The following events will take place as part of the festival:
Monday, November 10, 2025, 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.: Performance lecture at the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art by Phoebe Boswell (London). Topic: We Are Memory and Earth and Freedom and Hope (in English)
Tuesday, November 11, 2025, 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.: Lecture at the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art by Eva Fodor (Vienna). Topic: Gender Justice under Soft Authoritarianism (in English)
Wednesday, November 12, 2025, 6:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.: Panel discussion and reception at the House of Science. Topic: 10 Years of Worlds of Contradiction: On the Topicality of Contradiction with Onur Erdur (Berlin, WOC visiting professor 2025), Stephan Lessenich (Frankfurt), and Rozena Maart (Durban), moderated by Ehler Voss (WOC) (in German). Please register at wocprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de
Thursday, November 13, 2025, 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.: Book discussion at the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art. Onur Erdur (Berlin, WOC visiting professor 2025) in conversation with Karen Struve and Ehler Voss (Bremen) about his book "Schule des Südens: Die kolonialen Wurzeln der französischen Theorie" (School of the South: The Colonial Roots of French Theory) (Matthes und Seitz 2024) (in German)
Friday, November 14, 2025, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.: Early-Career Networking Workshop at the House of Science. Topic: Contradiction Studies: Relevance, Adaptations, and Perspectives (in German). Please register at wocprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de
Friday, November 14, 2025, 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.: Panel discussion at the House of Science. Topic: How Contradictory Is Solidarity? With this year's winner of the Bremen Solidarity Award, Meseret Hadush (founder of the aid organization Hiwyet (Healing) in Tigray, Ethiopia), the members of the Board of Trustees of the Bremen Solidarity Award, Ernesto Harder (Bremen), Shalini Randeria (Vienna), Bernd Schleich (Bremen), and Ranabir Samaddar (Calcutta). Moderator: Alisha M.B. Heinemann (WOC) (in German)
Admission is free for all events.
WOC is organizing the festival in cooperation with the Bremen DFG Research Training Group 2686 Contradiction Studies; the Berlin DFG Research Training Group 2638 Normativity, Critique, Change; the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS); the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research (IfS); and the Bremen Senate Chancellery.
About WOC
Worlds of Contradiction (WOC) is an interdisciplinary and collaborative research platform. Its goals include developing and conducting research projects, promoting early-career researchers, and transferring knowledge. With Contradiction Studies, WOC has developed its own research paradigm: Researchers examine concepts of contradiction in a series of different research projects. The aim is to go beyond the normative idea that contradictions must be resolved. Instead, WOC pursues an empirical approach to investigating the social and cultural productivity of contradictions. Among other things, WOC explores how and for what purpose contradictions are used, staged, and strategically addressed.
WOC is supported by five faculties at the University of Bremen: Law, Social Sciences, Cultural Studies, Linguistics and Literary Studies, Pedagogy and Educational Sciences.
WOC regularly welcomes international visiting professors, including as part of the WOC Contradictions Festival: In November, Onur Erdur will be in Bremen as a 2025 WOC Visiting Professor. The historian and cultural scientist is currently a fellow in the “Applied Humanities” DFG Research Unit at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Onur Erdur is investigating questions of global intellectual history, with an area of focus on colonialism and migration. In 2024, he published his highly acclaimed book “Schule des Südens. Die kolonialen Wurzeln der französischen Theorie” (School of the South: The Colonial Roots of French Theory), which appeared on several non-fiction bestseller lists, including the “‘hotlist’ of the 10 most popular books from independent publishers. He will present this book at the WOC Contradictions Festival on November 13.
Further Information:
https://www.woc.uni-bremen.de/projects/10-jahre-woc-contradictions-festival/
Contact:
PD Dr. Ehler Voss
Director
Worlds of Contradiction (WOC)
University of Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-68499
Email: ehler.vossprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de
