Events 2024-25 (Archives)

Previous Events, 2024-25

10–11 December. CONFERENCE - HYBRID EVENT
Anticipatory Governance and Future Aspirations
Christina Garsten, Tor Hernes, Anders Ekström
Join us for an engaging event with two lectures exploring how future thinking and anticipatory
governance help organizations respond to global challenges and shape future scenarios in a rapidly
changing world.

10 December, 09:30-10:30 a.m. LECTURE
Reaching for the Moon? How to Move Distant and Unknown Futures
Tor Hernes, Professor of Organization Theory at Copenhagen Business School (CBS).
Adjunct Professor at University of South-Eastern Norway
ABSTRACT:
We know little about how organizations move towards distant and unknown futures. However, it is
imperative to understand how, for example, actors can work towards CO2-neutral futures, which lie
far beyond their strategic time horizons. The field has relied either on goal- or strategy-driven models
or processes of imagining distant futures on the other. Neither of these seems satisfactory to under-
standing this crucially important conundrum of present-day organizations. I will discuss one way of
addressing the problem, based on a recent paper co-authored with Miriam Feuls and Majken Schultz,
in which I propose the concept of path enactment. Path enactment is a way to understand how future
solutions act as “placeholders” that constitute multiple possible paths towards the future. While enacting
paths of solutions, actors draw upon various mechanisms to select or validate alternative paths. I con-
clude the presentation by suggesting further research.

11 December, 09:30-10:30 a.m. LECTURE
Centres of Temporalization: The Tarfala Experiment
Anders Ekström, Professor of History of Science and Ideas, Uppsala University
ABSTRACT:
This lecture argues for the importance of understanding Anthropocene temporalities from the places of
their making. Drawing on the history of Arctic fieldwork, and its legacy of knowledge in the intersection
of natural and cultural history, the lecture will focus on the Tarfala valley in the high-alpine area of Kebne-
kaise in northern Sweden as a 'centre of temporalization' in the context of rapid Arctic warming. The
lecture also aims to explore the ongoing convergence of temporalities between different scientific fields
in the study of Anthropocene history, and the possibilities it brings for collaborative research in the future.

You can find the programme and full conference description here >> (PDF)

To register for in-person attendance, please contact Ellen Werner at ellen.werner@swedishcollegium.se
and include any dietary preferences. Physical space is limited; however, online participation via Zoom
will be available for those who cannot attend in person.

This event is part of the research project Global Foresight: Anticipatory Governance and the Making
of Geocultural Scenarios, funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.

5 December, 3:00 p.m. GLOBAL HORIZONS CONVERSATION
Grounding Global Governance: Spaces, Scales, and Implications of Asymmetry
Seyram Avle, Christiaan De Beukelaer, Emrah Yıldız
ABSTRACT:
Global governance is often predicated on the applicability of universal ideals, rules and regulations.
The production, implementation and contestation of specific policies and technologies that engender
the ‘global order,’ however, remain unevenly distributed and spatially bound–emblematized in the
taken for granted spatial division between a Global North and a Global South. To explore these
asymmetries and ground global governance, we offer a provocation: 'does global governance exist'?
We present some of the inevitable tensions that arise once we interrogate the promise of universal
ideals in global governance against their asymmetrical implementations across three areas of policy
design and social praxis: economic sanctions, maritime trade, and digital connectivity. Please join the
2024-2025 Global Horizons Fellows as they use these problem spaces to explore the tensions inherent
to the spatial and scalar asymmetries of global governance, and draw out the implications of such thinking
for our contemporary political predicament.
This is an event of the Global Horizons Fellowship Programme.
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Venue: The Green Room Library, 4th floor of Linneanum

3 December, 10:15 a.m. SEMINAR - HYBRID EVENT
Elizabeth Hull, Fellow, SCAS.
Senior Lecturer in Anthropology and Chair of the Food Studies Centre, SOAS University
of London
Food, Commons, and the Politics of Provisioning through Polycrisis in South Africa
Zoom Webinar: https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/65802739142
ABSTRACT:
Criticisms of the agro-industrial food system have spurred demands for alternative practices of
production, distribution and consumption. This lecture explores the concept of the commons, often
idealized as a space free from commodification, and reimagined in South Africa through the philosophy
of Ubuntu, which emphasizes communalism over individualism. Drawing on ethnographic research with
farmers and other food-system workers in northern KwaZulu-Natal, the talk explores the local politics
of food provisioning. It advocates for viewing the commons as dynamic, contested spaces interacting
within the broader political economy.

