News
Enemy Encounters in East Asia (Webinar)
Please find the program of the Enemy Encounters in East Asia webinar series for the first semester of the 2026-2027 academic year. The webinar is organized as part of the Research Training Group (RTG) Ambivalent Enmity: Dynamics of Antagonism in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, hosted by Heidelberg University and the Heidelberg University of Jewish Studies. This webinar invites speakers from across different academic disciplines, who deal with antagonisms and processes of enemization in their research. Contributing speakers are encouraged to discuss the enmities and associated ambivalences as they have historically manifested in the concrete conflicts they are studying. The research presented considers both states and non-state actors like religious and political movements. The webinar also includes research which looks at antagonisms within societies, such as those revolving around gender differences and class conflicts. The webinar encourages speakers to elaborate on how enmity and processes of enemization took shape, evolved over time and influenced identities, perceptions of self and others, as well as comportment and state policies.
Research Colloquium: RTG 2840 "Ambivalent Enmity", Winter Semester 2026/2027
The Research Training Group RTG 2840, “Ambivalent Enmity: Dynamics of Antagonism in Asia, Europe and the Middle East”, cordially invites you to its interdisciplinary research colloquium for the winter semester 2026/2027. Spread across twelve thought-provoking sessions, international scholars will explore how enmity is shaped by paradox, proximity, and shifting power relations.
Fireside Chat: Lisa Zhang: Policy-Relevant China Studies: Doing Think-Tank Analysis
This Fireside Chat invites participants to discuss the policy-relevant aspects of China studies with Lisa Zhang. Her research focuses on Chinese studies with a particular interest in modern China and philosophy. She recently successfully defended her dissertation on Indian philosophy in modern China at the University of Heidelberg. Through this conversation, guests can gain insight into Zhang's work on China's climate, environmental, and foreign policy in an international context. The Fireside Chat aims to provide insight into the methodological and scholarly research field of politics and policies in conflict-affected settings. It also examines how these relations shape the research field, highlighting the broader international implications and significance of policy studies.
Mercator Fellow Workshop: Positioning, Identification and Critical Self-Reflection in the Study of Enmity
This workshop explores the methodological, scholarly, and personal challenges of conducting research in conflict-affected settings, with a focus on researcher positioning, positionality, and relationships with research subjects. It also examines how these dynamics shape the research process and considers their broader implications for the role and significance of academic research.
Workshop: Internal Enemies and the State in the Interwar period
In the wake of the first socialist revolution and the post-WWI crisis of empire, the interwar period witnessed particularly high levels of distrust in the population’s loyalty and manageability. Both new nationalizing states in Europe and colonial regimes in other parts of the world felt threatened by a variety of population groups, whether defined by ethnicity, social class, confession, political orientation, or sexuality. In this workshop, we will discuss a variety of case studies - ranging from Central and Eastern Europe to the Middle East and East Asia - of how interwar states policed, prosecuted, and managed groups framed as hostile elements or even existential threats. We will discuss how different states marked and monitored internal enemies, how they securitized political, social, and moral questions, and how they excluded certain population groups from the body politic while co-opting others. A special focus will be on the ambivalences inherent to hostile relations between states and their populations as well as on global entanglements and divergences between different regimes of governance. The workshop will conclude with a keynote lecture by Prof. David Petruccelli on his new book A Scourge of Humanity: The Origins of Interpol and the End of Empire in Central and Eastern Europe.
