The Willy Brandt Centre invites you to an author meeting and lecture
Willy Brandt Centre for German and European Studies invites you to events in May: meeting centered around the book “Bitwy o przeszłość. Nauka, polityka, media, edukacja” with the author, prof. Jan M. Piskorski and the lecture by dr. Ansbert Baumann „Gastarbeiterfußball. Fußball und Migrationen in Deutschland”.
The meeting with the author prof. Jan M. Piskorski will take place on May 21, 2024 at 5pm in room 13, W. Brandt Centre (ul. Strażnicza 1-3, Wrocław).
Book description:
Questions about our origin and our destination are asked by man since the dawn of time. Invariably, they exceed cognitive capabilities and as such, the contradictory answers fill some with joy, while others are instilled with fear. A long way separates pride and fear from megalomania, obsession and depression, but individuals and nations alike embark on this journey with remarkable ease, even recklessness, often in the delusional belief of the need to defend themselves. They are heading for the abyss, oblivious to the fact that while on its edge they will be History’s plaything. Although, History herself is mischievious, she does not like to be made fun of, responding with hurricanes of destructive power, provoked, after all, by us. Western culture outside of history does not exist. The historical thinking crisis is therefore, a crisis of our civilization. We have not forgotten our past. We are possessed by it. However, we are moving away from critical history, replacing with memory, not to say wistful remembrance. Texts on the battles for the past, on the borderlands of memory and history, individual stereotypes, myths and national obsessions form the core of this book.
Link to the event on Facebook
Jan M. Piskorski – professor of comparative studies at the University of Szczecin, historian, essayist, sometimes a translator and writer of short stories. Laureate of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences Lifetime Achievement Award. For his book Wygnańcy. Przesiedlenia i uchodźcy w dwudziestowiecznej Europie (PIW 2010) he received the award of the Minister of Science and Higher Education and was nominated for the “Polityka” award for the best historical book of the year and the “Srebrny Kałamarz” literary award. He is the laureate of the West Pomeranian Nobel Prize – awarded to outstanding people of science. In recent years, he has published three volumes of selected works in Belonna: Polska – Niemcy. Blaski i cienie tysiącletniego sąsiedztwa (2017), Pomeranika (2020), Gorzka sól historii. Migracje i transformacje (2021) and together with photographer Timm Stütz a publication Spacer między słowem a obrazem in Szczecin’s Książnica Pomorska (2023)
Next, on May 22, at 16:00 the Laboratory for the History of German and European Sports in collaboration with the Migration Research Laboratory of the Willy Brand Center for German and European Studies invites you to a lecture by dr. Ansbert Baumann “Gastarbeiterfußball. Fußball und Migrationen in Deutschland” („Gastarbeiterfußball. Football and migrations in Germany”). The lecture will be held in German. Link to the event on Facebook
Lecture description:
Football has been formed by migration processes more than any other sport.
It would, however, be an oversimplification to state that football had, and still has, a direct influence on the integration of migrants. During the interview, a historical approach will be taken into account, thanks to which, on the example of economic migrants, who have been coming to the Federal Republic of Germany as so-called “gastarbeiters” since the late 1950s, a point will be illustrated which states that while soccer initially had a rather separating effect, in the long run, it contributed to the process of integration and assimilation of migrants.
Dr Ansbert Baumann – a scientific worker of the Universität Tübingen, Sciences Po Paris and Universität des Saarlandes w Saarbrücken. His scientific interests include the history of Germany and Western Europe in the 20th century, the history of European integration and issues surrounding football and migration processes and the history of the Jews in Germany.
Translated by Kacper Piotrowski (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice.
