Established in 2020, this lecture series responds to the dramatic events of our time in a historical and humanistic perspective. Arguably, public action has rarely been more important and public protest more inspired then it is today, while the underlying public sphere has never been more fragmented. We will focus on the historical roots, cultural forms and political fruits of this peculiar combination. Exploring the public effects of digital media and the new awareness of Anthropocene, we will address the changing materiality and global roles of the new public. We will also examine local, gendered and other aspects of access, inclusivity, and retribution. Inviting historians, media scholars, and other colleagues to this debate, we will create a new transnational community that will be instrumental in changing some inherited truths – and establishing new ones.

Internal Events:

Was Soviet Television a Public Sphere?

5 February 2021

• Speaker: Bohdan Shumylovych (Centre for Urban History, Lviv)
  
  

Public Spheres: In Theory and in Belarus

9 December 2020

• Speaker: Mischa Gabowitsch (Einstein Forum, Potsdam)

Memory, Conflict and Post-Socialist Media: Old Stories, New Questions

30 October 2020

• Speaker: Ellen Rutten (University of Amsterdam)
  Please read here: Paper and Presentation