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
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 Dr. Lisa Tilley (SOAS, University of London) & Prof. AbdouMaliq Simone (University of Sheffield & University of Turin, online)
New Publication by World Christianity Studies & Asymmetrical Dependency (WCSAD) Working Group
We are pleased to announce the publication of the new "Roundtable" on World Christianity and Asymmetrical Dependency in the Journal of World Christianity, Volume 15, Issue 1!
International Lunch Seminar
The International Lunch Seminar "Bondage, Resistance, and Violence in Angola, 1600s-1880s: Centering Women in Histories of Slavery," will take place on Friday, June 6, 2025, from 12:00 to 1:30 PM at Heussallee 18-24 (room 1.100).
Online Talk by BCDSS Research Group Leader Sinah Kloß
We would like to draw your attention to the online talk that will be part of the lecture series of the working group "Familie im Feld" of the German Anthropological Association (DGSKA). BCDSS Research Group Leader Sinah Kloß will be speaking about "Pregnant with Ideas:: Reflections on Pregnancy and Birth in Ethnographic Knowledge Production" on April 25 at 10:15 am.
New Publications by Ludwig D. Morenz
Congratulations to BCDSS Principal Investigator Ludwig D. Morenz on his recent publication "The vulture and the headless man: Scenes of violence on a Predynastic prestige object from Gebelein" in Archéo-Nil Volume 34 published by Peeters Online Journals.
We would also like to announce his upcoming book Kultur und Macht im vorpharaonischen Ägypten: Visualisierungen von Herrschaft in der sozio-kulturellen Peripherie des Wadi el Malik und des Wadi Nac am während des Vierten Jahrtausends (Culture and Power in Pre-Pharaonic Egypt: Visualizing Claims to Sovereignty in the Socio-Cultural Periphery of Wadi el Malik and Wadi Nac am during the Fourth Millennium) that will be published in German, English and Arabic by EB-VERLAG.
Events
Performing Existence: Politics of Heritage & Recognition in Peru
Poststraße 26, 53111 Bonn
04:00 PM - 06:00 PM
Walther Maradiegue and Sophia Labadi will discuss the sonic afterlives of heritagization in an indigenous Peruvian community, analyzing a Cañaris protest ...
Joseph C. Miller Memorial Lecture by Joerg Rieger
HYBRID event: On site ...
04:15 PM - 05:45 PM
How did racism come to be?
Just as race is not a biological reality, racism is not inherent to human nature. It was invented and sustained through historical ...
Labour, Freedom, Slavery - Sociological and Historical Approaches
Niebuhrstr. 5
04:30 PM - 06:00 PM
Join us on April 29th when Theresa Wobbe, BCDSS alumna, will discuss the recently published book “Sklaverei, Freiheit und Arbeit: Soziohistorische Beiträge zur ...
Trauma and Resilience in American Plantation Societies
VHS, Mülheimer Platz 1, ...
06:15 PM - 07:45 PM
Resilience has been defined by the American Psychological Association as "the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life ...
Intersecting Subjections in South Asian Pasts
University Club Bonn e. ...
05:00 PM - 08:00 PM
We are pleased to invite you to a keynote lecture by Indrani Chatterjee from the University of Virginia as part of the conference Strong Asymmetrical ...
Strong Asymmetrical Dependencies: Perspectives from Asia
Heussallee 18-24 ...
10:00 AM
Organized by the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies, this conference aims to address gaps in the study of slavery, bondage, coerced labor, and ...
Joseph C. Miller Memorial Lecture by Ying Zhang
Hybrid event: ...
04:15 PM - 05:45 PM
How did jailing function in Ming China? This talk, based on Ying Zhan's book, rethinks the patrimonial bureaucratic system through the lens of vulnerability ...
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 ...
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