CeMIS Events

Guest Lecture: "Eurowhiteness and the EU’s borders"
With Hans Kundnani (London School of Economics)

Date and Time: 3 June 2025, 14:15–15:45 CEST

Venue: KWZ 0.609 (Heinrich-Düker Weg 14)

Abstract: "In this talk I will locate the developments of the EU’s approach to its borders in the context of the wider transformation of Europe that I discuss in my book Eurowhiteness (2023). I argue that the EU has come to see itself as surrounded by threats and, especially since the refugee crisis in 2015, has increasingly understood those threats in civilizational terms – what I call the civilizational turn in the European project. In this context, a hard external border has come to be seen as the necessary corollary of the removal of border checks within the Schengen area. Since the end of the Cold War, the contrast between the EU’s soft eastern border and hard southern border has strengthened the identity of the EU as a white bloc. But since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 the eastern border has itself become harder as the EU has differentiated more clearly between who belongs and who doesn’t."

Hans Kundnani is an Open Society Ideas Workshop fellow and a visiting professor in practice at the London School of Economics.

This lecture is organised by CeMig in cooperation with the Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS) and Erasmus Mundus MA Euroculture.

Find the pdf here.

A tragic shipping accident opens a window on racialized labour management in an age of imperialism.

When eighty-seven passengers and crew died in the shipwreck of the Royal Mail ship Egypt in 1922, the accident gave rise to a racist international press campaign against the employment of Indian seafarers, such as those who made up most of the ship’s crew. This was not unusual at a time when a fifth of the British mercantile marine’s workforce was recruited from the subcontinent. Ravi Ahuja explains the business logic behind a labour regime steeped in racist irrationalism and examines the scope for solidarity among a divided workforce in an age of imperialism – an issue that is no less relevant in our own time.

Discussants:
Peter Birke (Göttingen University)
Samita Sen (Cambridge University)
Rupa Viswanath (Göttingen University)
Klaus Weinhauer (Bielefeld University)

Date and Time: Thursday, 5 June 2025, 3pm
Venue: Alte Mensa, Wilhelmsplatz 3, Göttingen.

The event can also be attended digitally. To register, please write to labour_repository@cemis.uni-goettingen.de.

Find the pdf here.

The poetry reading »The Worlds We Create« sets the focus on the voices of marginalised communities in India. CeMIS students (Centre for Modern Indian Studies), Senthalir Sivalingam, Paras Kumar, Bharati Chaudhari, and Andrea Strube from Deutsches Theater (DT) will recite works of poets in Tamil, Hindi, Marathi, English, and German languages. The event is a cooperation between the Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS), Literaturforum Indien e.V., and Literarisches Zentrum Göttingen e.V., funded by Brot für die Welt.

Date and Time: 24 June, 8 pm.
Venue: Literaturhaus Göttingen e.V., Nikolaistraße 22.

Find the pdf here.

“The Worlds We Create” brings to you the lives of marginalized communities in India, whose labour makes the worlds we live in possible.

Organized by CeMIS MA students Senthalir Sivalingam and Paras Kumar in cooperation with Brot für die Welt.

Date: 16–19 June, 11am – 2pm.
Venue: Foyer of Zentralmensa.

Find the pdf here.

Find the pdf.

Find the pdf.

Find the pdf