Lecture series in the academic year 2020/21
The Historicity of Democracy Seminar
This seminar is organized within the framework of the HISDEMAB international and collaborative research programme of the Leibniz-Association (ZMO-ZZF-IEG) in collaboration with IFPO and Manouba University.
The objective of this seminar is to explore the theme of the existence and nature of deliberative institutions and practices, as well as possible early democratic impulses in North Africa, the Middle East and the Muslim World from the Middle-Ages to the 19th century. Paying attention to the political, social and anthropological roots of such practices, concepts and institutions also allows for a critical and innovative discussion of processes of transformation, erasure, submission to an external order, reinterpretation, mythification or reinvention they have been the object of in the contexts of modernization, colonization, independence, the Cold War and in general the impact with ideologies and policies of the 20th and early 21st centuries.
Guests in the seminar are invited to discuss, among others, research questions relating to the civic role of guilds, the existence of local instances of deliberation, consensus-building, discussion or collaborative decision, the role of confessional communities in such processes as well as the institutionalization of such practices and its possible limits. Questions relating to the construction of citizenship, the functioning of assemblies and then parliaments, as well as on constitutional processes and their roots will also be addressed in the seminar, just like questions on citizen movements, mobilization methods, opinion formation, forms of negotiation and civic conscience. Guest contributors will address the question of the treatment under colonization and since decolonization of this complex heritage.
The online seminar is free and open to the public upon registration. For registration, please send an email to HISDEMAB@gmail.com
HISDEMAB is an international and collaborative research programme of the Leibniz-Gemeinschaft chaired by Nora Lafi (ZMO, Berlin) in association with IEG (Mainz), ZZF (Potsdam), IFPO Amman and Université de la Manouba (Tunis).
Members of the programme: Nora Lafi, Robin Schmahl, Simon Baumann and Maija Susarina (ZMO Berlin); Frank Bösch and Elisabeth Kimmerle (ZZF Potsdam); Manfred Sing and Marianne Dhenin (IEG Mainz); Falestin Naili and Abdelqader Amer (IFPO Amman); Habib Kazadaghli and Ahlem Hajjaji (Université de la Manouba).
More info on the programme: https://hisdemab.hypotheses.org/
