"Critical junctures of globalization and the area studies."

Crossroads Asia Lecture by Prof. Dr. Ulf Engel (Uni Leipzig) at ZEF in Bonn

“Critical Junctures of Globalization” is the name of a DFG-funded research training group established at the University of Leipzig in 2006. With an interest in the implications of the so-called spatial turn on the humanities and social sciences we are analyzing how spatial orders are contested and reshaped in those historical spaces, moments and arenas of globalization which we have labeled “critical junctures of globalization”.

After an introduction into the concept of critical junctures of globalization and its place in research on contemporary globalization processes, the spokesperson of this DFG Graduiertenkolleg, Ulf Engel, will discuss the question how “reflexive area studies” may change perspectives on the study of globalization processes.

Ulf Engel is Professor of African Politics at University of Leipzig. He is the editor of New Mediation Practices in African Conflicts (2012) and co-author/editor of Africa’s New Peace and Security Architecture (2010) and Respacing Africa (2009), amongst other books. Since 2011 he has been a member of the AEGIS (Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies, Leiden) Advisory Council. He is also Professor Extraordinary in the Department of Political Science at the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa), a fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) and a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies at Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia). His research interests include the emerging African Union policies on unconstitutional changes of government, Africa’s new peace and security architecture, changing stateness in Africa, and new spatialities of power on Africa.

Time and location: February 6, 2013 at 11 am. ZEF (Bonn), right conference room (ground floor).