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Experimental sites of dis:connectivity
The Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect (gd:c) invites master's students and doctoral candidates in the humanities, as well as creative professionals at any career stage, to participate in a week-long summer school in Munich, Germany. There are no participation fees. Accommodation and travel expenses will be covered for all participants coming from outside Munich.
Please apply until 1 March 2026. You can find all details in the call for participation.
About the theme "Worlds in the lab"
Worlds in the Lab explores laboratories as spaces where worlds—and their fragments—are reconfigured. These are experimental sites of dis:connectivity in which the ‘global’ is disassembled into analysable parts, imaginaries of planetary conditions fabricated, or alternative futures modelled, rehearsed, and resisted. Laboratories range from scientific observatories and sensor-equipped environments to landscapes, archives, exhibition spaces, cultural institutions, and art/design/film studios. Across these diverse settings, elements of the world are isolated, scaled, narrated, simulated, transformed, or imagined otherwise. Such experimental conditions open possibilities for new forms of inquiry and speculation; they also produce distortions and expose the limits, exclusions, and dis:connections that arise when complex environments are translated into manageable forms. Rather than treating laboratories as self-contained scientific spaces or metaphorical abstractions, the summer school approaches them as experimental infrastructures through which environments, ecologies, bodies, and planetary conditions are constantly re/made.
Building on recent scholarship in the environmental humanities, science and technology studies, the history of science, global history, media and visual studies, art/design/architectural theory, anthropology, and decolonial and Indigenous studies, the summer school explores how worlds-in-the-making emerge through laboratory practices such as modelling, prototyping, display, simulation, and field experimentation. It brings the laboratory—as a concept, practice, and space—into dialogue with the spatial, visual, and material cultures of world-making, including e.g., archives, lieu de mémoire, planetary analogues, atmospheric observatories, geoscientific proxies, environmental monitoring infrastructures, and exhibition architectures.
What happens when “the world” becomes a laboratory object, a test setting, a scenario, or a speculative prototype? How do laboratory sites mediate between global and local scales, between human and more-than-human realms, and between imagination and material constraints? What frictions, asymmetries, and disruptions may arise? Which affordances, knowledge, and opportunities can be drawn from these experimental sites of dis:connectivity?
The summer school will take place on July 20-24, 2026 at the Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect in Munich.
Organized by: Clemens Finkelstein, Susanne Quitmann, Aliena Guggenberger
Please note that the call for participation is closed as of 1 March.
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20-24 July, Worlds in the lab, gd:c summer school
Experimental sites of dis:connectivity
The Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect (gd:c) invites master's students and doctoral candidates in the humanities, as well as creative professionals at any career stage, to participate in a week-long summer school in Munich, Germany. There are no participation fees. Accommodation and travel expenses will be covered for all participants coming from outside Munich.
Please apply until 1 March 2026. You can find all details in the call for participation.
About the theme "Worlds in the lab"
Worlds in the Lab explores laboratories as spaces where worlds—and their fragments—are reconfigured. These are experimental sites of dis:connectivity in which the ‘global’ is disassembled into analysable parts, imaginaries of planetary conditions fabricated, or alternative futures modelled, rehearsed, and resisted. Laboratories range from scientific observatories and sensor-equipped environments to landscapes, archives, exhibition spaces, cultural institutions, and art/design/film studios. Across these diverse settings, elements of the world are isolated, scaled, narrated, simulated, transformed, or imagined otherwise. Such experimental conditions open possibilities for new forms of inquiry and speculation; they also produce distortions and expose the limits, exclusions, and dis:connections that arise when complex environments are translated into manageable forms. Rather than treating laboratories as self-contained scientific spaces or metaphorical abstractions, the summer school approaches them as experimental infrastructures through which environments, ecologies, bodies, and planetary conditions are constantly re/made.
Building on recent scholarship in the environmental humanities, science and technology studies, the history of science, global history, media and visual studies, art/design/architectural theory, anthropology, and decolonial and Indigenous studies, the summer school explores how worlds-in-the-making emerge through laboratory practices such as modelling, prototyping, display, simulation, and field experimentation. It brings the laboratory—as a concept, practice, and space—into dialogue with the spatial, visual, and material cultures of world-making, including e.g., archives, lieu de mémoire, planetary analogues, atmospheric observatories, geoscientific proxies, environmental monitoring infrastructures, and exhibition architectures.
