Area Studies is a per se interdisciplinary research field that can contribute fruitfully to understanding societies and cultures in the context of both historical and ongoing globalization processes. Nevertheless, owing to their specific genealogy, area studies have also faced critique in respect of their methods, theories and thematic foci. Even if there has been a turn towards critical self-reflection in area studies, leading to increasing recognition of the field’s imperial and colonial legacies, voices from the different world regions constituting its focus nevertheless remain underrepresented – those from Asia, Africa, the Americas, and East and Southeast Europe in particular. In order to better understand cultures and societies in respect of their glocal power relations, it is necessary to explore how area studies and space can be contextualized through the perspectives of the “Global South” and what role, for example, virtual spaces (could) play in this.

This interdisciplinary lecture series therefore offers a multiperspectival reconceptualization of area studies and relevant concepts of space in dialog with the “Global South”. The series seeks to demonstrate the necessity of revising certain scholarly and cultural paradigms, while pointing towards ways of achieving dialogic reconfigurations of knowledge production.

The interdisciplinary and transcultural lecture series features (inter)national experts with case studies and theoretical contributions from fields including social anthropology, museum studies, history, sociology, linguistics, cultural studies, literary studies and media studies.

The lectures will take place on Thursdays during the summer semester 2021 via Zoom and are open to any one interested.