26 November, 10:15 a.m. SEMINAR
Kateryna Bondar, SCAS-VUIAS Fellow, SCAS.
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University
Digital Citizenship Dynamics: Exploring Ukrainian Youth Perspectives Amidst the
Russian Military Invasion
Zoom Webinar: N/A
ABSTRACT:
This research delves into the evolving landscape of digital citizenship in Ukraine, focusing on the
experiences of Ukrainian youth amidst the ongoing Russian military invasion. It employs a longitudinal
study spanning 2015 to 2024, tracking shifts in youth civic engagement and its interplay with the
broader context of Ukrainian society. Additionally, the research examines the development of digital
citizenship manifestos within the framework of Ukraine's digitalization reforms. Through in-depth
qualitative analysis, this project seeks to illuminate the ways in which Ukrainian youth perceive and
enact their roles as digital citizens in the face of hybrid warfare.

The research examines the historical context of civic engagement in Ukraine since 2014, with a parti-
cular emphasis on the events following Russia's occupation of eastern regions. It highlights instances
of civic courage and resistance demonstrated by protesters in occupied territories. Furthermore, the
study investigates the evolving perceptions of democratization and civic activity within the complex
environment of hybrid warfare, which encompasses both military actions and information warfare.

The second component of the research focuses on the dynamics of digital citizenship in contemporary
Ukraine. It explores the country's significant strides in digitalization in recent years and examines how
these advancements have shaped the understanding and embodiment of digital citizenship among Ukrainian
youth. Through comprehensive qualitative analysis, the study seeks to uncover the unique perspectives
and experiences of young people as they navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by the digital
age in the context of ongoing conflict.

19 November, 10:15 a.m. SEMINAR - HYBRID EVENT
Vito Laterza, SCAS-Nordic Fellow, SCAS.
Associate Professor of Development Studies, University of Agder
Simulating Democracy: Digital Propaganda, Political Agency and Right-wing Populism in the
Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal
Zoom Webinar: https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/65802739142
ABSTRACT:
The 2018 Cambridge Analytica (CA) data scandal remains a key juncture in the contemporary study
of digital campaigning and political propaganda. In the run-up to the 2016 US presidential election, the
now-defunct political consulting firm harvested vast amounts of online data from millions of American
citizens to deploy microtargeted propaganda aimed at bolstering support for Donald Trump (who was
their main client) or suppressing support for Hillary Clinton.

Building on the vast trove of public documents that emerged following the scandal, I will first provide
an overview of CA’s key activities and actors, not only in the US and UK, but also in countries in the
Global South, such as Kenya and Nigeria.

I will then develop a theoretical understanding of the long wave of digital propaganda that has marked
the rise of right-wing populist movements, including Trumpism in the US. I revisit Jacques Ellul’s
classic theorisation of “total” and “sociological” propaganda, and analyse the role played by the com-
puter simulations that CA allegedly developed to make a digital replica of the US electorate and influence
the behaviour of a subset of voters in swing states.

“Simulating democracy” signals not only the distortions of deploying social simulation techniques for
manipulation and covert influence, but also a broader programme of social engineering that transcends
intense moments of electoral campaigning. The long-term goal is to produce durable changes in popular
perceptions of key issues like immigration, gender, sexuality, climate change, and green transition policy
– which ultimately erodes core liberal democratic values and institutions, and consolidates hegemony
over large sectors of society.

12 November, 10:15 a.m. SEMINAR
Seyram Avle, Global Horizons Senior Fellow, SCAS.
Associate Professor of Global Digital Media, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Future Worlds: Chinese Techno Power and African Imaginaries
Zoom Webinar: N/A
ABSTRACT:
Situated within current geopolitics and historical Afro-Sino engagements, this talk will focus on some
of the ways that the logics and discourses of Chinese technological production intersect with African
techno-imaginaries. Specifically, I will map the socio-technical practices that link Africa and China via
the design and uses of AI, computing hardware, and data flows, primarily outside of state and state-
sponsored projects. Through this, I provide evidence for how particular techno-futures are being made,
adapted, and refused by entrepreneurs and citizens ‘on-the-ground’ amid changing geo- and techno-
politics.

