlin, Heidelberg et al. 1997;
Ein Halbjahrhundert betriebswirtschaftliches Hochschulstudium. Festschrift zum 50. Gründungstag der Handels-Hochschule Berlin, Berlin 1956.

Lecture, Lecture Series, News, Theorie und Praxis des interdisziplinären Kuratierens

Lecture series “Beziehungsweise Familie” (Family Matters) – February 11, 2026 with Dr. Michael Slepian

Having and Keeping Secrets 

Dr. Michael Slepian (Associate Professor at Columbia Business School)

Common wisdom suggests that secrecy harms relationships and well being because active concealment is hard and stressful work. Multiple studies of thousands of participants keeping tens of thousands of secrets reveals otherwise. The problem with having secrets is often not that we have to hide them, but rather that we have to think about them, and live with them alone in our thoughts without others’ help and perspectives. Whereas instances of concealment can be construed as effective goal pursuit (i.e., successful secret keeping), having secrets intrude upon one’s thoughts is taken as a signal of relational and personal problems, including reduced relationship quality and reduced authenticity. At the same time, secrets can improve well-being, when managed well and kept for the right reasons. Secrets kept on behalf of collectives can foster feelings meaning, confiding secrets in others and being confided in can bring feelings of closeness and intimacy, and keeping positive secrets can enhance feelings of autonomy and vitality. The multifaceted nature of secrets will be discussed, including how to cope effectively, and how to thrive while carrying them.

The lecture will be held in English.

Participation is possible without pre-registration and is open to all interested parties.

Organiser:

Prof Dr Daniel Tyradellis (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

Dr Alia Rayyan (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

Dr Laura Goldenbaum (Humboldt Forum Foundation in the Berlin Palace)

Place and time:

11. February 2026,

6 to 8 pm

in Room 3 (Saal 3), ground floor,
Humboldt Forum, Schlossplatz.

Further information

Michael Slepian

Dr. Michael Slepian is an Associate Professor at Columbia Business School, and author of the Secret Life of Secrets. The leading expert on the psychology of secrets, his research examines how keeping secrets shapes trust, relationships, and well-being, in social and organizational life. He has authored more than fifty scholarly articles on secrecy, truth, and deception, and his work has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, the BBC, and NPR. Slepian earned his Ph.D. from Tufts University, was a visiting scholar at Stanford University, received the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science, and is an elected fellow of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology.

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Event, Exhibition, News

Paula Doepfner, ‘Out in front of a dozen dead oceans’

Exhibition in the Object Lab

At first glance, Paula Doepfner’s drawings appear abstract, like veils of mist or delicate branches. Only upon closer inspection can one discern the fine lettering that the artist has applied to delicate tracing paper. They are passages from poems by Paul Celan, but also from the Istanbul Protocol. Trauma, torture, traces, memory – all of this is condensed and interwoven, but not only present through the text references. The works are based on sketches that Paula Doepfner made as an observer during brain operations at the Charité hospital.

Located in the Object Lab of the Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik on the North Campus, not far from the Charité hospital, a selection of these works will be presented in discussions designed to highlight their special impact. In addition to an afternoon devoted to the works of Paula Doepfner in conversation with the artist, another evening discussion will focus on the topics of migration, flight, expulsion and the (psychological) consequences of torture and violence. We would be delighted if you would accept our invitation.

Exhibition: 24–27 February 2026, open 12 noon–2 p.m.

Accompanying events:
23 February 2026, 4pm–6pm: Opening with introduction by the artist

26 February 2026, 6pm–8pm: TRACES OF PAIN. Art, trauma and flight. Interdisciplinary discussion evening with Paula Doepfner – artist, Berlin
Ulrike Kluge – Professor & Senior Psychologist/Group Analyst, Charité Berlin/BIM
Julia Manek – Psychologist & Human Geographer, medico international
Moderator: Pauline Endres de Oliveira – Professor of Law & Migration (HU/BIM)
In cooperation with: Christina Kuhli – Curator HU

Contact: Christina Kuhli, christina.kuhli@hu-berlin.de