The theme of the DIMAS Conference 2025 is "Sorting and Ordering: Area Studies in the Contemporary World".
While the multiple societal crises, often discussed under the label of polycrisis, are still evolving in multiple dimensions and are seen as a persistent threat to global stability, they have also contributed to new material and ideological realities and reorderings since their emergence. "Sorting and ordering" provides a framework for examining changes in multiple dimensions, from geopolitical shifts between regions/blocs to the reconfiguration of personal and collective identities in local contexts. The conference invites participants to explore together whether new forms of sorting/organising are emerging in their fields of expertise and how they may be related to larger societal adaptations to new global and local realities.
Through a series of workshops, the conference will explore key concepts that shape our local and global environments, including the role of international law, media, the environment, and knowledge production and epistemologies in the Global South.
In dialogue with leading scholars, we will explore area studies approaches that inspire our own research at DIMAS: connecting local events and actors to regional and international levels and, conversely, examining the impact of global phenomena on local spaces and personal identities - in real, virtual and imagined spaces.
We are particularly pleased to be organising the conference in the building of our new offices at Bajuwarenstraße 4.
PROGRAMME
THURSDAY, 15 MAY
17:00 Registration and opening of the DIMAS exhibition
18:00 Opening speech by UR President Udo Hebel
18:15 Susan Hodgett (University of East Anglia): Keynote "The Future of Area Studies in an Era of Global Transformations"
19:00 Roundtable Discussion
Helmut Aust, Julia Bee, Susan Hodgett and Cassandra Mark-Thiesen in conversation with Anna Steigemann
20:00 Drinks and music
FRIDAY, 16 MAY
9:00-10:30 am Session 1
Cassandra Mark-Thiesen (University of Bayreuth) and Timothy Nunan (University of Regensburg): Knowledge Production in the Global South. Print Cultures and Post-Colonial Historiography
10:30-11:00 break
11:00-12:30 Session 2
Helmut Aust (FU Berlin): Disruptions in the Global Order. Is there still a Role for International Law?
12:30-13:30 Lunch break
13:30-15:00 Session 3
Julia Bee (Ruhr University Bochum): Climate Divide and Media Climate Justice. Rethinking the epistemic borders and methods of cooperation
15:00-15:30 Concluding reflections