5 November, 10:15 a.m. SEMINAR
Mathias Thaler, Fellow, SCAS.
Professor of Political Theory, University of Edinburgh
Repetition in Action: The Problem of Human Agency in the Anthropocene
Zoom Webinar: N/A
ABSTRACT:
One of the most perplexing aspects of life on a climate-changed planet concerns the status of human
action. As Donna Haraway observes, we appear to be stuck between a rock and a hard place: on the
hand, there is the “position that the game is over, it’s too late, there’s no sense trying to make anything
any better” and, on the other side, we encounter “the comic faith in technofixes”. In this paper, my
goal is to investigate how we might overcome this persistent stalemate and recover a type of action that
is properly adjusted to the exigencies of the climate emergency. Building on Sharon Krause’s re-con-
ceptualization of nonsovereign, normatively inflected agency, I shall demonstrate that a critical turn to
Søren Kierkegaard’s discussion of repetition provides valuable resources for precisely such an endeavour.
“Repetition” here means, surprisingly, the complete opposite of business as usual. Rather, Kierkegaard’s
thoughts reveal a mode of acting that allows us to get the world back at the very moment when all seems
lost. Paradoxically, this only becomes an option once an agent forsakes the pretence of control and mastery
over their environment. The paper suggests that this complex notion of agency, and the attendant conception
of existential attunement (via faith, resignation, hope and anxiety), is best suited for navigating the discon-
certing reality of the Anthropocene.

22 October, 10:15 a.m. SEMINAR
Karolina Watroba, Fellow, SCAS.
Honorary Research Fellow, University of Oxford
Weimar Worlds: A New Cultural History of Interwar Germany
Zoom Webinar: N/A
ABSTRACT:
My current project aims to illuminate the hidden cultural diversity of Weimar Germany. This
epoch is conventionally characterized as a period of unprecedented cultural flowering, interrupted
in 1933 by the formation of the Nazi government, but subsequently exported around the world by
numerous illustrious exiles, including Bertolt Brecht, Thomas Mann, Fritz Lang, George Grosz,
and Walter Gropius. Yet Weimar culture was not only exported, but also imported. In the 1920s
and 1930s Germans were assimilating international cultural influences, but this process has not yet
been sufficiently studied, especially where it involved influences from outside of Europe and USA.
Weimar Germany was also a refuge for exiles and a destination for expats from all around the world,
especially Asia. I investigate how these newcomers to Germany co-created Weimar culture, by
analysing texts, authors, and institutions that were widely known and critically acclaimed in the 1920s
and 1930s but have since been largely forgotten: relegated to specialist publications and not included
in mainstream academic or popular accounts of the Weimar years. In my talk, I will share a few
different ways into my corpus, as well as my current thinking on the structure of the resulting book.

17 October, 3:15 p.m. BOOK LAUNCH
Indo-European Interfaces – Integrating Linguistics, Mythology and Archaeology
Book presentation and panel discussion.
Jenny Larsson, Anders Kaliff, Thomas Olander, Peter Jackson Rova
The event will be followed by a reception.
Pre-registration for the reception is required by 10th October 2024 at the latest:
rsvp@swedishcollegium.se
Read more >> (PDF)
The event is organized within the framework of the research programme LAMP – Languages
and Myths of Prehistory, the Centre for Studies in Indo-European Language and Culture at
Stockholm University and the Center for the Human Past, in collaboration with the Swedish
Collegium for Advanced Study.

15 October. SEMINAR *POSTPONED - NEW DATE TBA*
Daniel Lee, Fellow, SCAS.
Reader in Modern History, School of History, Queen Mary University of London
Writing the Story of One Roundup of Jews in the Holocaust: Marseille, January 1943
Zoom Webinar: N/A
ABSTRACT:
My new research project examines the roundup of Jews, criminals, and prostitutes in Marseille in
January 1943 as the key moment of the Holocaust in France. To decentre the July 1942 Vél d’Hiv
roundup of Jews in Paris, and focus instead on Marseille, offers a new way to understand mass
violence during the Holocaust. A micro-historical case study of Marseille considers other sections
of France’s Jewish population which remain invisible when placing a Parisian and Ashkenazic-centric
version of events at the heart of the narrative. Using the life trajectories of lower-ranking Nazis, to
chart how ideas developed in ghettos and killing fields of eastern Europe were transferred and put
into practice in Marseille, exposes the transnational nature of the Nazis’ Final Solution in a place with
which it is seldom associated: the Mediterranean. This project employs archival sources in France,
Germany and Israel, some of which have only recently been declassified.

