Mondays, 18:15 - 19:45 | H19 (Sammelgebäude), University of Regensburg

Motion produces frictions. These have the potential to stall, inhibit or halt shifts. But frictions also release energy, thus producing new movements. Whether in large-scale tectonic shifts or micro-level encounters, interactions between people, technologies, ideas, natural conditions, and the flows of capital and goods shape the diverse, long-term and often contradictory processes termed globalization. It has become apparent that globalization is neither a smooth nor unidirectional process; but rather it is something that undergoes constant challenges, re-direction, and re-appropriation so that its course is neither predictable nor controllable. Nor, for that matter, has globalization led to convergence; rather it has given rise to new divergences across and within countries and continents.

This lecture series focuses on three interlinked elements that are crucial to understanding globality in its diversity across multiple spaces and throughout history: the environment, migration and labor. Drawing on the expertise of colleagues in Regensburg and around the world, the lecture series will offer interdisciplinary perspectives informed by area studies that combine macro-perspectives and critical place-oriented scholarship, in order to highlight the intersections between different scales. Rather than posit a seamless globalization, the speakers highlight the productive and destructive frictions emerging from the interaction and interdependencies between local action and large-scale forces. In this story, natural resources, mobility and human labor are paramount.

The lectures will offer insights on Eastern and Western Europe, North and South America, indicating connections to other world regions and worldwide institutions, as well as highlighting how the global condition is made and remade in local sites and through translocal connections.

Speakers include academics from Regensburg, visiting fellows of the Leibniz ScienceCampus from the USA and Spain, as well as invited guests from Germany and abroad.