Category Archives: News

Knowledge Exchange, News, Object Lab

“Choreographies of Knowledge” – Knowledge Exchange with Society through Dance

How does knowledge move? What transformative potential lies in movement for sharing and shaping ideas? Does research have a rhythm, a form, a choreography? How do bodies, materials, concepts and spaces interact and dance together in the dynamic co-creation of knowledge?

These questions form the foundation of Irina Demina’s work as a choreographer, dramaturg, and artistic researcher. Since February 2025, she has been commissioned with the development of participatory, body-based formats for knowledge exchange and public engagement at the Center for Cultural Techniques’ Object Lab.

Irina understands choreography not as something that occurs exclusively on stage, but as a way of thinking movement, a strategy for organizing knowledge and exploring relationships between ideas, bodies, objects, space, and time. With SCARBOD Lab (a name derived from Science, Art and Body), she founded an experimental platform and investigates how body-based artistic practices can open up new approaches to scientific research and public engagement.

The Object Lab at the Center for Cultural Techniques provides the space and setting for Irina to conceptualize and explore formats with the potential of transforming scientific concepts into embodied, tangible experiences. The aim of this practice is to build bridges between science and society and to bring focus to the body as a medium of thinking and researching — an approach Irina calls ‘bodyation,’ where ideas are shaped and directly experienced through movement. This holds potential for creating spaces of encounter— between people and objects, between movements and ideas, between theory and practice.

Upcoming events in the Object lab: 

„Choreographies of knowledge“ (performative encounter)  
04.07.2025 and 05.07.2025 5 – 7 pm

„Bodyation“ (movement workshops)
Wednesday   30.04.25  12.30 – 13.30h  (for ZfK members only)
Wednesday    07.05.25  09 – 10 h (open to all HU members)
Wednesday    04.06.25  09 – 10 h (open to all HU members) 
Wednesday    02.07.25  09 – 10 h (open to all HU members)

If you would like to engage in a deeper exchange about object, body, and movement, please feel free to contact us at wissensaustausch.hzk@hu-berlin.de

Photo: Philipp Weinrich

 
 
inherit, News, Research

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, Lecture Series, News

Invitation to the lecture series “Hands On. Research Perspectives on Collections”, February 17, 2025 – Quellenkritik und Datenkritik? Erkenntniskritische Perspektiven auf Datafizierungspraktiken in wissenschaftlichen Sammlungen

On February 17, 2025 at 18:00 c.t. the fifth session of the lecture series “Hands-on. Research Perspectives on Collections”, organized by the Coordination Office for Scientific Collections in Germany, will take place:

Quellenkritik und Datenkritik?
Erkenntniskritische Perspektiven auf Datafizierungspraktiken in wissenschaftlichen Sammlungen
Dr. Nora Probst (Universität Köln)

Like many cultural heritage institutions, university collections are in a state of flux: Not only are they exploring various options for digitising their holdings, but their new acquisitions are also increasingly available as ‘born-digital documents’. The resulting digital collections and their metadata require new concepts of a source and data critique that considers the medial situatedness of the digitised material as well as metadata-related practices of modelling, collection, processing, dissemination and visualisation. The lecture is concerned with epistemological perspectives on the datafication of collections in the humanities and cultural studies and, not least, focuses on a power-critical examination of discriminatory attributions and descriptions in the metadata of cultural heritage.

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 can be found here.

Lecture series “Hands On. Research Perspectives on Collections”,17.02..2025, Poster
Lecture series “Hands On. Research Perspectives on Collections”,17.02..2025
Event, Lecture Series, News

Lecture series “Beziehungsweise Familie” (Family Matters) – Andrés F. Castro

     

On 5 February 2025 at 18:00 we invite you to the next date of the lecture series "Beziehungsweise Familie" (Family Matters):

(Missing) Intersections of Social Inequality and Population Research – A Call for Further Study 

Dr. Andrés F. Castro

Social inequality and population research have developed as parallel conversations with little intersection. In this talk, I will present descriptive results on the parallel development of these research areas using basic text analysis of published research from 1960 to the present. I will argue that the relative neglect of social inequalities in quantitative population research is related to a Eurocentric bias in the social sciences, and I will quantify this bias using various sources. Additionally, I will provide examples of how population research, particularly family and fertility research, could benefit from a focus on social inequality. Finally, I will offer my view on how social inequality research could be better integrated into the social sciences beyond population studies.