8 October, 10:15 a.m. SEMINAR - HYBRID EVENT
Yoko Yamazaki, Human Past Senior Fellow, SCAS.
Researcher, Department of Slavic and Baltic Studies, Finnish, Dutch and German,
Stockholm University
Working and Eating Together — Some Aspects of the Life of Early Bronze Age Peoples in
Contacts in Seima-Turbino Transcultural Complex
Zoom Webinar: https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/65802739142
ABSTRACT:
The recent advancements in archaeology and archaeogenomics are elucidating dynamic demographic
movements, or migrations, since the 3rd Mill. BCE, involving Indo-European and Uralic speakers in
West Eurasia. In particular, Northern and Eastern Europe saw the expansion of the Indo-European
associated culture, Corded Ware Culture (ca. 2800 – 2200 BCE). Subsequently, the metallurgy and
trading network called Seima-Turbino Transcultural Complex emerged (ca. 2200/1900 BCE), and
rapidly spread in the wide range including Eastern Europe and Fennoscandia. This is associated to
the Uralic speakers’ expansion.

Thus, Indo-European and West Uralic speaking peoples probably came into contact as the Seima-
Turbino Transcultural Complex grew, engaging in trading and metallurgy labors. This is indicated
by Indo-European loanwords in the Uralic languages at various chronological stages. Even the
genetic evidence can be integrated in this context, too. It is reported that the admixture of Indo-
European ancestries and Siberian ancestry component is found in several individuals from two of
the Seima-Turbino burial sites. The Siberian ancestry is strongly associated to the Uralic speakers.

There is a Balto-Slavic word *talkā ‘a community of workers that was treated with a feast after
work’, which was loaned in West Uralic. The implication of this loanword may tell us some aspects
of their life in contacts, i.e., “eating and working together”. This talk will explore how this loanword
can contribute to piece together the picture of the life of those speakers in contact.

1 October, 10:15 a.m. SEMINAR - HYBRID EVENT
Ümit Kurt, Fellow, SCAS.
Assistant Professor of History and Affiliate, Centre for the Study of Violence,
University of Newcastle, New South Wales
Biographies of Violence: Personhood, Agency and Mass Killing in the Late Ottoman Empire
Zoom Webinar: https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/65802739142
ABSTRACT:
The systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire was planned and
executed by a cadre of individuals. Although in recent decades historians have explored the bio-
graphies of leading figures in the Committee of Union and Progress (the ruling party of the Otto-
man Empire during the First World War, hereafter CUP) and scrutinized their roles in the annihila-
tion of the Christian population of the Ottoman Empire, there is little systematic research on the
motivations of and interactions among those perpetrators. Furthermore, most participants in the
genocide on the local level are still unknown today. To address this gap in the literature, my seminar
will explore the lives and legacies of three genocide perpetrators at the provincial level. The life and
actions of three men provide us with insights that help better understand the dynamics of the politics
of persecution, the bureaucracy of genocide, the identity and mental world of the perpetrators under
CUP leadership, and the manifold facets of genocidal violence. In addition, whereas the mainstream
narrative of Turkish history emphasizes a rupture between the Ottoman Empire and the new republic, 
a careful analysis of the life stories, careers and actions of these perpetrators reveals the intellectual,
ideological and other continuities between the CUP and the republican regime founded in 1923. 

26 September.
Pro Futura Scientia Day
By invitation only.

17 September, 10:15 a.m. SEMINAR - HYBRID EVENT
Linn Holmberg, Pro Futura Scientia Fellow, SCAS.
Associate Professor of History of Ideas, Stockholm University
The Dictionary Craze in Enlightenment Europe, 1665–1789: the Reception and Cultural
Impact of an Information Technology during its ‘Big Break’
Zoom Webinar: https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/65802739142
ABSTRACT:
We live in an era when information technologies develop faster than ever before and worries
about their impact are omnipresent. Among the tech optimists, however, the main lesson
learned from history seems to be that ‘people have always worried’, thus suggesting that
worries always (even now) are exaggerated, misdirected, and conservative. But this assump-
tion can be challenged if delving deep into the historical periods when other information tech-
nologies first got their ‘big break’. 
       In this talk, I will present the results of a five-year research project devoted to the eigh-
teenth-century ‘Dictionary craze’. From the late seventeenth century onwards, alphabetically-
organized reference-works multiplied on European book markets to such a degree that con-
temporaries called it a craze, mania, or epidemic. While some believed that dictionaries would
bring about a revolution in learning, others saw them as a threat to everything that learning
stood for. In hindsight, it is tempting to interpret such expressions of enthusiasm and worry
as exaggerated. But if moving closer to eighteenth-century experiences, it becomes clear that
dictionaries played a very different role in learning and culture during their ‘big break’, compared
to how we see and use them in the twenty-first century.