The international conference "Contact – Conquest – Colonization. Practices of Comparing between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, from Antiquity to the Present" was organized by Eleonora Rohland, Christina Brauner, Angelika Epple, Antje Flüchter, and Kirsten Kramer (TP A03, B01, and B03). The hosts and guests discussed the different approaches and lectures at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) intensively during the three-day conference.

The keynotes were given by Peter Mancall (USC, Dornsife), Demetrius Eudell (Wesleyan), and Alexander Honold (Basel) and ranged from Edward Topsell's Virginia Birds to the Wissenschaft vom Menschen, and to the context of astronomy.
In general, the conference gathered young and advanced scholars from countries around the globe. The idea for the conference grew out of conversations between the involved principal investigators of the SFB, and out of the insight that cultural contact zones and situations of colonization are highly fruitful for the research on practices of comparing. The global orientation of the conference and the focus on the long period of time shed light on a few very interesting aspects. Above all, these were the consolidation of practices of comparing during the exchange of information in and between empires, temporal comparisons of european actors with new forms of societal processes, and the relevance of practices of comparing for the contextualization of new knowledge which had been gained during contact and colonization processes.

Beside a more detailed report on the conference proceedings which is going to be published via H-Soz-Kult soon, you will shortly find a few of the recorded lectures on the YouTube Channel of the SFB.

Photos: Philipp Ottendörfer, Rebecca Moltmann