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C²DH event series

As an international hub for contemporary and digital history, the C²DH regularly organises academic and outreach events. The academic events, attended by researchers and practitioners from the C²DH, partner institutions and other research centres, explore major research topics such as digital history, contemporary history, hermeneutics and participatory history. These events serve as opportunities to present the latest progress in research. They invariably give rise to fruitful discussions and encounters, thereby widening the perspectives of the researchers involved. Outreach events are a means of sharing research findings with the general public and interacting with society. Public participation and two-way dialogue are a key part of public history. Social media have also become an essential mechanism for instant dialogue and discussion, and the C²DH makes good use of the possibilities offered by these platforms when organising its events.

Artificial Intelligence in the Humanities 

Series of seminars on the subject of A.I., its uses in the humanities, more broadly in research, and more broadly yet in our lives and in society organised by Lorella Viola, Frédéric Clavert and Maxime Derian (C²DH).

23 November 2021

“PISA for AI” – How can we draw reliable implications of AI progress on work and education?. Lecture by Nóra Révai.

« FinLux » seminar

‘FinLux’ is a series of seminars held on a monthly basis and focusing on the history of the Luxembourg financial centre. 

From its inception, the C²DH has decided to make the history of the Luxembourg financial centre one of its main research priorities. In this context, the 'FinLux' seminar is held on a monthly basis. It is a place for researchers to discuss ongoing research projects in banking and financial history in a broad sense. The fundamental theme of the seminars is a reflection on which topics, actors, sources, and methods can be used to write the history of the Luxembourg financial centre.

5 October 2021

Gerschenkron’s Blind Spot: Secret Reserves and the Relevance of Internal Financing in the German Chemical Industry, c.1885–1904 by Frédéric Steinfeld.

26 October 2021

Luxembourg and Ireland in Global Financial Networks: Analysing the Changing Structure of European Investment Funds by Dariusz Wójcik.

30 November 2021

Global Correspondent Banking in the 20th century: the position of Luxembourg. By Thibaud Giddey and Catherine R. Schenk.

FLUXUS

A lecture series on migrations and borders in the Greater Region

The FLUXUS project was developed by the C²DH on the initiative of Arnaud Sauer – whose PhD investigates flows, mobility and networks of foreign workers in the cross-border Minett region during the interwar period –, in collaboration with professors Machteld Venken and Christoph Brüll. This academic outreach project aims to raise awareness among the general public of history research on the underexplored topic of borders in the Greater Region.

The project led to the organisation and online publication on the C²DH website of a series of lectures throughout 2021 aimed at showcasing the academic research of both early career researchers and established professors, in partnership with the universities in the Greater Region. Another goal of the project is to stimulate scholarly reflection and discussions around the notion of borders, a powerful marker in the Greater Region.

The FLUXUS project enjoys the support of the Greater Region (the 2020 interregional research award), the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) and UniGR, the umbrella association for universities in the Greater Region.

26 May 2021

Immigration et représentations sociales. Approche socio-historique. FLUXUS conference with Piero E. Galloro (Université de Lorraine - Metz)

14 July 2021

The Representation of Borders in Industrial Films on the Saarland’s Heavy Industry (1931-2019). FLUXUS conference with Isis Luxenburger (Saarland University). Introduction by Christoph Brüll (C²DH). 

24 November 2021 

Peripheries at the Centre. Borderland schooling in interwar Europe. FLUXUS conference with Machteld Venken (C²DH).

13 December 2021

Construire des politiques sociales dans un contexte frontalier: le cas des ouvrier·e·s belges dans le Nord de la France. FLUXUS conference with Claudine Marissal (European University Institute) . Organised in partnership with the University of Liège. 

ForumZ

ForumZ (Z for “Zeitgeschichte” or contemporary history) is a public platform for a critical and open discussion of current issues in contemporary Luxembourgish and European history. Interested citizens are invited to debate with experts about selected (society-related) topics, new approaches and new sources in contemporary history. ForumZ takes history beyond the confines of the university and into the public sphere.

