Newsletter No. 22 – 11/3/2016
03.11.2016
Dear Members of the International Research Training Group ‘Between Spaces’ and Friends of the IRTG,
We hope you enjoy this twenty-second issue of the IRTG ‘Between Spaces’ Newsletter, which is designed to keep you informed about our news and current events.
News from the Coordination Office
Robert Lüdtke has completed his coordinating work, and we would like to welcome his successor Eduardo Luciano Tadeo Hernández as the IRTG’s new Assistant for Coordination in Mexico. Luciano is a doctoral student at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. We look forward to our collaboration with Luciano, who was already able to visit Berlin in October. At the same time, we would also like to thank Robert Lüdtke expressly and cordially for his excellent work over several years with the IRTG, first as a student assistant in Berlin and then as Coordination Assistant in Mexico. We wish Robert, who has decided to leave the university, all the best for the future.
Visiting Professor
The IRTG Berlin/Potsdam is very pleased to welcome Javier Garciadiego Dantán, historian and former President of El Colegio de México, as guest professor in November and December 2016. Especially in his office as President of El Colegio de México from 2005 to 2015, Javier Garciadiego accompanied the first years of the IRTG’s development and has been closely connected to the research group ever since.
The focus of Javier Garciadiego’s outstanding research as a historian has been the Mexican Revolution. He has been a member of the Academia Mexicana de la Lengua since 2012. In 2016 he was admitted to the Colegio Nacional, one of the highest honours that can be bestowed upon a Mexican scholar.
Javier Garciadiego would like to use his stay in Berlin to complete a book on the Mexican Revolution. On November 8, 2016, at 4 pm, he will give a lecture at the Institute for Latin American Studies of the Freie Universität Berlin (Room 201) on ‘La historia intelectual de México en el siglo XX’.
New Scholarship Holders
The IRTG Berlin/Potsdam has selected a student to receive a scholarship to prepare her doctorate:
Juana Castro
Mexican scholarship holders currently visiting Berlin:
Newly selected scholarship holders of the IRTG Mexico:
José Eduardo Alvarado López
Araceli Sulemi Bermúdez Callejas
Clemente Cruz Peralta
Juan Antonio del Monte Madrigal
Ricardo Fernández Castillo
Erick Julián Hernández Morales
Brenda Margarita Macías Sánchez
Adriana Medina Vidal
Paty Aidé Montiel Martínez
Pilar Adriana Rey Hernández
We would like to cordially welcome all the new members of the IRTG. We look forward to working with them!
Recent Events
Interinstitutional Colloquium in Mexico, May 19, 2016
The last session of the Inter-Institutional Colloquium for this semester took place on May 19that CIESAS. After a short introduction of the participants and their presentations, the former scholarship holders of the IRTG Mexico and doctoral students María José Grisel Enríquez Cabral from UNAM and Michelle Vyoleta Romero Gallardofrom FLACSO México each presented his or her current research project.
María José Grisel Enríquez Cabral spoke on ‘El sentido de la ciudadanía activa entre las familias de estatus mixto para superar situaciones de exclusión activa e inclusión desigual en Mesa y Phoenix, Arizona’, with comments from Bernd Hausberger (El Colegio de México).
Michelle Vyoleta Romero Gallardopresented her doctoral project ‘La lengua de Dios: atribución de validez en torno a la conversión, rezo y lectura del Corán en idiomas distintos al árabe’, which was commented on by Roberto Blancarte (El Colegio de México).
The participants included Professors Alberto Aziz, Ilán Bizberg, Roberto Blancarte, Teresa Carbó, Luz Elena Gutiérrez de Velasco Romo, Bernd Hausberger, Jean‑François Prud'homme and Liliana Weinberg, and the students Michelle Vyoleta Romero Gallardo, Carlos Inclán Fuentes, Óscar Moisés Torres Montúfar, María Laura Serrano Santos, Rodrigo Garcia Bonillas, María José Grisel Enríquez Cabral and Jaqueline Garza Placencia.
Both research projects stimulated a lively discussion amongst all participants about the construction of transnational and intercultural spaces.
Robert Lüdtke (IRTG Mexico)
Long Night of the Sciences in Berlin, June 11, 2016
On the evening of June 11th, the 8th Night of the Sciences took place at the universities and scientific institutions of Berlin and gave Berliners the opportunity to become acquainted with the exhilarating research being done in their city. As every year, the Institute for Latin American Studies of the Freie Universität Berlin opened its doors to hundreds of guests with a programme of exciting and diverse activities suited to people of all ages.
