21 May 2025

Reading and Discussion with Jean Pfaelzer (in conversation with Damian Pargas)

California: A Slave State 

California, A Slave State breaks with the common perception of California as a place of endless sunshine, long coastlines, and rich harvests. It does so by exposing the multifold ways in which different forms of slavery and dependency were – and continue to be – constitutive of a state that is one of the largest economies in the world. In an accessible and poetic language, that neither simplifies nor euphemizes this history and its brutality, Pfaelzer uncovers the co-existence of traditional and new systems of bondage in a land shaped by the genocide, indenture, and rape of Native Americans, the coerced labor of captive Alaska Natives, African American enslaved labor, the prostitution of Chinese girls, the unpaid labor of convicts, and ecological exploitation.

Pfaelzer's study reveals the interrelation between these various regimes of oppression in which freedom often merely becomes a short interlude in a transition from one form of (strong) asymmetrical dependency to the next. Her analysis rests on the crucial finding that it was the specific framing of the very notion of freedom that made it possible for human bondage in California to thrive.

Join Jean Pfaelzer and Damian Pargas in conversation with BCDSS member Luvena Kopp.

The event is a cooperation between the BCDSS and the AmerikaHaus NRW.

5 November 2024

Roundtable Discussion on Resource Extractivism and Environmental (In)justice

This roundtable convenes experts from ZEF/Global Heritage Lab, BICC, IISG, and the BCDSS to discuss the historical and contemporary impacts of extractivism across a range of global contexts and natural resources. Central questions to be discussed will entail the violent colonial origins of resource extraction, current conflicts and consequences for local communities, and possible ways into the future. Framed in a larger context of environmental (in)justice, and attending to matters of ethics, sustainability and dependency, the discussants will bring to the table their respective disciplinary backgrounds, spanning governance and conflict studies, development politics, the environmental humanities and dependency studies.

Ulbe Bosma, International Institute of Social History (IISG), Amsterdam
Marie Müller-Koné, Bonn International Center for Conflict Studies (BICC)
Aline R. Barbosa Pereira, Zentrum für Entwicklungsforschung (ZEF) & Global Heritage Lab (GHL), Uni Bonn
Jenny Leetsch, Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS), Uni Bonn

The event is a cooperation between the BCDSS and the Adult Education Center (VHS) Bonn.

7 November 2022

Reading and Discussion with Natassa Sideri

The young Greek playwright NATASSA SIDERI was awarded the first prize in a new competition for contemporary drama called "Mythos?!," which Regensburg Theatre launched in 2022 in cooperation with the National Theatre in Thessaloniki. Born in Athens in 1981, Sideri works as an author and translator. She wrote her first plays in English while living in London and Berlin. Sideri's award-winning play G E F E S S E L T ('Bound') tells the story of a man in financial distress who gradually falls into an increasingly brutal DEBT BONDAGE with his rich friends.

NATASSA SIDERI, who is also involved in the non-profit association "Work on Europe," wrote the text in 2015 during the most heated period of the financial crisis, amidst discussions about Greece's future in the European monetary union. It tells the story of Nephos, who is in debt and helps his friends Callios and Pyrra with renovation work. The audience witnesses how the situation changes and Nephos' FINANCIAL DEPENDENCE becomes the maxim of living together until he is deprived of his freedom.

Excerpts of the play will be read (in German) by BCDSS doctoral researchers Maja Baum, Lena Muders, David B. Smith, and Lukas Wissel. The discussion (in English) with NATASSA SIDERI will be kickstarted by BCDSS members Marion Gymnich, Professor for English Literature and Culture and BCDSS Co-Speaker and Principal Investigator; and David B. Smith, BCDSS doctoral candidate.

The multilingual event (German and English) is designed to particularly address the public, who are very welcome to take part in the discussion.

4 July 2022

Reading and Discussion with Iris Därmann on "Undienlichkeit“

Cultural Studies scholar and philosopher IRIS DÄRMANN, Professor of Cultural Theory & Cultural Aesthetics at Humboldt University Berlin, presented two passages from her book "Undienlichket. Gewaltgeschicht und Politische Philosophie"  that formed the basis of a lively discussion between Iris Därmann, BCDSS members and members of the public on the history of violence.

"Throughout history, resistance to violence, sadism and cruelty has comparatively rarely taken the form of open rebellion. Whether in the transatlantic slave trade or in the Nazi concentration camps, in the face of a lack of options for action, fear of death and disenfranchisement, the only way out was often to escape the grip of those in power through flight, sabotage, but also through abortion, infanticide, hunger strikes, self-mutilation and suicide. Iris Därmann outlines the history of violence of human service and enslavement and interweaves it with body politics and forms of resistance of unserviceability. In doing so, she sheds particular light on the role of European political philosophy as a procurer of legitimacy for transatlantic enslavement and the extermination of European Jews. The result is not only a bloody counter-history to the other master narratives of Western thought, but also a panorama of horror that even in moments of attempted self-liberation touches the limits of what can be endured, but which we must keep in mind if we want to understand the foundations on which our civilisation is also based." (Iris Därman)

The event was convened by:

Konrad Vössing, BCDSS Co-Speaker, Professor of Ancient History, University of Bonn

BCDSS participants:

Birgit Münch, BCDSS Principal Investigator, Professor of Art History, Vice Rector for International Affairs, University of Bonn

Christoph Antweiler, BCDSS Principal Investigator, Professor of Southeast Asian Studies, Institute of Oriental and Asian Studies, University of Bonn