Information for
Quick links
Faculties
The event is open to the public and all interested parties are warmly invited to attend.
The following text has been machine translated from the German with no human editing.
Irreparable injuries are among the major social challenges facing our divided globalised world. These include the destruction of cultural assets in colonised areas, war traumas and the consequences of climate change. The Käte Hamburger Centre CURE at Saarland University takes this irrevocability as the starting point for its research and asks how, despite crises that threaten our very existence and irreparable damage, we can work towards forms of coexistence. The focus is on the question of what role cultural practices – such as storytelling, visual arts, theatre or music – play in processing experiences of violence, injustice and destruction and opening up new perspectives.
At the opening of the academic year on 15 October:
After a welcome by the state government, the university management and the directorate of the research centre, the internationally renowned sociologist Gisèle Sapiro (EHESS/CNRS, Paris) will give the annual lecture. Under the title ‘Repairing the Irreparable? Culture and Spoliation,’ she will ask whether and how culture can contribute to ‘repairing’ the violent acts of looting and expropriation, and what role recognition, historical documentation, and international cooperation play in this process.
Afterwards, the new CURE fellows will present their research in German, English and French. The visiting scholars, who were selected from more than 350 applications from around the world, come from Argentina and Taiwan, Cameroon and Nigeria, Slovenia and Belgium, France and Germany. Their projects deal with topics such as repair concepts in music, the significance of human-plant relationships in migration contexts, translation as a reparative practice, and West African rituals as sustainable blueprints for the future. The fellows are also researching the dual role of dance during the Shoah – as a genocide strategy of the Nazi regime and as a survival strategy of the victims – as well as transgenerational experiences and memories in the Alps-Adriatic region.
After the lectures, all guests are invited to a reception. There will be an opportunity to talk to the fellows.
Admission is free. Registration is not mandatory, but it does facilitate planning. Please register at: kontakt@khk.uni-saarland.de
Link to the event: https://cure.uni-saarland.de/veranstaltungen/kaete-hamburger-empfang-2025-festvortrag-vorstellung-des-neuen-fellow-jahrgangs/
Background:
The Käte Hamburger Centre for Cultural Practices of Reparation (CURE) is a transdisciplinary Institute for Advanced Study based at Saarland University and funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) as part of the Käte Hamburger Excellence Programme. Each year, up to twelve international fellows from the fields of science and culture conduct research at the centre.
Contact for press enquiries:
Anna Warum
Science Communication & Public Relations
anna.warum@khk.uni-saarland.de
(+49) 681 302-3372
www.cure.uni-saarland.de