Mirror Images

Life stories are not only personal. Just as history is not impersonal. The two are sometimes in strong tension with each other. This was impressively demonstrated by the Interdisciplinary Dialogue on the topic of "Memories between Life Stories and History", which the BGHS organised on 15 April.

Danielle Schwartz, a filmmaker from Israel, showed her multi-award-winning short film "Mirror Image", in which she explores different perspectives on events in Israeli history in conversation with her grandparents. A decorative wall mirror, which has a place of honour in the grandparents' house, serves to address previously unspoken issues, namely the expulsion of the original population in the course of the founding of the state of Israel. How did the mirror end up in the grandfather's family? Together with her grandparents, Danielle tries to write down the history of the mirror, doing justice to both her grandparents' memories and the historical narrative. Even identifying the former owners turns out to be difficult. Was it a Palestinian family, as Danielle assumes, or an Arab family, as her grandmother describes it? And how did the mirror change hands? By buying, taking, plundering? Her grandfather doesn't know. But the struggle for the term that brings the two stories together is also a struggle full of conflict for a shared family history.

The filmmaker's dialogue with sociologist Ruth Ayaß, historian Klaus Weinhauer and, last but not least, an interested and intelligent audience revealed the many dimensions of the film, whose images can show what language cannot. At the end of the film, the grandparents and Danielle agree with the outcome of their negotiation process. But it is obviously not satisfactory. The gap between the different perspectives seems too deep. It was all the more touching to see how the deep affection between the three of them bridges the gap without succumbing to the temptation to fill it in.

This somewhat different Interdisciplinary Dialogue made an unexpected kind of discussion possible. Together, the filmmaker, the researchers on the podium and the audience worked out the lines of tension between the grandparents' memories and the resulting narrative of their lives on the one hand, and the granddaughter's narrative, which attempts to think through the underlying historical conflict on the other. The dialogue thus not only transcended disciplinary boundaries, but also brought art and science into a fruitful exchange.

Awards for BGHS alumna Jule Adriaans

Photo: Privat

BGHS alumna Jule Adriaans is receiving two awards this year. Her doctoral thesis with the title "Distributive Justice: Definition, Determinants, and Consequences of the Justice of Earnings" will be honoured in September with the Peter A. Berger Prize of the Social Inequality and Social Structure Analysis Section of the German Sociological Association (DGS). In July, she also receives the Jowell-Kaase Early Researcher Prize of the European Social Survey (ESS) as a promising young researcher in the field of comparative social research.

Jule is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Sociology.

Congratulations from the BGHS!

Welcome Day Summer Semester 2024

::10 new doctoral researchers at the BGHS::

On Monday, 6 May, the BGHS Welcome Day for the summer semester 2024 took place. The BGHS director Ruth Ayaß welcomed the new doctoral researchers, who had the opportunity to introduce themselves and get to know the doctoral representatives and the BGHS office staff. Sabine Schäfer then introduced the BGHS training and study programme. We wish all new members a wonderful start to their doctorate at the BGHS.

The new BGHS doctoral researchers and their projects:

Merle Boedler (Sociology): Geschlechtlich uneindeutige Existenzweisen - Eine phänomenologisch-genealogische Untersuchung des Erlebens und Erzählens von Geschlechtlichkeit im Kontext gesellschaftlich-kulturellen Wandels

Rajasi Das (Sociology): The Ethical Implications of India’s Refugee Policy in the Context of Citizenship Amendment Act: A Case Study of Rohingyas and Bangladeshi Refugees

Raisa Ferrer Pizarro (Sociology): Unpacking dynamics shaping women’s bodily post-abortion care services experiences in a precarious and legally restricted context: The case of Tambogrande, Peru

Sophie Gigl (Sociology): Pädagogisches Abwägen in mehrdeutigen Handlungssituationen der sozialwissenschaftlichen  Unterrichtsplanung – Ein konventionensoziologischer Zugriff auf unterrichtliche Handlungslogiken und Ziele der Oberstufe

Katharina Luise Goebel (Sociology): Vom frauenliebenden Leben erzählen – (Er)Leben und Identität von lesbischen und bisexuellen Frauen über 60

Mascha Liening (Sociology): Körper als Erfahrung

Alexandra Luise Mellies (Sociology): Individuelle Entscheidungsfreiheit oder Verfestigung alter Muster? Eine Studie zur gewerkschaftlich initiierten Wahloption zwischen Geld und Zeit als lebensphasenorientierte Flexibilisierungsmaßnahme

Juhi Rajwani (Sociology): Echoes Across Fragments: A Study of the Sindhiyat Discourse in the Contemporary World

Omar Sierra (History): Gran Cacao and Coloniality in the Carribean: Land grabbing, wealth and power of post-independence 19th century Venezuela

Jessica Wagner (Sociology): Weibliche Existenzen im virtuellen Raum - Kritisch-materialistische Perspektiven auf fluide Körper und posthumane Subjekte

You can find the Welcome Day presentation here.

Linie 4: History in the Lab

Photo: Dr. Marina Böddeker

Chat GPT, fake news and deep fakes: the internet is full of questionable and unsafe "sources". The ability to navigate through the overabundance of information is something you learn and improve at school. An exciting and challenging opportunity to train these skills is the so-called student lab. This institution creates workshops for young people to experience and understand historical research in a comprehensible and approachable way. The focus is on dealing critically with material: How do historians conduct research? Does it have anything to do with the present? How can I form an opinion on a topic and express it?

In the public lecture series Linie 4, which is organized by BGHS together with the vhs Bielefeld, Vanessa Neumann will discuss the pupils’ lab and its implementation at Bielefeld University. During the lecture, an insight will be given into the materials and ideas of the workshops: topics such as the Sparrenburg in Bielefeld, the Denazification from the American perspective, and the scope of human rights are explored in a multi-faceted, challenging and exciting way by scientists and pupils in the pupils’ lab.

In her lecture entitled ‘Working in the history lab: school meets science!’ in the public lecture series Linie 4, which the BGHS organises together with the vhs Bielefeld, Vanessa Neumann will focus on the school lab and its concrete implementation at Bielefeld University. She will provide insights into the materials and ideas of the workshops that have taken place so far as part of the pupils’ lab. They included topics such as denazification from an American perspective, cultures of remembrance using the example of Columbus Day and the scope of human rights, which are dealt with in a multi-faceted, challenging and exciting way by scholars and pupils in the pupils’ lab.

Vanessa Neumann studied biology, history and educational science in Bielefeld. In 2020, she successfully completed her second state examination for teaching. Since 2021, she has been a research assistant in the SFB 1288 Practices of Comparison and is doing her doctorate on the topic "Humanities in the laboratory? The effects of a visit to the student laboratory on the self-efficacy expectations of pupils and doctoral students". The pupils’ lab is planned, implemented and evaluated as part of the Collaborative Research Centre 1288 Practices of Comparing. Ordering and Changing of the World. For further information, please click here.

The lecture will take place on Monday, 13 May 2024 at 6.15 pm in room 240 at the vhs Biele-feld, Ravensberger Park 1. The event will be held in German.

Here you can find information about Linie 4 and the lectures in the series.