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:

5 February 2025,

6 to 8 pm

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

Further information

Plakat Ringvorlesung Beziehungsweise Familie
SHF_eb00234368 © Andrés F. Castro

Dr. Andrés F. Castrois a computational social scientist, sociologist, and demographer at the
Computational Social Science and Humanities Program of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (CSSH-BSC).I graduated from the UNiversity of Pennsylvania in 2019 and since then I have worked in several research centers in Europe including the Frenc National Institute for Demographic Research (Ined), the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, and the Center for Demographic Studies in Barcelona. My research areas include global inequalities in knowledge production, bibliometric analysis and research assessment, and population studies, primarily focus on fertility and family dynamics in the global south and among immigrant populations.

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News

The video to a Section of an Alpine model from the Cabinet of Curiosities in the Berlin Palace – Retreat of the great Aletsch Glacier caused by climate change online available.

A video by Christoph Schneider, Uta Sommer, Melina Radecke, Oliver Zauzig (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) and Andreas Linsbauer (Universität Zürich)

The video presents a section of an important historical relief map of the Swiss Alps and shows how the retreat of glaciers as a result of man-made climate change relates to it. The starting point of the video is the culturally and historically valuable topographical relief with the Aletsch Glacier at its centre. It was created over 200 years ago by the Swiss topographer and relief artist Joachim Eugen Müller (1752-1833) for the Berlin Kunstkammer, the Cabinet of Curiosities in der Berlin Palace, and is now in the Humboldt Forum in the Berlin Palace. It is the only remaining part of the Alpine relief, which once consisted of ten individual parts and was a major attraction in the Berlin Kunstkammer at the beginning of the 19th century. Müller has reproduced the mountain landscape in great detail, true to scale and almost exactly. In the video, details of the relief are shown and their landscape-shaping significance is explained.

The current appearance of the Alps is largely shaped by past and present glaciation. The largest Alpine glacier is the Aletsch Glacier in the Swiss canton of Valais. Although its extent and thickness are still impressive, it also provides a direct indication of human-induced climate change. The changes to the landscape are impressively presented in the film. In particular, the rise in temperature recorded over the last 200 years is clearly manifested in the accelerated melting of Alpine glaciers. The consequences for people and nature are already fundamental today. Müller’s relief illustrates the situation before the onset of industrialisation and thus before human-induced climate change. The video communicates the insight that the consequences of climate change are a reality that needs to be made visible, tangible and understandable. It emphasizes that culture and nature are not in opposition, but are mutually influencing spheres on our planet.

Elaboration of contents: Christoph Schneider, Uta Sommer, Melina Radecke, Oliver Zauzig (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Andreas Linsbauer (Universität Zürich)
Production: Jörg Schulze (CMS, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Speaker: Camilla Leathem (Berlin University Alliance)

Object of the month February 2023

Video is available on the HU YouTube channel
German
English

Download via Edoc-Server of HU
German Version
English Version

News, Sound Archive

Cooperation project at the Lautarchiv

Sonic Imaginaries of Africa in German Cinema (1930-2000)

 

The Austrian Science Fund FWF is funding the research project “Sonic Imaginaries of Africa in German Cinema (1930-2000)” at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz from 23.09.2024-22.09.2028. Cooperation partners are the Lautarchiv of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.

The project will make a contribution to the emergence and development of the sounds of cinematic Africa. Since the early days of cinematography, Africa has been an important production site for commercial films from the global North. Since music or sound as a sensual dimension of the everyday is an elementary component of discourses and ideas about the African continent, the project aims to analyze cinematic sound historically and structurally.

What is completely new in this project is the inclusion of anthropological material in the analysis of film music, which is based on empirical archive work.

From 13 January 2025 to May 2025, in the visitors’ room of the Lautarchiv, Dr. Maria Fuchs will be working for the first time on a previously unexplored collection of historical written documents that could be relevant to her project. The above document shows an excerpt from the article “Das ‘tönende Museum’, Westfälische Zeitung, Bielefeld, No. 88, April 15, 1932 – a first thematically relevant find that gives an idea of the archive’s potential for the use of sound film at this time.

-> further information

News, Publication

New volume in the series „Bildwelten des Wissens“

Bildwelten des Wissens – Volume 20
Instruktive Bilder: Visuelle Anleitung praktischer Fertigkeit

Edited by Paul Brakmann and Lea Hilsemer together with the Research Centre “The Technical Image”.

