Events - Conference/Workshop

In the past, most iconographical studies on slavery and similar phenomena focused on specific regions, cultures and periods. The aim of this conference is to look at a broad range of dependent and marginalized social groups and ‘others’ and to compare the results of iconographical studies on different pre-modern societies (prior to 1800 CE) around the globe. Therefore, we invited scholars from a wide variety of disciplines (Near Eastern Archaeology, Egyptology, Classical Archaeology, European Art History, Asian Art History, Anthropology of the Americas) in order to gain new insights by using diachronic and cross-cultural comparisons.

During her lifetime, Emma Kolbe/Forsayth/Farrell (née Coe, 1850–1913), known as ‘Queen Emma of New Guinea’, was one of the most powerful private individuals and economically successful entrepreneurs in the Pacific – a woman of colour in a world dominated by men. Using the figure of ‘Queen Emma’ and her networks as a starting point, this international workshop seeks to examine practices of coerced labour and forced migration and pays special attention to gendered lives on plantations in the Western Pacific (including Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Samoa, Pohnpei, and Queensland) and the means to gain knowledge about these lives today. The material traces and histories of these in the Anglo-German Western Pacific and in PNG in particular at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth century will be a key focus.

Throughout the day, participants will be invited to share their reflections on their own research practices, whether based on collaborative projects, individual research experiences or ongoing questions. These contributions will form the basis of a joint discussion on the chosen challenges, opportunities and limitations associated with collaborative and/or intercultural approaches. The workshop opens with a lecture on "Anti-Colonial Praxis: Intercultural Alliances and Indigenous Forest Knowledge" by Juliana Salles Machado of Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil.

This interdisciplinary workshop on body history and experiences explores strong asymmetrical dependencies from the perspective of the body and experience. The workshop will build upon the agenda and insights generated by the existing Working Group "Body History," which was established in March 2024. Through cross-disciplinary perspectives and discussions, during the workshop meetings, we deepened our understanding of how embodied experiences have been shaped by various dependencies throughout history. The aim of the workshop is to build on the established insights and questions in order to expand and deepen the conversation on interdisciplinary approaches to body history and experiences by historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, and other disciplines. Find the program below. Please note: Registration required as there is only limited seating!

This workshop will bring together a diverse group of scholars to consider the family in the Islamicate world as a locus for understanding coexisting and at times overlapping forms of dependency. Far from thinking of the family as a monolithic, static entity, this workshop seeks to create a comparative space for mapping out the variable and ever-changing ideas, practices, and processes that formed the family in distinct historical contexts, while also attending to common threads such as legal frameworks and elite female seclusion. Thinking in terms of frames including the conjugal family and the household, lineage and descent, and broader kinship networks, participants will consider how family relations could both limit as well as provide opportunities for agency, alongside shaping senses of affiliation, belonging, and identity. Registration by 30 May via ekalb@uni-bonn.de or bbayrakt@uni-bonn.de.

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," 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. Open to the public. Register via email: entangledlives@dependency.uni-bonn.de

The purpose of this workshop is to analyse and discuss the underexplored gendered dynamics of asymmetrical dependencies in which Late Antique elite women and their dependents participated. By engaging with material across various types of sources, such as papyri, epigraphy, curse tablets, legal codes, historiography and religious texts, we hope to illuminate how elite women interacted with the large variety of people who depended on them, from enslaved attendants and servants to clients and other beneficiaries of patronage.

Workshop: Exploring the Atlantic and Asian Dutch Empire and its Archives: actor-centered and gender approaches (17th-19th Century) In the past years, the lives of colonized people have been studied increasingly. Individual stories of enslaved, freed and other marginalized men and women were documented in colonial archives, often because they stepped out of line at a certain moment. How to find a more balanced approach when trying to unearth the lives of colonized people, while being at the mercy of colonial archives? How to best account for the manifold differences between men and women living in colonial establishments, based among others on gender, race, class, religion, age and social position? In this workshop Ph.D. and postdoctoral researchers will explore the Atlantic and Asian Dutch Empire and its archives (17th-19th century) from different levels and from various perspectives. Please register by June 14, via Jan Hörber (events@dependency.uni-bonn.de)

Workshop "How to Understand Colonial History in the Americas through the Category of Dependency? Challenges, Problems, and Perspectives" This interdisciplinary workshop will discuss the applicability of the category of (asymmetrical) dependency to analyzing the colonial period in the Americas. The period is appropriate for this purpose because the relations of dependency rooted in the pre-colonial period and those that emerged during the colonial one overlap in this “hinge period.” Hence, these dependencies laid the ground for the economic, social, and political relations that emerged after the independence of the Latin American countries. From this perspective, we ask ourselves about the current state of research on this topic in Germany and Latin America. Please note, that the workshop will be held in Spanish. Due to limited seating, please REGISTER by June 28th: events@dependency.uni-bonn.de See full program below.

