Book Prize for BGHS alumnus Zoltán Simon

BGHS alumnus Zoltán Simon has ex-aequo received the 2022 Book Award from the International Commission for the History and Theory of Historiography (ICHTH) and the International Network for Theory of History (INTH) for his book “History in Times of Unprecedented Change: A Theory for the 21st Century” (published by Bloomsbury in 2019). The book prize was awarded for the best book on any aspect of the history and theory of historiography, published between 2016 and 2020. Congratulations for this success!

(left to right: Edoardo Tortarolo, Zoltán Simon, Ewa Domanska, Photo taken by Marek Tamm)

Zoltán completed his PhD in History at the beginning of 2018 and is currently researching the project "The End of History and the End of the World", funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation.

::Society in Permanent Crisis?::

On the occasion of the 41st Congress of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS), which will take place in Bielefeld, the Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology (BGHS), in cooperation with the Volkshochschule Bielefeld, is organising a panel discussion on 27 September 2022, 6 to 8 p.m., in the Historischer Saal of the Volkshochschule Bielefeld.

When crises or disasters occur, they must be responded to and managed. We expect politics, science and other responsible actors (including ourselves) to take countermeasures. Here, disputes can already take place: What is considered a crisis? What is the appropriate countermeasure? What means should or must be used? Can lessons be learned from dealing with previous crises?

At present, a variety of crisis experiences and crisis discourses overlap. Climate crisis, Corona pandemic and war in Ukraine keep shifting the attention of politics, the media and academia. The various crisis scenarios and crisis perceptions compete with each other, they overlap and they are played off against each other. But what does this mean for dealing with crises? Are measures or reforms prevented or made more difficult by this opposition? What does it mean for our own attention and perception of crises when the crisis mode becomes a permanent state?

In an Interdisciplinary Dialogue between sociologists and historians, the mechanisms of social perceptions of crises, crisis management and their transformations will be discussed.

With:

Oliver Dimbath (Professor of Sociology, University of Koblenz-Landau)

Eleonora Rohland (Professor of Environmental History, Bielefeld University,

Markus Schroer (Professor of Sociology, University of Marburg) and

Silke Schwandt (Professor of Digital History, Bielefeld University).

Introduction and moderation: Sabine Schäfer (BGHS) and Dr. Klaus Weinhauer (BGHS).

The Discussion will be in German.

Admission is free.

:: Non-academic careers::

Reports about Practical Projects #7

“Reports about Practical Projects” are written by doctoral researchers who have designed and carried out a practical project in cooperation with a non-university organization. The BGHS has been supporting these projects with scholarships since 2020. In the seventh part of the series, Gladys Vasquez Zevallos reports on her practical project with the Kuskalla Abya Yala.

As stated by the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, although indigenous people represent less than 6% of the world’s population, they speak more than 4,000 of the world’s approximately 6,700 languages. This statistic shows that most indigenous languages are under the threat of Language Loss. One of the main reasons for this is that throughout state formation, states implemented integration policies, especially in education, which ended up being assimilation policies. This policy meant the imposition of Western values, one of the most notable cases being the imposition of a unitary language that reinforced discrimination against indigenous nations, their culture, and languages. However, in recent years there has been a growing movement for recovering the indigenous language based on revitalization practices. These are practices to foster new speakers when the intergenerational transmission of the language has been interrupted. For this reason, I organized, in collaboration with Kuskalla Abya Yala, a workshop dedicated to the practices of the revitalization of native languages, focusing on the case of the Quechua language. Kuskalla Abya Yala is a non-governmental organization primarily devoted to the revitalization of the native languages of Quechua. Indeed, Quechua is the most widely spoken Indigenous language family in America; 7 to 9 million speakers.

Image 1: Most spoken indigenous languages © Gladys Vasquez

Kuskalla has implemented free educational programs through technological opportunities while building international solidarity networks. Thus, the workshop’s purpose was to share the experience of different actors with diverse intellectual backgrounds in diffusing the Quechua language in two main aspects:  Reflection on post-colonial structures in the production of indigenous knowledge and alternative experiences of visualization and dissemination of the Quechua language. The workshop was divided into two days, and the results were directly related to strategies for disseminating indigenous knowledge outside the educational spaces that have historically promoted linguistic discrimination.

One of the primary reflections was on the stereotypes surrounding indigenous languages and how to see them as something of the past. Indigenous communities are perceived as timeless when adaptation and migration have been their constant feature. Another reflection was that Indigenous languages are not only used for communication but also as a system of knowledge, history, memory, and identity. Much of the discussion was on how the Quechua people are revitalizing their language while recovering their identity.

All this is thanks to different practices in rural and urban areas using their educational pedagogies, music, artistic representations, and media. While many of these initiatives began, especially in the Andes, many indigenous immigrants in the United States are now promoting the Quechua language in academia and community groups. In the United States, it is the most widely taught indigenous language in universities, with approximately fifteen programs. The basis of these programs is partnerships with indigenous organizations. In this sense, the workshop promoted the creation and strengthening of networks among the actors that disseminate knowledge of the indigenous world.

Click here for Kuskalla Abya Yala.

Further information about the Non-University Careers Project can be found on the BGHS website.