Whether in cookery books, on planes, in factories or laboratories – instructive images are omnipresent. They explain, pass on and store knowledge about bodies, materials and processes: Schematically, they visualise positioning in space, movement, temporal sequences, or operating methods, encouraging us to imitate them. This volume examines their primary function as conveyors of practical knowledge, and describes their development in the context of social, technological and media transformation processes. A historical cross-section is provided by interdisciplinary contributions discussing aesthetic, communicative and political aspects of this visual cultural field, which is extremely diverse but has been little acknowledged to date.

Paul Brakmann and Lea Hilsemer (ed.)
Bildwelten des Wissens Band 20
Instruktive Bilder: Visuelle Anleitung praktischer Fertigkeit
Berlin, Boston: dG Arts, 2024.
Licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International)
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783689240189

BdW-Band-20-Instruktive-Bilder-Cover
Brakmann, Paul and Hilsemer, Lea. Band 20 Instruktive Bilder: Visuelle Anleitung praktischer Fertigkeit, Berlin, Boston: dG Arts, 2024.
News, Sound Archive

Humboldt Prize 2024

Paula Zwolenski honored with the Humboldt Prize

Paula Zwolenski was awarded the Humboldt Prize 2024 for her bachelor thesis “Sensitive sound recording from the archive. Communication attempts and self-positioning in the sound recording of the Indian prisoner of war Baldeo Singh”.

In her work, she examines how Baldeo Singh used the colonially influenced recording session of the Phonographic Commission to communicate and position himself as an individual speaker. Zwolenski analyses power asymmetries, deconstructs colonial practices and explores perspectives for the decolonization of historical collections.

The Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin honors outstanding academic work by students and early career researchers with the award every year. The award ceremony took place on November 12 in the Lichthof Ost at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

News, Sound Archive

Theses 2024

Three master theses on Lautarchiv-related subjects in 2024

In 2024, three students successfully completed their Master’s degree with a thesis on a Lautarchiv-related topic.

At the University of Amsterdam’s Department of Cultural Analysis (Prof. Rolando Vázquez), Marie Baur completed her Master’s thesis on ‘Return(s) Listening to and beyond Voice Recordings of Martinican and Guadeloupean Prisoners of War in Germany during the First World War’.

At the Institute for European Ethnology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Dominik Biewer completed his Master’s degree with a thesis on ‘Die Stimme im Vollzug. (Re-)Figurierung einer “kriminellen Stimmaufnahme” im Archiv’ (Prof. Silvy Chakkalakal).

In the Language and Communication degree programme of the Technische Universität Berlin (Prof. Thiering), Luise Haubenreiser completed a linguistic thesis on ‘Das koloniale Archiv als Hort der Macht. Auf der Suche nach dekolonialen Resonanzen in der linguistischen Praxis’.

Congratulations!

All three works can be found in the Lautarchiv’s reference library and can be viewed and read on site by appointment.

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

Lecture series “Beziehungsweise Familie” (Family Matters) – Anette Fasang

On 22 January 2025 at 18:00 we invite you to the next date of the lecture series "Beziehungsweise Familie" (Family Matters):

Career and Family Life Demography and Inequality in Focus

Prof. Dr. Anette Fasang (Humboldt University of Berlin, Institute for Social Sciences)

Dr. Anette Fasang is Professor of Microsociology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Director of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Director of the Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences. Before moving to Berlin, she completed her doctorate at Jacobs University Bremen and did postdoctoral research at Yale University and Columbia University. Her research interests include family demography, stratification and life course sociology. She was awarded the prestigious Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for Excellence in Work-Family Research in 2018 and 2023. Her recent work has appeared in leading international journals such as American Journal of Sociology, Demography, Population and Development Review and Sociological Methodology.

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:

22 January 2025,

6 to 8 pm

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

Further information

Familie_Plakat_Ringvorlesung_A1_02-1
Anette Fasang

Dr. Anette Fasang ist Professorin für Mikrosoziologie an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin und Direktorin der Fakultät für Sozialwissenschaften und Direktorin der Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences. Vor ihrem Wechsel nach Berlin hat sie an der Jacobs University Bremen promoviert und als Postdoktorandin an der Yale University und der Columbia University geforscht. Ihre Forschungsinteressen umfassen Familiendemographie, Stratifikation und Lebenslaufsoziologie. Sie wurde 2018 und 2023 mit dem renommierten Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for Excellence in Work-Family Research ausgezeichnet. Ihre jüngsten Arbeiten sind in führenden internationalen Fachzeitschriften wie American Journal of Sociology, Demography, Population and Development Review und Sociological Methodology erschienen.