Event: Lecture Series “In the Borderlands - Thinking about popular media transculturally”

DIMAS lecture series in Winter Semester 2025/26 
Wednesdays, 2:00–4:00 p.m. in lecture hall H14

Followed by exercise (4:00–5:00 p.m., with Barbara Wimmer-Bulin) in lecture hall H14

This time, the DIMAS lecture series is dedicated to borders as an important topic in Area Studies. It addresses the complex border discourses of popular culture in post-migrant and transmedia societies, in which popular culture plays an important role in shaping identity.

During the lecture series, scholars from the humanities and social sciences will examine different regions of the world, cultural areas, and media cultures. Popular media such as film, radio plays, comics, music recordings, music videos, and social media platforms will be examined. It will include transmedia fiction from various regions of the world (including Europe, the Americas, and Africa) and from diaspora contexts (including Jewish and Haitian culture).

The lecture will also include a practical workshop (limited places) with Honduran graphic artist Germán Andino, whose graphic and multimodal journalism impressively addresses topics such as gang violence, the climate crisis, and displacement. The lecture series will be accompanied by a small sci com format, which will be hosted on the DIMAS Instagram channel (external link, opens in a new window).

Supported by the Universit?tsstiftung Hans Vielberth (external link, opens in a new window) and by the Universit?tsstiftung Pro Arte (external link, opens in a new window) and in cooperation with the Chair of Media Studies (external link, opens in a new window) and the Chair of Comparative European Ethnology (external link, opens in a new window), the DIMAS 2025 lecture series is organized by Anne Brüske and Laura Niebling. We invite interested colleagues to join us for sessions they are interested in. If you have a seminar taking place at the same time and would like to attend one of the lecture series session together with your students, you are welcome to! Please just send us a short email (dimas.office@ur.de) in advance to coordinate.

Program:

15.10.2025 | H14
Medien & Popul?rkultur im Kontext von Grenzdiskursen (Media & Popular Culture in the Context of Border Discourses)

22.10.2025 | H14
Christoph Vatter (Jena): Transnationale Popul?rkultur und postkoloniale Verflechtungen im Europa der langen 1960er Jahre (Transnational popular culture and postcolonial interconnections in Europe during the long 1960s)

05.11.2025 | H14
Miriam Oesterreich (Berlin): Mode, Textilien, Design an der US-mexikanischen Grenze (Fashion, Textiles, Design on the US-Mexican border)

19.11. 2025 | H 14
Germán Andino: The Comic Borderland (Vorlesung)
20.11. 2025 | Haus der Begegnung, Seminarraum
Germán Andino: Praxis-Workshop: Doing Graphic Journalism

26.11.2025 | H14
Gudrun Rath (Linz): Zombies- Grenzg?nge der Untoten (Zombies—Border Crossings of the Undead)

03.12.2025 | H14
Daniela Kuschel (Düsseldorf): Playful Memories? Der Spanische Bürgerkrieg in (inter-)nationalen Spielen (Playful Memories? The Spanish Civil War in (inter)national games)

10.12.2025 | H14
Ina Schenker (Halle): Transkulturelle Theorien und die Grenzen des H?rbaren in ?Vivra Verra“ (DR Kongo) (Transcultural theories and the limits of the audible in “Vivra Verra” (DR Congo))

07.01.2026 | H14
Elena Pilipets (Siegen): Deep TikTok: vernetzte Subkulturen, verrauschte Klanglandschaften (Deep TikTok: interconnected subcultures, noisy soundscapes)

14.01.2026 | H14
Beatrice Schuchardt (Regensburg): Transkulturalit?t im frankophonen Hip-Hop (Transculturality in Francophone Hip-Hop)

21.01.2026 | H14
Ranjodh Dhaliwal (Basel): The State of Cringe: On Aesthetic Theory and Digitality

28.01.2026 | H14
Véronique Sina (Frankfurt/Main): Jewish Visual Culture. Bilder ‘des Jüdischen’ in der (post-)migrantischen Gesellschaft (Jewish Visual Culture. Images of ‘Jewishness’ in (post-)migrant society)

04.02.2026 | H14
Abschlusssitzung (Closing Session)