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.
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.
News
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.
CfP: Knowledge Dependencies and the Un/Making of Equitable Futures
Amid escalating geopolitical instability, authoritarian retrenchments, and the deepening securitisation of knowledge-making, this conference critically examines how entrenched knowledge dependencies continue to shape practices of future-making—and how more equitable futures might still be (re)imagined. From the weaponisation of AI to the erosion of indigenous, activist, and academic freedoms, and the constraints of donor-driven agendas, we ask: How is knowledge circulation mediated? Under what conditions have alternative epistemic futures emerged—in the longue durée and within present formations?
With keynotes by Lisa Tilley (SOAS, University of London), AbdouMaliq Simone (University of Sheffield & University of Turin, online), and Margarita Gómez (Southern Voice).
Events
Dies Academicus: Case Studies in Human Dependency
University Main Building
11:15 AM - 12:15 PM
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 ...
Exhibition Openings at the Global Heritage Lab
Poststraße 26, 53111 Bonn
06:00 PM - 08:00 PM
On 15 May 2025, two exhibitions will open in the Global Heritage Lab, P26, at the University of Bonn.
The exhibition "Dressing Resistance. Fashion and the ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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. ...
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," ...
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 ...
Contact Us
Managing Director: Jeannine Bischoff
Email: dependency@uni-bonn.de
Press and PR Manager: Cécile Jeblawei
Email: pr@dependency.uni-bonn.de
Address
University of Bonn
Niebuhrstraße 5
53113 Bonn
BCDSS Fellowship Programs
Coordination: Sarah Dusend
Email: researchandstudy@dependency.uni-bonn.de
Deputy: Laura Hartmann
Email: l.hartmann@dependency.uni-bonn.de
Address
University of Bonn
Heussallee 18–24
53113 Bonn