Program Overview

Introduction to the GlobeColloquium

The GlobeColloquium is the central platform for scientific exchange at the Research Centre Global Dynamics (ReCentGlobe). In the winter semester of 2025/26, the colloquium will focus on central questions of global interconnections, societal transformations, and epistemic upheavals, structured into four thematic mini-series that bring together different perspectives on global dynamics.

Mini-Series: Transimperial History

This mini-series investigates imperial formations, highlighting entangled histories of water, livestock, and oceanic frontiers, as well as the politics of comparisons and the reinterpretation of colonial archives in the age of AI. The talks discuss transimperial connectivity, cooperation, and competition, shedding light on a research field in the making.

• Liquid Empire: Water and Power in the Colonial World by Corey Ross (Basel) on 29.10.2025
• (Post)colonial cattle frontiers. Capitalism, science and empire in Southern and Central Africa, 1890s-1970s by Samuël Coghe (Ghent) on 12.11.2025
• What is Transimperial History? by Satoshi Mizutani (Kyoto) on 26.11.2025
• Druckfrisch Book Discussion: Handbook on the History and Culture of the Black Sea Region by Ninja Bumann (Gießen), Kerstin S. Jobst (Wien), Stefan Rohdewald (Leipzig), and Stefan Troebst (Leipzig) on 17.12.2025
• The Kuroshio Frontier: Empire and Environment in the Making of Japan's Pacific by Jonas Rüegg (Zürich) on 4.2.2026
• Workshop/Panel: Colonial Archives Revisited. Writing Transimperial Histories in the Age of AI on 11.2.2026

Mini-Series: Contested Cohesion & the Digital Arena

This mini-series explores how social cohesion and belonging are contested in the digital and political arenas of the 21st century. From historical fascism, far-right influencer cultures, and revisionist narratives to AI-mediated activism and debates on migration and belonging, the talks illuminate the fragile grounds of solidarity and the conflictual narratives shaping contemporary societies.

• Von 'Culture Wars' bis 'Toxic Empathy' – Die Welt der rechten Influencerinnen by Annika Brockschmidt (Berlin) on 6.10.2025
• Panel (FGZ-Jahreskonferenz): Migration, Integration und Zusammenhalt – Zugehörigkeitsdiskurse in Zeiten der 'Disruption' by Tarik Abou-Chadi (Oxford), Patrick Bahners (Frankfurt), Karim El-Helaifi (Berlin), Winfried Kluth (Halle), Meri Uhlig (Karlsruhe), and Kathrin Leipold (Konstanz) on 8.10.2025
• European Far-Right and De-Recognition of Kosovo: Historical Revisionism in Digital Media by Katarina Ristić (Leipzig) on 5.11.2025
• What Happens to Evidence? GenAI and the Politics of Creativity in Palestinian Activism by Tom Divon (Jerusalem) on 10.12.2025

Mini-Series: Epistemic Challenges to the Humanities in the Age of AI

This mini-series interrogates how artificial intelligence and digital technologies transform the ways we understand evidence, interpretation, and authorship. It brings digital humanities tools into dialogue with hermeneutic traditions and explores the politics of knowledge production in activism and archives, asking how scholarship and different disciplines are reshaped through the rise of non-human actors in the era of artificial intelligence.

• Whaat!? Ihr vibe-coded eure Forschungstools nicht? Neue Wege und neue Probleme als Digital Humanities Entwickler:in by Christopher Pollin (Graz) on 2.12.2025
• What Happens to Evidence? GenAI and the Politics of Creativity in Palestinian Activism by Tom Divon (Jerusalem) on 10.12.2025
• AI and the Humanities: Epistemic Challenges Today and Tomorrow by Rico Hauswald (Dresden) on 21.1.2026
• Workshop/Panel: Colonial Archives Revisited. Writing Transimperial Histories in the Age of AI on 11.2.2026
• Hermeneutic Challenges. Thinking Trees and Networks as a Literary Scholar by Solvejg Nitzke (Bochum) on 18.2.2026

Mini-Series: Entangled Ecologies: Human-Nonhuman Relations, Global Extractive Regimes, and Planetary Crisis

This mini-series explores how humans and nonhumans are entangled in global histories of extraction and ecological transformation. From oil and energy regimes to water infrastructures, livestock frontiers, and conservation struggles, the talks trace how resources are made, contested, and redefined, situating regional case studies within broader global dynamics of labor, empire, and the unfolding planetary crisis.

• Energy's History, Toward a Global Canon by Daniela Ruß (Leipzig) and Thomas Turnbull (Berlin) on 22.10.2025
• Liquid Empire: Water and Power in the Colonial World by Corey Ross (Basel) on 29.10.2025
• (Post)colonial cattle frontiers. Capitalism, science and empire in Southern and Central Africa, 1890s-1970s by Samuël Coghe (Ghent) on 12.11.2025
• Colonial Residues and the Urgency for Transformative Conservation in Southern Africa by Mathew Bukhi Mabele (Dodoma) on 18.11.2025
• Unruly Labor – A History of Oil in the Arabian Sea by Andrea Wright (Williamsburg, VA) on 14.1.2026
• The Kuroshio Frontier: Empire and Environment in the Making of Japan's Pacific by Jonas Rüegg (Zürich) on 4.2.2026
• Hermeneutic Challenges. Thinking Trees and Networks as a Literary Scholar by Solvejg Nitzke (Bochum) on 18.2.2026