ZfL INFO 78/2025: Potential Solidarities
Conference
23 Oct 2025 – 24 Oct 2025
Potential Solidarities. (Popular) Cultural Alliances and Political Engagements with and within East-Central Europe
Venue: University of Potsdam, Am Neuen Palais 10, house 8, room 0.60/0.61, 14469 Potsdam / Einstein Forum, Am Neuen Markt 7, 14467 Potsdam
Organized by Magdalena Marszałek, Tetiana Portnova, Aleksandra Szczepan (all University of Potsdam)
Contact: szczepan@uni-potsdam.de
Research project: Adjustment and Radicalisation
The conference—inspired by the recent concurrent rise of solidarity movements and right-wing populist politicians who reject the ideas of universal solidarity—aims at a critical and multidisciplinary reflection on the forms of solidarity in and with East-Central Europe from the 1980s until now, with a special focus on its (popular) cultural manifestations and formulations. We propose to consider East-Central Europe as a specific laboratory of solidarity that allows us to think about solidarity as a still-valuable critical and political concept. We want to pay attention to East-Central Europe as a burgeoning site of creative forms of social togetherness and inquire how culture, including its popular forms, may be considered a platform for international, intercultural, intergender, interclass, and interethnic alliances.
The conference is part of the research project Adjustment and Radicalisation. Dynamics in Popular Culture(s) in Pre-War Eastern Europe, headed by the ZfL in cooperation with the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO), the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History (ZFF), and the Professorship for Slavic Literature and Cultural Studies (with a focus on Polish Studies) at the University of Potsdam and funded by the Leibniz Collaborative Excellence.
Program
Thursday, 23 Oct 2025
Venue: University of Potsdam, Am Neuen Palais 10, house 8, room 0.60/0.61, 14469 Potsdam
9.00
Opening
9.30
GLOBAL SOLIDARITIES
- Manuela Boatča: Unequal Citizenships: Europe’s East between the EU Solidarity Fund and the Political Economy of Cultural Differences
- Kamila Fiałkowska: Borders of Solidarity: Humanitarian Crisis on the Belarus Border and the Withering of Support for Ukrainian Forced Migrants
11.30
SOLIDARITIES OF PROTEST
- Natalia Moussienko: Art Solidarities: From Art of Maidan to Art of War in Ukraine (2013–2025)
- Volha Davydzik: Grief as Relationality and the Shift from Savior to Survivor in Contemporary Revolutionary Movements
14.30
SOLIDARITIES IN TIMES OF WAR
- Magdalena Marszałek: Writing and Solidarity in Times of War
- Tetiana Portnova: Volunteer Movement in Contemporary Ukraine as a Form of Social Solidarity: Artistic Representations and Attempts of Scientific Research
- Svitlana Pidoprygora: Solidarity with Ukraine in International Comic Projects: From Wartime Testimonies to Superhero Narratives
19.00
Venue: Einstein Forum, Am Neuen Markt 7, 14467 Potsdam
DICTIONARIES OF SOLIDARITY: WRITING IN DARK TIMES
Literary evening with Julia Cimafiejeva and Ostap Slyvynsky
Friday, 24 Oct 2025
Venue: University of Potsdam, Am Neuen Palais 10, house 8, room 0.60/0.61, 14469 Potsdam
9.00
FEMINIST SOLIDARITIES
- Jacek Kołtan: Late Emancipation in Late Modernity: Women’s Protests in Times of Illiberalism
- Joanna Sieracka: Feminism in Poland after Solidarność: Broken Genealogies and Counter-Histories
11.00
POTENTIAL KINSHIPS
- Robert Kusek: An Impossible Comradeship: Central Europe, South Africa, and the Limits of Transcolonial Ecumene
- Thục Linh Nguyễn Vũ: To Care beyond Kin: The Case of the Polish-Vietnamese Hospital in Vinh
- Todd Sekuler: Queer Kinship Objects: A Kin-Aesthetic Ethnography of the Kreatywne Stany Chorobowe Exhibitions
14.30
POTENTIAL HISTORIES THEN AND NOW
- Tadeusz Koczanowicz: Between East and West: Jan Strzelecki’s Socialist Humanism and Polish Revolutionary Traditions
- Aleksandra Szczepan: Living Together: Potential Solidarities in Polish TV (1980–2000)
16.30
ARCHIVES OF SOLIDARITY
Plenary discussion