18 October 2021

What is remembered lives. Mémoire de la Shoah à l'ère digitale. 

Hands-on History lecture series

Since 2017, the C²DH has run a “Hands-on History” lecture series, featuring presentations by researchers in history and related disciplines who have found original and interesting new ways to research, write, teach or publicise history and are willing to share their experiences. 

Past Hands-on History lectures have covered topics as diverse as oral history indexing, historical image projection techniques, the House of European History, 3D modelling, text mining of historical newspapers and the history of TV production technology. The lectures are primarily aimed at C²DH staff but they are generally also open to other members of the university and external researchers. Each session consists of a 30-minute presentation and 30 minutes for questions and discussion.

27 January 2021

 Pandemic Digital Archives, Metadata, and Ethics in a Post-Truth Age. Hands on History session with Marc Tebeau (Arizona State University).

24 February 2021

Towards critical web archive research. Hands on History session with Dr. Anat Ben-David (The Open University of Israel).

31 March 2021

"A Malignant Destiny": Recovering from Ireland's National Archival Tragedy of 1922 through the 'Beyond 2022'. Hands on History session with Peter Crooks (Trinity College Dublin) - online event.

28 April 2021

A Migrant’s Story: Digital Archives, the Other, and the Wokeward Shift. Hands on History session with Adam Crymble (University College London) - online event.

26 May 2021

Sesame Street and the transnational archive(s): digital, analogue, messyHands on History session with Helle Strangaard Jansen (Aarhus University).

16 June 2021

Collecting Craft Beer History at the Smithsonian. Hands on History session with Theresa McCulla (Smithsonian Museum) - online event.

 

Lecture series Border Studies

The University of the Greater Region (UniGR) is a network of six universities - the University of Luxembourg, Saarland University, the University of Kaiserslautern, Trier University, the University of Liège and the University of Lorraine. 

Its Center for Border Studies (UniGR-CBS) is a thematic cross-border network of approximately 80 researchers conducting research on borders, their meanings and challenges.The project is geared towards broadening and structuring the existing diversity of scientific competencies at the universities of the Greater Region in this subject area. 

The main focuses are on research, mobility, teaching, society and territory. Research capacities are bundled by cross-border cooperation and the creation of joint research infrastructures, such as, for example, the digital documentation center or the Border Studies Glossary. Initiatives to increase and simplify mobility as well as the interchange between researchers, such as the UniGR-CBS Guest Lecturer Border Studies, also contribute towards this aim. 

 12 October 2021

Temporalities and migratory border-crossings in literature and other discourse. Guest Lecturer Border Studies: Johan Schimanski (University of Oslo).

09 November 2021

Border Temporalities and Deep Maps: Altern(arra)tives in the Canada-U.S. Border Borderlands. Guest Lecturer Border Studies: Astrid M. Fellner (Universität des Saarlandes)

14 December 2021

Die Saarlor-Chemie-Kette als grenzüberschreitende Kooperation in ihrer zeitlichen Einordnung. Guest Lecturer Border Studies: Andrea Wurm, Universität des Saarlandes.

Lecture series 'New Horizons: Confronting the Digital Turn in the Humanities'

As a result of the digital turn the humanities are currently in a process of rapid transformation, with consequences that reach far beyond the confines of academia. This lecture series explores how the digital turn is changing research, teaching and dissemination in the humanities. The series will also endeavour to historicise and contextualise this process. Initated and coordinated by Gerben Zaagsma. 

4 March 2021

Scholars as Bricoleurs: The Plurality of Digital Humanities. Lecturer by Smiljana Antonijević.

8 April 2021

Big Data, Little Data, or No Data? Scholarship, Stewardship, and Humanities Research. Lecture by Christine L. Borgman (University of California).