What happens when “the world” becomes a laboratory object, a test setting, a scenario, or a speculative prototype? How do laboratory sites mediate between global and local scales, between human and more-than-human realms, and between imagination and material constraints? What frictions, asymmetries, and disruptions may arise? Which affordances, knowledge, and opportunities can be drawn from these experimental sites of dis:connectivity?
The summer school will take place on July 20-24, 2026 at the Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect in Munich.
Organized by: Clemens Finkelstein, Susanne Quitmann, Aliena Guggenberger
Please note that the call for participation is closed as of 1 March.
Continue Reading
9 January 2026
material, embodied and sensory stories of global dis:connection
history, governance and the post-oil vision
Silences and absences that articulate the world
Maps often appear complete and objective, yet they also contain gaps, silences and blank spaces. This workshop explores how these absences actively shape how we perceive and understand the world, rather than simply marking what is missing or unknown. Speakers will discuss how omissions influence knowledge, power and politics across historical and contemporary contexts. Through examples from mapping and other related fields, the event shows how absence can communicate meaning just as strongly as articulated information. Participants can expect open discussions that rethink maps and other multimedia knowledge in an accessible and experimental way.
The workshop will take place on March 19-20, 2026 at the Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect in Munich.
Co-Conveners: Toby Yuen-Gen Liang, Academia Sinica, Taiwan; Camille Serchuk, Southern Connecticut State University; Filipe dos Reis, University of Groningen
Please register 
Performance, representation, and display
Histories not only live in books; they appear on stages, in exhibitions and in everyday performances. This workshop explores how performing, representing and displaying the past can reveal dis:connected histories shaped by migration, colonialism and displacement. Artists and researchers will discuss how performance and visual practices make fragmented, suppressed or non-linear histories visible and negotiable. Through case studies from theatre, art and cultural institutions, the event questions dominant narratives and fixed timelines. Participants can expect lively discussions and creative approaches that reconsider how history is performed, experienced and shared today.
Please register 
This workshop hosted at 
An open seminar/gathering with 
In the last few years, restitution has become an urgent topic for museums, politics, and academia. In disciplines like ethnography, art history, and history, the legacy of looting and, more generally, colonial injustice violence, has finally led to a sensitivity for the inequalities between nations and the necessities of repair. While the debate is mostly concerned with material artefacts like statues, paintings, historical sources and documents, the specificities of audiovisual media have not been at the center of attention.
In a workshop with Nikolaus Perneczky (London), we hope to open up an interdisciplinary discussion about the contexts, stakes, and perspectives of the restitution debate when it is approached from the particular requirements of audiovisual media. Responding to the premise that «rethinking restitution through the medium-specific affordances and operations of the moving image compels a reconceptualization of that paradigm» (Perneczky and Valenti), current fellows of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg Global dis:connect are invited to share their experiences, questions and propositions.
Reading: Film/Restitution: Rethinking Displacement, Enclosure, and Relations of Care in Global Audiovisual Archiving (Nikolaus Perneczky and Cecilia Valenti)
Inputs, Responses, and Contributions: Nikolaus Perneczky, Hadeel Abdelhameed, Sarah Smith, Toby Yuen-Gen Liang, Katy Deepwell, Fabienne Liptay, Burcu Dogramaci
The event starts at 9:30am, registration takes place at 9:15am at Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect (gdc), Maria-Theresia-Strasse 21, 81675 Munich.
You can find the programme 
An interprofessional workshop for doctors, social workers, researchers, activists and anyone else who would like to participate.
Where: Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect, Maria-Theresia-Straße 21, 81675 Munich
When: 13 November 2025, 9:15–17:00
What’s it about?
Preventing sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted parenthood is part of everyday life for many. Nevertheless, challenges in contraception and counselling remain, particularly regarding contraceptive responsibility and involvement of men*. Researchers, doctors, social workers and activists cooperate to improve care and awareness. However, the reasons why certain contraceptive methods are offered to the exclusion of others, as well as to whom and when they are recommended, are seldom discussed in depth.
This conference marks the beginning of global dis:connect’s second funding phase. It explores the promises and challenges of the concept of dis:connectivity from an interdisciplinary perspective. Serving as a bridge between the past four years of research—during which we sought to unpack and define the concept—and the years ahead, the event will focus on advancing its empirical applicability across both spatial and temporal dimensions. Bringing together current and former fellows, gd:c staff, and partner institutions, the conference fosters dialogue and knowledge exchange across funding phases.
You can find the programme