Welcome to the Cluster of Excellence at the
Bonn Center for Dependency & Slavery Studies

"Beyond Slavery and Freedom:
Asymmetrical Dependencies in Pre-Modern Societies"

We are a research cluster within the framework of the Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments.

We investigate profound social dependencies such as slavery, serfdom, debt bondage, and other forms of permanent dependency across epochs, regions and cultures.

Our focus lies "beyond slavery and freedom", i.e. we aim to overcome the binary opposition of "free" and "unfree".

Instead, we propose the new key concept of "asymmetrical dependency" to explore all forms of bondages across time and space.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Publications

Videos & Recordings

BCDSS 2024: A Year in Highlights

Bild © Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies / YouTube

BCDSS 2024: A Year in Highlights

2024 was filled with milestones. Watch our highlights video to see what we accomplished together – thank you for being part of our journey!

Enmeshed & Entwined: FABRICS OF DEPENDENCY

Bild © Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies / YouTube

BCDSS exhibition launches digitally!

What can textiles – coarse cloth or fine silks, work and household linen, clothes in different styles and fashions – tell us about different forms of dependency: enslavement, serfdom, forced labour, or in our own day, factory work in the Global South?

Visit our digital exhibition ‘Enmeshed and Entwined: Fabrics of Dependency/Verstrickt und Verwoben: Texturen der Abhängigkeit’ and let our "quilted narratives" help you explore these and further questions.

BCDSS Blog

News

New Publication: Special Issue of Journal 'Life Writing', edited by Jennifer Leetsch and Pia Wiegmink

Congratulations to former BCDSS member Jun.-Prof. Dr. Jennifer Leetsch and BCDSS Professor Dr. Pia Wiegmink on the publication of a special issue on '(In)Dependent Selves: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Life Writing, Slavery and Dependency' with the journal Life Writing.

Exhibitions on Fashion, Identity, and Dependency at the Global Heritage Lab

From 16 May to 12 October 2025, the Global Heritage Lab will display two exhibitions dealing with questions of fashion, identity, and dependency: Dressing Resistance. Fashion and the Heritage of Mission & Enmeshed and Entwined - Fabrics of Dependency

New article by Michael Zeuske

Principal Investigator Michael Zeuske has just published a new article, "Deutschsprachige Männer und Sklavinnen in der Welt der Second Slavery." (Engl. "German-speaking men and women slaves in the world of Second Slavery") in the journal KonaK-Realitätsausschnitte aus Kontinentalamerika und der Karibik.

New Article by Alice Toso

You can now read the most recent article by BCDSS Investigator Alice Toso et al. online!

Juneteenth Lecture with Kinohi Nishikawa: What Comes before the Haunting?

The afterlife of slavery is one of the most powerful heuristics guiding the study of the social, historical, political, and cultural effects of transatlantic slavery in the Americas. Coined by the scholar and critic Saidiya Hartman, who herself builds on the work of Hazel V. Carby and Hortense Spillers, the afterlife of slavery identifies the ways in which American civic and popular culture, public and private life, are haunted by the traumas not only of chattel slavery but also of the unfinished project of abolition. Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987) is routinely cited as both an inspiration for and exemplum of this interpretive lens. However, over twenty years after the publication of the novel, Morrison grappled with the question of whether one could imagine life outside the parameters of what would come to be known as the afterlife of slavery. In A Mercy (2008), we see Morrison fabulating social intimacy and social conflict beyond, which is to say before, a predetermined fate. This lecture assesses the compatibility of this fictional project with the afterlife of slavery, with special attention to records showing how Morrison guided the publication of her book.

Interdisciplinary Workshop

Humans have long relied on animals to survive and build societies, yet these entanglements, and their impact on human relationships, are often understudied. With current debates around the Anthropocene and shifts in Humanities and Social Sciences, it’s vital to include ecological perspectives in studying colonization, slavery, and asymmetrical dependencies.The interdisciplinary workshop "Entangled Lives", will explore these dynamics, focusing on Indigenous experiences and diverse regions across the Americas. Prof. Marcy Norton (University of Pennsylvania), author of The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals after 1492, will deliver the keynote as part of the Joseph C. Miller Memorial Lecture Series. We’ll discuss familiarization, embodied knowledge, dependency, and human-animal bonds shaped by local ecologies.Read the full Workshop Booklet here

Dies Academicus: Case Studies in Human Dependency across Place and Time

Join us at the University of Bonn's Dies Academicus on 14 May, where BCDSS Fellows Evelyn Hu-De Hart, Christine Whyte, and Aleksander Paradziński will provide insights into their current research projects.

New publication in DSS Series by Julia A. B. Hegewald

We're delighted to announce the publication of Jaina Culture in Medieval Karnataka: Dominance, Dependency and Endurance, edited by BCDSS Principal Investigator Prof. Dr. Julia A.B. Hegewald.

All News Items

Events

Monday May 19, 2025 until May 23, 2025

University of Bonn Heritage Week

see program

Whole Day

During Heritage Week, various institutes of the University of Bonn are inviting scholars to participate in open conversations and critical reflections on a ...

Monday May 19, 2025

Joseph C. Miller Memorial Lecture by Yolanda Pierce

Online via Zoom

04:15 PM - 05:45 PM

What do we do with the wounds of a people and a nation? Like the doubting disciple who longed to touch Jesus's side, we must confront wounds, understanding ...

Wednesday May 21, 2025

Heritage Week: Public Discussion with Sophia Labadi

Global Heritage Lab, ...

04:00 PM - 06:00 PM

Public discussion: "From Streets to Front Pages: The Media Stories of Contested Statues of enslavers and colonial figures since 2020" Presenter: Sophia ...

Wednesday May 21, 2025

California, A Slave State: Reading/Discussion with Jean Pfaelzer

Uni Bonn Festsaal, Am ...

06:00 PM - 07:30 PM

Join Jean Pfaelzer for the reading and discussion of her book "California, A Slave State" with Damian Pargas (Professor of the History and Culture of North ...

Friday May 23, 2025

Heritage Week: Book Launch with Dan Hicks

Global Heritage Lab, ...

03:40 PM - 06:00 PM

3:40–4:00 pm: Book promotion "Every Monument Will Fall: a story of remembering and forgetting" 4:00–6:00 pm: Presentation and discussion "'Crumbling is not an ...

Wednesday May 28, 2025

Guest Lecture with Toby Green

Festsaal at the ...

04:00 PM - 06:30 PM

This talk explores the life of Crispina Peres, the most powerful trader in Cacheu, a key West African slave port, who was arrested by the Inquisition in 1665. ...

Friday Jun 06, 2025

International Lunch Seminar

Heussallee 18-24

12:00 PM - 01:30 PM

Join us for The International Lunch Seminar titled "Bondage, Resistance, and Violence in Angola, 1600s-1880s: Centering Women in Histories of Slavery," ...

Tuesday Jun 17, 2025 until Jun 18, 2025

Interdisciplinary Workshop: Entangled Lives

Impulse - House for ...

11:00 AM

Humans have long relied on animals to survive and build societies, yet these entanglements—and their impact on human relationships—are often understudied. With ...

All Events

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Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS)

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