Let's Talk About History

The "Let's Talk About History!" Organising Committee is a group of young PhD students of the Institute for History (IHIST) and the C²DH. Since May 2018, the founding committee formed by Anita Lucchesi, Christa Dönges, Jessica Leuck and Joëlle Weis has handed over the organisation to two new generations of PhD students. They benefit from the support of the history student association Historic.UL.

31 March 2021

D'Groussherzogin Marie Adelheid: Hir politesch Roll vun 1912 bis 1919. Lecture by Josiane Weber.

10 June 2021 

Gouverner en temps de pandémie – la peste à Tournai. Lecture by Claire Billen / Marc Boone

10 November 2021

Der Schiffstyp Laurons II und der römische Seehandel. Lecture by Christoph Schäfer

16 December 2021

Ein neues Recht für das 20. Jahrhundert? Ursprünge, Entwicklungslinien und Ambivalenzen des humanitären Völkerrechts. Lecture by Annette Weinke

LuxTIME seminar series

The main objective of the project is to explore the past of Luxembourg, by building and visualizing a digital dataset that will include information from different fields and scientific perspectives, namely eco-hydrology, environmental cheminformatics and history. LuxTIME will be using a local case, the industrialization of the Minette region, as a testbed for methodological and epistemological reflections on how to study the impact of environmental changes on the health of the local population in a long-term perspective.

09 June 2021

Information visualization and Interpretation, Lecture by Pr. Johanna Drucker.

11 June 2021

Industrial Past of Luxembourg: challenging the access and visualisation of past data through an innovative and interdisciplinary approach. Lecture by Maxime Derian.

16 June 2021

SEAD project, Environmental Archeology Lab. Lecture by Dr. Philip Buckland.

18 June 2021

Using the exposome to better understand the impact of the environment on health. Lecture by Dr. Gary W. Miller.

27 October 2021 

Can citizen science complement official data sources as evidence-base for policies and practice to improve water quality? Lecture by Ariane König.

23 November 2021

Defining and designing for discovery: Lessons from the Environment & Society PortalLecture by Dr. Kimberly Coulter.

Remix lecture Series

16 March 2021 

Les sociétés industrielles et les pouvoirs publics face à la question du logement ouvrier. Remix guest lecturer: Antoinette Lorang.

1 June 2021

The Romanticism of Hell". Environmental History of the Saar-region in the 19th-century. Remix guest lecturer: Markus Lay.

6 July 2021

Neue Perspektiven auf die Geschichte des Bergbaus an der Saar. Remix guest lecturer: Birgit Metzger.

19 October 2021

The Aesthetics of Smoke in Interwar Luxembourgish Literature. Remix guest lecturer: Anne-Marie Millim.

16 November 2021

Rëm.xx: Rumelange, a post-industrial town and its cultural heritage revisited. Remix guest lecturer: Giny Laroche.

30 November 2021

L’essor de la sidérurgie luxembourgeoise du XIXe s. au début du XXe siècle. Les conditions de développement technique et économique du Bassin Minier luxembourgeois. Remix guest lecturer: Jacques Maas. 

Research Seminar series

Since 2017, the C²DH has been holding a series of Research Seminars featuring project presentations by and for itsmembers. Any projects can be showcased at the seminars – individual or collaborative projects, at PhD, postdoc or seniorlevel. The main aim is to offer an opportunity to discuss methods, research trends and current research at the centre. The seminars are primarily aimed at C²DH staff but they are now also available online, opening them up to a wider audience.  

20 January 2021

REPAIR - a project presentation.  Research seminar with Stefan Krebs, Rebecca Mossop, Thomas Hoppenheit (C²DH).

17 February 2021

From digitised sources to digital data: Behind the scenes of (critically) enriching a digital heritage collectionResearch seminar with Lorella Viola. 

17 March 2021

Berlin : The Rome of Contemporary History. Research seminar with Hanno Hochmuth (Visiting researcher at C²DH).

