January 2001
Location: Kirchähr
Type of conference: Conference of the Student Council for History at the Cusanuswerk (Historical Anthropology)

January 2004
Location: Dresden
Type of conference: Conference of the Student Council for History at the Cusanuswerk (Historical Anthropology)

November 2004
Location: Mainz
Type of conference: Conference for doctoral students in East European History and Islamic Studies/Near Eastern Studies
Financing: Center for Intercultural Studies, Mainz (Historical Anthropology)

November 2006
together with Dr. phil. Johannes Marx
Location: Mainz
Type of conference: Conference on academic fundamentals, reflection on the philosophical foundations of the humanities from the perspective of different disciplines with a focus on impulses from analytical philosophy (Theory of Science and Historical Methodology)
Financing: Gerda Henkel Stiftung

January 2007
Location: Monastery of Helfta (Eisleben)
Type of conference: Conference of the Student Council for History at the Cusanuswerk (Economic History)

November 2007
together with Andreas Hütig
Location: Mainz
Type of conference: Interdisciplinary academic conference in the context of the development of the new focal research area “Historical Cultural Studies” at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Historical Cultural Studies)
Tasks: Planning, preparation, implementation

September 2009
Leadership: Prof. Dr. Anita Prettenthaler-Ziegerhofer (Graz), Prof. Dr. Michael Kißener (Mainz)
Organization together with Anita Prettenthaler-Ziegerhofer, Michael Kißener and Pia Nordblom
Location: Graz
Type of conference: International conference at the Institute of Austrian Legal History and European Legal Development (Relationship History, Entangled History)
Tasks: Planning, preparation, implementation

November 2009
Leadership: Prof. Dr. Jan Kusber; Prof. Dr. Matthias Schnettger; Prof. Dr. Michael Kißener; Prof. Dr. Andreas Rödder
Location: Mainz
Type of conference: Subject-specific conference (Political History)
Tasks: Planning, preparation, implementation

June 26, 2010
Leadership: Andreas Frings, Andreas Linsenmann, Sascha Weber
Location: Haus Maria Frieden, Mainz
Type of conference: Workshop of the Forum Young Cultural Sciences in the Research Unit Historical Cultural Sciences (Mainz) (Theory of Science in the Cultural Sciences)
Tasks: Initiation, planning, implementation, publication of the results in an edited volume

Scientific workshop of the Forum Young Cultural Sciences with Prof. Dr. Søren Kjørup on June 25, 2010 at Haus Maria Frieden in Mainz

Call for proposals

Semiotics is one of the most important traditions of inquiry in modern cultural studies. Semiotics is the comprehensive study of signs and, as such, focuses on one of the most important subjects in cultural studies research: signs, meaning artifacts transmitting information across time and space, which have great relevance from a cultural studies perspective. Signs are defined as “entities that stand for something else.” Based on Charles Sanders Peirce, signs are further differentiated into index (signs that have a causal connection to the objects they represent), icon (signs that resemble the objects they represent), and symbol (signs that have an arbitrary connection to the objects they represent, i.e., through a conventional relationship).

With these definitions, one paradigmatically thinks of words or images. In fact, semiotic research in the recent past has to a great extent focused on conventional semiotic systems such as languages or images. In doing so, an important semiotic tradition began to be neglected: the focus on indexical signs. Already in ancient times, greater attention was paid to signs of something rather than signs for something. Signs were seen as vestiges whose origins were to be traced, as symptoms of circumstances yet to be discovered. This workshop’s hypothesis is: Semiotics based on indexical signs is a more appropriate methodological avenue of approaching basic research problems in Historical Cultural Studies than a perspective which focuses on human symbol systems.

This workshop discusses the questions connected to this hypothesis, including: What does it mean when historical cultural scientists no matter their discipline view their research sources as indexical signs, meaning vestiges of a past to be reconstructed? This can have implications for practical research (How do I find vestiges of the past?), methods (How do I treat such vestiges? How do I interpret them?), as well as methodologies (What does this mean for the introspection of research in historical cultural studies ?).

Workshop during the Cusanuswerk vacation academy “Geschichte schreiben. Vom Historischen zur Historie” (“Writing History. From Historical Events to History”) (August 31 to September 9, 2008, Papenburg)

Call for proposals

“The Balkans are a region of pure memory: a Bosch-like tapestry of interlocking ethnic rivalries where medieval and modern history thread into each other. (…) Balkan violence is not a phenomenon of ‘modern hate’ like that in Algeria and the West Bank, fed by rising economic expectations and demographic stress. Southeastern Europe is a cauldron of history – of unresolved border disputes and nationality questions created by the collapse of the multinational Hapsburg and Ottoman empires.” This is how the American author Robert D. Kaplan summarized his Reader’s Guide on the Balkan Wars (the “powder keg of Europe” in 1993. Western diplomats accepted this view of conflicts determined by history and watched as supposedly history-obsessed people groups savaged each other. But which role did memories, myths, and historical stories really play in the Yugoslav Wars? Which stories were presented in which context and in which way? Did they produce and legitimize hatred? If so, directed toward whom? How are they connected to actual historical events? This workshop will focus on these questions on the basis of sources and literature.

Workshop during the Cusanuswerk vacation academy “Rom und Byzanz. Orthodoxie und Katholizität” (Rome and Byzantium. Orthodoxy and Catholicism) (February 18 to 29, 2008, Niederalteich)

Call for proposals

The Orthodox church and religion are seen as an integral part of both past and present Russia. It is easy to forget that the Russian Empire was already on its way to being a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, socially and economically heterogeneous and incredibly complex empire when Moscow rose to the status of “Third Rome” and the Grand Duke of Moscow ascended to Orthodox ruler and Tsar. The Orthodox church did not have a monopoloy on the religious market, but it did have the support of the state authority which ruled the market. Therefore, the Orthodox faith played and important role within the order of the Russian Empire, although it was nevertheless always in danger and underwent profound changes over time. This workshop focuses on the function and transformations of the Orthodox religion in the context of the Russian Empire.