Brazilian histories of indigenous and black slaveries provide a particularly rich source for understanding dependency categories. From the 16th century onwards, indigenous people were enslaved and subjected to forced labor and political subjugation. African slaves were brought to Brazil as early as 1530, with abolition only in 1888. During those centuries, Brazil received more than 4,000,000 Africans, over four times as many as any other American destination. In the second edition of the Conference “Current Trends in Slavery Studies in Brazil”, invited speakers will provide further characterizations of historical scholarship in Brazil, focusing on new areas of study: the relationship between Church and slavery, law and slavery, and science and slavery - including recent research on labor history, as well as a comparative approach of Brazilian and African (Angolan) history. Find the program below. To register, please click on the link under "Registration/Ticket".

Limited seats available. Therefore, we operate a first come, first serve policy. This is an in person event. For more information please see the programme attached.

This workshop traces alternative Maroon worlds and worldviews along two specific lines of inquiry, ecology and imagination. Convening scholars from across disciplines (including geography, archaeology, anthropology, literary history and sound studies), we will probe the different environmental and cultural contexts of Marronage. Our goal is to engage with Marronage as an ecological, political and creative practice, underlining how Black ways of engaging with the environment provide a conceptual and practical reorientation to anthropogenic climate change.

Bridging Worlds: Exploring the Intersection of Heritage Studies and ArchaeoSciences For two days, more than 15 contributions from 30 researchers worldwide will explore the fascinating and complex intersection of Natural Sciences and Heritage Studies. What does the future hold for these fields? What obstacles must we address? How can we achieve our goals?

The conference “Embodied Dependencies” of Research Area B intends to approach the material evidence of asymmetrical dependencies by examining “embodied dependencies” in human societies from archaeological, art-historical and anthropological perspectives, exploring their historical breadth and variety. The conference will help to establish an inventory of material evidence of asymmetrical dependencies and its range of expression and information as an important site of asymmetrical dependencies next to the written word. Taking into consideration the “material turn” as well as recent debates on environmental history and bio-history, the conference also aims to relativize the modern/Western focus on written culture from a pre-colonial perspective. Hence the conference will be organized along four thematic panels: Bodies, Representations, Resources, and Spaces. Please note: The full program will be available shortly.

This digital workshop "What is new in the Archaeology of Mobilities? Current issues, latest trends” will take place on 18 February 2022. In order to generate a creative working atmosphere, we want to conduct the workshop using the World Cafémethod. Group discussions and breakout sessions are planned. We will introduce each session with a specific query that relates to the overall workshop question. During the event, participants will discuss these questions within their group before moving on to the next table/group. At the end of the process, a plenary session will summarize the key ideas and discuss follow-up options. Please register by sending a short statement of motivation (max. 200 words) by 31 January 2022 to: agkulturbewegung@agtida.de

We invite you to join our international conference on "Freedom and Liberation in Mediterranean Antiquity", which aims to contribute to a closer analysis and understanding of terminology, narratives, and concepts of freedom and liberation in their respective discursive, cultural, and institutional contexts. Thus it should contribute to a more nuanced understanding of what is called in the Cluster nomenclatura “strong asymmetrical dependencies”, their complements and opposites.

The Centre for Dependency and Slavery Studies at Bonn University (BCDSS) and the Netherlands Interuniversity School of Islamic Studies (NISIS) are inviting abstracts for an Autumn School, aimed at Master-level and PhD researchers, on the theme of “Coercion, slavery, and relations of dependency in the Islamicate world”, to be held at Bonn University from 31 October to 4 November 2022.

Since 2018, the Bonn Center of Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS) unites internationally renowned scholars researching historic forms of strong asymmetrical dependencies. The current academic year at the BCDSS (2021/22) is dedicated to “Norms, Institutions, and Practices of Dependency”. The end of this period will be marked by an international conference which aims at evaluating the role of institutional regulations and normative concepts in forming and perpetuating relations of asymmetrical dependencies. To this end, a variety of legal texts, sacred codes, or case studies will be examined for normative conceptions of servitude, dependency, and unfreedom, and for resulting practices of enforcing, subverting, or interpreting them. The conference will consist of an opening lecture on the theory of asymmetrical dependency and altogether three panels which focus on different aspects of the topic.

This conference focuses on the bodies and embodiments of spirits, their (im-)materialities, and the bodily transformations, which they may be subject to in different socio-cultural contexts. It draws attention to the embodied experiences of asymmetrical dependencies among humans and spirits and to how the sensory experiences of interdependence are negotiated in their interactions.

The International Social History Association (ISHA), the Bonn Centre for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS), and the Cluster of Excellence “Contestations of the Liberal Script” convene the International Conference “Social History of Capitalism”. If you wish to participate in the conference, please send an email by 5 October 2022 to cdevito@uni-bonn.de and indicate if you wish to participate online or in person. The conference will be held on zoom.