Forum Transregionale Studien | Veranstaltungen

Protest in a Post-Gramscian Moment: From the Middle East to Liberal Democracies

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 17:00:00 +0200

The past decade has witnessed unprecedented global uprisings, from Latin America to Asia, and from Europe to Africa. Yet these uprisings have brought little meaningful change to structures of power, macroeconomic policies, plutocratic rule, or autocratic regimes. If anything, repression has become even more severe. While this has been particularly evident in the Middle East, similar processes appear to be unfolding in some liberal democracies as well. What does this moment mean for state–society relations in these democracies? What are its implications for popular struggles for democracy and justice?

Asef Bayat, is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, and Catherine & Bruce Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is also an Associate Member of Berlin Institute for Integration and Migration Research (BIM) at Humboldt University, Berlin. Before joining Illinois, he taught at the American University in Cairo for seventeen years; and served as the director of the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) holding the Chair of Society and Culture of the Modern Middle East at Leiden University, The Netherlands. His research areas range from social movements and social change to religion and public life, urban space and politics, and contemporary Middle East. His recent books include Post-Islamism: The Changing Faces of Political Islam (Oxford University Press, 2013); Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East (Stanford University Press, 2013. 2nd edition), Revolution without Revolutionaries: Making Sense of the Arab Spring (Stanford University Press, 2017), Global Middle East: Into the 21st Century (ed. With Linda Herrera) (University of California Press, 2021), and Revolutionary Life: The Everyday of the Arab Spring (Harvard University Press, 2021).

Myriam Ahmed is a researcher at the Center for Interdisciplinary Peace and Conflict Research (INTERACT) at FU Berlin where she is part of the research group “Radical Spaces”. She is currently pursuing her PhD on the role of space and spatiality in the negotiation of power with a focus on Sudan’s December revolution. Prior to that Myriam Ahmed gained practical experience in the field of peace mediation at swisspeace, CMI and at the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, with a main focus on the MENA region. Her research interests include contentious politics, resistance and repression dynamics, and (urban) spaces. She holds an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Bern, Switzerland.

Please register in advance via eume(at)trafo-berlin.de. Depending on approval by the speaker(s), the Berliner Seminar will be recorded. All audio recordings of the Berliner Seminar are available on SoundCloud.

Protecting EU Values in the Member States in 2026: At a Turning Point?

Thu, 22 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0200

On 22 October 2026 re:constitution Alumni Francesco Gatta and Matteo Bonelli organize a hybrid workshop at the University of Palermo (Università degli Studi di Palermo).

This workshop aims to take stock of latest developments in the protection of EU values and to contribute to an updated assessment of the state of the art. It will address two central questions: Where do we stand in terms of the protection of EU values in Member States in 2026? Are we at a turning point, and if so, where is this shift leading us?

In cooperation with fellow researchers our Alumni Francesco and Matteo strive to understand how the central events of 2026 are influencing, and possibly re-shaping, the landscape of European constitutional backsliding, and the EU’s reaction to it.

2026 has been a crucial year for the European constitutional backsliding crisis. In April, Hungary held landmark elections that brought an end to Viktor Orbán's time in office, following years of deteriorating rule of law standards, democratic institutions and fundamental human rights guarantees.

Starting the Fellowship Journey: First Fellows’ Exchange Meeting for the Cohort 2026/27

Wed, 28 Oct 2026 14:00:00 +0100

From 28 to 30 October 2026, the new re:constitution Fellows will convene in Berlin for their first Fellows’ Exchange Meeting. This three-day programme is designed to foster connections, spark interdisciplinary dialogue, and set the stage for a year of critical reflection on the challenges facing the rule of law, democracy, and related themes in Europe and beyond.

Through a blend of interactive training, expert-led discussions, and informal networking, the meeting will provide Fellows with the opportunity to exchange ideas, build collaborations, and engage with pressing questions that define their work.

Memories of Violence: The Hama Massacre (1982) in Syrian Literature

Wed, 28 Oct 2026 17:00:00 +0100

This talk examines the Hama massacre of 1982, which is widely regarded as one of the most momentous acts of violence committed by the Assad regime and was systematically excluded from public discourse and official historiography for decades. Based on the hypothesis that the massacre remained rooted in collective memory despite the enforced silence, and that this memory became a central instrument of the regime’s hold on power, I analyze literary representations of the massacre. Through a contextualizing analysis, I highlight different interpretations of the violent events and show how far-reaching the massacre’s impact on Syrian society was and how closely its memory is tied to the negotiation of power structures under the Assad regime. I focus on three central interpretive patterns: the competing narratives of the Assad regime and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood; the memory culture emerging in the city of Hama under conditions of public silence and suppressed commemoration; and the reinterpretation of ‘Hama’ as a collective Syrian experience in the context of the 2011 uprising. In this way, I show how the memory of Hama remained present in Syrian society and how literary texts can open up alternative spaces for memories that are rendered invisible in public discourse.

Anna Christina Scheiter is a researcher and lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Oriental Seminar of the University of Freiburg. She studied Oriental Studies and Arabic Literature and Culture at the University of Marburg, where she completed her PhD in 2024. Her doctoral thesis, published as ‘Hama’ als Erinnerungsfigur. Tabu, Schweigen und der Kampf um Deutungshoheit in der syrischen Literatur (Reichert Verlag, 2025; English: “’Hama’ as a Figure of Memory. Taboo, Silence, and the Struggle for Interpretive Authority in Syrian Literature”) examines literary representations of the 1982 Hama massacre in Syria. For this work she received dissertation awards from the German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO) and the University of Marburg.

Rashof Salih is the Science Communication Coordinator at the Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM), based at the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin. She holds a degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology and Political Science from Freie Universität Berlin, with a specialization in psychological anthropology. Her academic interests focus on memory, the politics of violence, and processes of social transformation in Syria.

Rolling Back the Right to Access Public Information? From Germany to Europe

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 10:00:00 +0100

Freedom of information is a cornerstone of the rule of law, yet across Europe the right to access public information is increasingly under pressure. This panel brings together investigative journalists and leading access to information experts from Germany and across Europe to examine what is at stake when governments restrict access to official documents. Using the German case as a starting point, the discussion will place these developments in a broader European context, exploring emerging threats to transparency, efforts to strengthen access rights and why freedom of information remains essential to holding power to account.

The panel discussion is open to the public.
To register, please send an email with your name to the email address provided below.

reconstitution(at)trafo-berlin.de

The Shape of Things That Did Not Come: Arabic Science Fiction and Palestine’s 1940s Belle Époque

Wed, 04 Nov 2026 17:00:00 +0100