The International Research Training Group ‘Between Spaces’ helped curate and carry out this year’s programme ‘Border experiences: from Mexico into the World’. Focusing on the Mexican and Latin American experience, this year’s Long Night of the Sciences broached the issue of borders as experienced by individuals in everyday life and in all walks of life, while providing our guests with insights from a post-colonial perspective about Latin American culture and the issues currently facing the region.
Both children and adults took part in playful activities such as piñata-making, capoeira, tango and culinary workshops, sampled Latin American music in the beautiful voices of Staccato and the choir of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), and engaged in thoughtful discussions with experts about topics such as the difficult current political situation in Mexico and new faces in Mexican literature. Throughout the entire evening, the LAI’s building was also host to various exhibitions and installations addressing topics that included new readings in and the challenges of the Colombian and Brazilian Amazon, the social and political repercussions of coal mining in Colombia, reflections on diversity and, of course, the interdisciplinary research carried on by ‘Between Spaces’.
It was a wonderful and enriching experience, and we are already looking forward to next year’s Long Night of the Sciences.
(Andrea Garcés Farfán, IRTG Berlin/Potsdam)
Ringvorlesung (lecture series) during summer term at Berlin
During the 2016 summer semester at the LAI a series of lectures took place in which professors of the International Research Training Group ‘Between Spaces’ from various disciplines presented their thoughts on space and so on their contribution to the IRTG. The aim of the lectures was to acquaint the IRTG doctoral students of the third generation with the participating scholars’ broad range of research areas. For example, Sérgio Costa (sociology), Marianne Braig (political science), Barbara Fritz (economics), Debora Gerstenberger (history), Stephanie Schütze (cultural and social anthropology) and Dieter Ingenschay (Latin American literature and culture) not only talked about their own research areas, but also highlighted their connections and points of contact to those of their colleagues and students. This was quite a challenge, for the speakers took the decidedly interdisciplinary character of the IRTG as an obligation to translate the concepts of their special disciplines into generally comprehensible terms.
The audience was very interested in questions such as ‘How can “space” be treated as an analytical unit?’ ‘Has a common research agenda that comes under the rubric “Between Spaces” developed amongst the six disciplines comprised by the IRTG?’ ‘What function do the concepts of state, nation and territory play in each of the disciplines?’ The dialogue amongst the various disciplines led to exciting discussions, which were continued after the two hours allotted for each session. The thoughts stimulated by these discussions will undoubtedly be reflected in future work of IRTG members.
(Carlos Pérez Ricart, IRTG Berlin/Potsdam)
Meeting with alumni in Mexico, August 18, 2016
On 18 August 2016 the International Research Training Group Mexico held its fourth Alumni meeting at the French restaurant Bistrot Mosaico in San Ángel, Mexico City. Guests included professors and former scholarship holders of the IRTG, who exchanged experiences and memories of their stays in Berlin and their time at the IRTG. Present and former members of the IRTG also presented their current research projects. Former scholarship holders announced the founding of the IRTG Alumni Network. It will be represented by the former scholarship holder Olinca Valeria Hernández, currently a doctoral student at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
The meeting also served as the official farewell to Robert Lüdtke, the Coordination Assistant of the IRTG in Mexico, who concluded his work there in August. He was thanked by Jean-François Prud’homme in the name of the research group for his fine support and was wished all the best on his return to Berlin. The new Coordination Assistant, Eduardo Luciano Tadeo Hernández, was then welcomed and introduced to the members of the IRTG.
(Robert Lüdtke, IRTG Mexico)
Upcoming Events
IN BERLIN:
8 November 2016, 4-6 pm, LAI, room 201
Javier Garciadiego Dantán (El Colegio de México), ‘La historia intelectual de México en el siglo XX’
11 November 2016, 2-4 pm, LAI, room 243
Workshop with Achim Landwehr (Universität Düsseldorf), ‘Davor kommt noch – danach war schon. Über vergangene Zukünfte und gegenwärtige Vergangenheiten’
18 November 2016, 10 am – 4 pm, LAI, room 243
Interdisciplinary Colloquium
12/13 December 2016, 9 am – 7 pm, LAI, room 201
International Congress ‘Tiempo y espacio en las Ciencias Sociales y las Humanidades’
20 January 2017, 10 am – 5 pm, LAI, room 243
Research Seminar in preparation for the 2017 Summer School
10 February 2017, 10 am – 5 pm, LAI, room 243
Interdisciplinary Colloquium
IN MEXICO:
17 November 2016, 5-7 pm, UNAM, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas
Inter-institutional Colloquium
Best wishes,
Ingrid Simson and the IRTG team