21 April 2021

The Coaching in an interdisciplinary research centre. Research seminar with Hervé Muller (C²DH).

19 May 2021

Sound-writing machines and pneumatic gramophones: unearthing histories of use and tacit skills for the DEMA project, Aleksander Kolkowski (C²DH).

24 June 2021

From Kinora to Small-Gauge: An Experimental Media Archaeological Approach to Early-Twentieth Century Home Cinema. Research seminar with Tim van der Heijden (C²DH).

15 September 2021

Laying the foundations of a modern city. Middle-classes/Bourgeoisie and entrepreneurship in early 20th century Esch-sur-Alzette (1900-1940). Research seminar with Suzana Lopes Ferreira Cascao. 

20 October 2021

Intellectual and Material Practices of an Historian in the 20th Century: The Case of Gilbert Trausch. Research seminar with Renée Wagener and Wolfgang Freund.

17 November 2021

A Europeanisation of the Comics Industry: The Franco-Belgian School as a Foundation of a European Cultural Identity through Media in the 1960s. Research seminar with Jessica Burton, PhD candidate at the C²DH.

Winter Online Lecture Series on Europe

The Winter Online Lecture Series on Europe was organised in December 2021 by Elena Danescu - in connection with the courses “History of European integration" and “Economic and social history of Europe after 1945”  from the Master in European Contemporary History, and the course “Democratic transitions in Central and Eastern Europe” from the Bachelor in European Cultures - , with the aim of giving students on these programmes, as well as the wider academic community at the University of Luxembourg, the opportunity to find out about the history and workings of the European institutions in Luxembourg from new and unconventional angles and to discuss some of the milestones in contemporary European history with people who were involved in or witnessed these events. All these two-hours sessions - including a presentation by a speaker, followed by a debate with the audience (and a Q&A session)- that has been opened to the whole academic community of the University of Luxembourg, as well as to the wider public, were streamed on Webex.

13 December 2021

Art in the construction of a European identity – a case study from the Court of Justice of the European Union. Guest lecturer: Dr Sara Afonso Ferreira, Art Historian at the CJEU.

14 December 2021

The European Investment Bank (EIB), an unknown player in the European integration process?”  Guest lecturer: Bruno Rossignol, Head of Programme for Climate and Heritage at the EIB Institute.

14 December 2021

Eastern Europe 30 years after the fall of the Soviet Union: Hopes and disappointments of the democratic transition. Guest lecturer: Dr Andrey Grachev, Senior research fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations within the Russian Academy of Sciences,editorialist for the Novaya Gazeta (Russia) and Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the New Policy Forum.

VIRAL seminar

The VIRAL seminar focuses on online virality, and more broadly on phenomena related to the circulation of born-digital content. When we consider the notions of virality, the spread of information and the dissemination, circulation and sharing of content, the aim is always to understand how physical, sociotechnical, practical and discursive elements come together in different and diverse ways. These elements include signs that are replicated or transformed, technical platforms and infrastructures with varying constraints, social groups that are (re)defined, moderation policies, and also feelings and emotions (fear, humour, empathy, hate, etc.) that prompt the sharing and transformation of content.

14 October 2021

De Barnum à Jay-Z: représentations et pratiques de la viralité au sein des professions de l’influence. Guest lecturerer Camille Alloing and Alexandre Coutant (Université du Québec).


9 November 2021

Mèmes, humour et politiqueGuest lecturerer Albin Wagener (Université Rennes 2) 

16 November 2021

 The evolution of unfriendingGuest lecturerer Nicholas John (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

see also

This section highlights some of the C²DH’s notable achievements and milestones in 2021.
The C²DH shares and promotes the results of its research via a wide range of publications. Its researchers produce scholarly publications aimed at their peers and a specialist readership. These publications provide a detailed description of the research or experiments conducted and the conclusions reached.
In connection with its commitment to public history and knowledge sharing, every year the C²DH