Feeling the Resistance: Affects in Researching Violence and Feminist Movements
October 22, 2025 | 6.15 p.m. | Campus Westend SH 5.105
The event examines the central role of emotions and affects as political, collective, and historically situated forces that shape feminist mobilizations, experiences of violence, and processes of knowledge production. By focusing on these diverse but intertwined aspects, we invite an interdisciplinary and transnational dialogue on how feelings—such as fear, shame, and numbness—circulate within feminist movements and within research practices dealing with gender-based violence.
How do affects influence the ethics, methodology, and epistemology of feminist scholarship? What does it mean to feel resistance, and how can feelings be understood not only as objects of research but also as forms of knowledge?
These questions will first be addressed in a discussion between Ana Cecilia Gaitán (UNSAM, Buenos Aires, Argentina), Lilian Hümmler, and Stella Schäfer (Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany), whose work deals with emotions and affects in the context of public policy, feminist movements, and gender-based violence. This dialogue, moderated by Mahza Amini (Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany), will be followed by an informal exchange, knowledge sharing, and joint reflection across disciplinary and methodological boundaries.
The event will take place on Wednesday, October 22, 2025, starting at 6:15 p.m. at the Westend Campus in room SH 5.105 and will be held in English.
Writing with the body: practices in Somatic Perfomative Research
October 29, 2025 | 10 p.m. | ATELIER DIASPORA Performaning Arts, Orber Straße 24, 60386 Frankfurt am Main
This workshop introduces the basic principles of Somatic Performative Research, a method for gaining scientific insights through artistic and embodied processes. Researchers are invited—regardless of their artistic background—to engage with somatic and decolonial movement practices in the context of their academic research and written work.
The workshop will be led by Bárbara Luci Carvalho, a theater educator and interdisciplinary artist who focuses on decolonial and migrant perspectives in dance and theater. Please bring a notebook, an object that is significant to your research, and a song, poem, or creative text that reflects your work.
The event will take place on Wednesday, October 29, 2025, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at ATELIER DIASPOARA (Orber Straße 24, Frankfurt am Main) in English.
Ableism critical research, teaching, and writing
November 14, 2025 | 10 p.m. | Campus Westend Cas 1.802
This workshop will critically examine ableism as a systemic form of discrimination against people with “disabilities,” with a specific focus on research in the humanities and social sciences. The aim is to consider how discriminatory structures can be addressed and broken down in these research settings and how this can also be implemented in teaching and writing at the university. The workshop will combine input, guided plenary discussion, and group work, and will be led by Dr. Regina Schidel. She is an academic advisor in the Political Theory and Philosophy department at Goethe University. Her research focuses on “disability” and the marginalization of people with “disabilities” in philosophical debates, among other topics.
The workshop will take place on Friday, November 14, 2025, starting at 10 a.m. in room Cas 1.802 on the Westend Campus in German.
Discourse analysis as an analysis of the reproduction and transformation of orders of un_speakability
January 22, 2026 | 10 p.m. | Campus Westend Cas 1.802
Discourse research is a heterogeneous and interdisciplinary field of research. From a poststructuralist perspective, every discourse analysis project is challenged to redefine the relationship between theories, methods, and objects, to develop an analytical approach, and to validate it.
The workshop provides (prospective) discourse researchers with an orientation in the field of discourse research. In addition, participants develop strategies for relating the object of analysis to the discourse-theoretical perspective and for developing a concrete analytical approach for their own project. The workshop is led by Juno Grenz. She is a research assistant in the Gender Studies Department of the Institute of Education and in the junior research group “Gender 3.0 in Schools” at the European University of Flensburg. Her research focuses on queer theory, education and subjectification theory, anti-feminism, right-wing extremism, discourse analysis, and intersectionality.
Conditions of participation
- Advanced master's students, doctoral candidates, and postdocs in gender studies and education who are conducting or wish to conduct discourse analysis research, or who are interested in learning more about this research perspective, are welcome to participate.
- A basic understanding of poststructuralist and discourse theory perspectives is required.
- If you would like to take advantage of the opportunity to analyze data from your own project together in the workshop, please send a short summary (max. 1 page) and the selected data to juno.grenz (at) uni-flensburg.de by January 5, 2025.
The workshop will take place on Thursday, January 22, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in room Cas 1.801 on the Westend Campus in German.
Politicizing Sexual Violence: Feminist Theories, Discourses, and Practices
February 9-10 | Campus Westend (IG 1.314)
In this workshop, the participants will join Renee Heberle in examining how the feminist understanding of sexual violence has developed since the mid-20th century, with a particular focus on the US context. The following questions, among others, will be analyzed in detail: How have activists in the women's liberation movement politicized sexual violence? What have the paradigms of gender construction and intersectional analysis contributed to our understanding of sexual violence so far? What impact do they have on activism in this area?
The workshop will be led by Renee Heberle, professor of political science and co-director of the Program in Law and Social Thought at the University of Toledo, Ohio.
On the second day, the participants are invited to present aspects of their own research, such as open questions, primary sources, or challenging findings. If you are interested in presenting your work, please send an email to Prof. Renee Heberle (renee.heberle@utoledo.edu) or Lisa Gabriel (gabriel@soz.uni-frankfurt.de) by January 16, 2026.
The workshop will take place on 9 February, 2 pm - 5 pm, and on 10 February, 10 am - 4 pm at Campus Westend (IG 1.314). The workshop will be held in English.
Deutsche Version
