Max Weber Stiftung - Georgia Branch Office

02/06/2026

Conference Report: The Violent 1990s? Dislocation, Revival and Renewal after State Socialism, 04.03.2026 – 06.03.2026

We would like to share the report of the international conference "The Violent 1990s? Dislocation, Revival and Renewal after State Socialism" which was held in Tbilisi, at our office on March 4-6, 2026.

The conference participants and invited guests discussed different forms of violence, narratives and experiences from the 1990's.
The significant focus of the conference was the descriptions of the dynamics, interactions and representation of violence, non-violence, and peace-making. Of particular interest with the gendered subtexts of violence and nonviolence, alongside the frequent ethnic and racial framing of these narratives.

The report was prepared by Teresa Zeller (Universität zu Köln).

=> Find complete report on H-Soz-Kult paltform in German: https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/fdkn-162402?recno=1&q=&sort=&fq=&total=10931

Copyright (c) 2026 by H-NET, Clio-online and H-Soz-Kult, and the author, all rights reserved. This work may be copied and redistributed for non-commercial, educational purposes, if permission is granted by the author and usage right holders.. For permissions please contact [email protected].

01/06/2026

On 21–22 May, we held another Global History Series event in partnership with the American University of Armenia in Yerevan. The event featured public lectures by Prof. Sebastian Conrad and Prof. Thomas Ertl, alongside an academic workshop.

In his presentation, Professor Sebastian Conrad (Freie Universität Berlin) spoke about his recent book, The Making of a Global Icon: Nefertiti’s Modern Career, and discussed how the images and myths surrounding the ancient Egyptian queen achieved worldwide reach. The narrative centers on the discovery of Nefertiti’s bust in 1912 and its first exhibition in 1924, when her likeness was transformed into a globally recognized icon of universal beauty. Professor Conrad addressed how Nefertiti gained fame in regions as diverse as Germany, Britain, Brazil, Egypt, Bengal, and the United States, becoming popular despite the vastly different aesthetic traditions of these contexts.

In his lecture, "How Beautiful is Mobility? Armenians in the Global Middle Ages," Professor Thomas Ertl (Freie Universität Berlin) explored the growing interest in Armenia within Western medieval studies, situating it within the “global turn” in historiography. By foregrounding Armenian experiences, Professor Ertl discussed both the bright and dark sides of mobility—both past and present.

The public lectures were followed by a closed workshop, "Global History Today: From Premodern to Modern History," where participants had the opportunity to apply insights from the broader field of global history to concrete Master's and PhD projects.

We are also delighted to share news about our visit to the Մատենադարան - Matenadaran (the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts), where we discussed future partnerships and explored unique manuscripts from the ancient Armenian period. We would like to thank the Matenadaran for hosting us and for providing a personalized tour of their collections.

This event was organized by the Max Weber Office, Tbilisi, in cooperation with the Turpanjian Institute of Social Sciences at the American University of Armenia. The Global History Series is funded by the ZEIT Stiftung Bucerius.

20/05/2026

We would like to share information about the upcoming conference:
"Modernisation and Empire in the History of the Caucasus"

Organized by Dr. des. Kai Johann Willms (University of Basel)
󠁯•󠁏󠁏 Support: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF); Voluntary Academic Society Basel (FAG); Research Fund Junior Researchers of the University of Basel; MWNO - Max Weber Netzwerk Osteuropa
󠁯•󠁏󠁏 Assistance: Saskia Heyn, Chanda Nadeem, Micha Steiner

📅 May 26-28, 2026
📍 Basel, Institute for European Global Studies

🔗 Please find full program on our website: https://mwsgeorgia.hypotheses.org/13486

20/05/2026

REMINDER/ Lecture by Dr. Thomas Ertl, titled “How Beautiful is Mobility? Armenians in the Global Middle Ages”, 22 MAY 2026

We would like to remind you that "Global History Series" continues with another lecture by Dr. Thomas Ertl, titled “How Beautiful is Mobility? Armenians in the Global Middle Ages" in Yerevan.

📍 May 22, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm | Yerevan, Akian Art Gallery, PAB

🌐 The lecture is part of the MWF Global History Series and is jointly organized by the Turpanjian Institute of Social Sciences at AUA and the Max Weber Stiftung Georgia Branch Office in cooperation with ZEIT Stiftung Bucerius

The Turpanjian Institute of Social Sciences at AUA and the Max Weber Stiftung Georgia Branch Office are pleased to invite you to a lecture by Dr. Thomas Ertl, titled “How Beautiful is Mobility? Armenians in the Global Middle Ages.”

📍 May 22, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm | Yerevan, Akian Art Gallery, PAB

The talk will examine the interest in Armenia within Western medieval studies, situating it within the “global turn.” It will question the enthusiasm for mobility in global history by contrasting celebratory narratives of far-reaching Armenian trade networks with the lived realities. By foregrounding Armenian experiences, the speaker will discuss both the bright and the dark sides of mobility — back then and today.

▪️ Dr. Thomas Ertl is a professor of the history of the high and late Middle Ages at the Freie Universität Berlin. He is a leading scholar in the global turn of medieval studies, focusing on the social and economic interconnectedness of the pre-modern world.

🌐 The lecture is part of the MWF Global History Series and is jointly organized by the Turpanjian Institute of Social Sciences at AUA and the Max Weber Stiftung Georgia Branch Office in cooperation with ZEIT Stiftung Bucerius.

20/05/2026

TOMORROW!

Join upcoming lecture by Dr. Sebastian Conrad on his recent book "The Making of a Global Icon: Nefertiti’s Modern Career" in Yerevan.

📍 May 21, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm | Yerevan, Akian Art Gallery, PAB

🌐 The lecture is part of the MWF Global History Series and is jointly organized by the Turpanjian Institute of Social Sciences at AUA and the Max Weber Stiftung Georgia Branch Office in cooperation with ZEIT Stiftung Bucerius.

18/05/2026

📢 Call for Applications – Global Caricatures, Cultural Misunderstandings, and the Visual Mediation of the World

Date: October 5-7, 2026

Submission Deadline: June 10, 2026

Organized by Max Weber Foundation – Georgia Branch Office and the Global History of Caricatures Network

The conference explores caricature and visual satire as central media of global interpretation. Moving beyond approaches that treat caricatures merely as illustrations of political opinion, the conference conceptualizes caricature as an epistemic medium that actively shaped social imaginaries, mediated cultural encounters, and generated forms of political and cultural knowledge.

We invite proposals addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:
▪️ Global circulation of caricatures and visual tropes
▪️ Caricature and the mediation of global news
▪️ Cultural misunderstanding and visual translation
▪️ Satire, empire, and colonial visuality
▪️ Caricature in imperial peripheries and semi-peripheries
▪️ Transnational visual repertoires
▪️ Illustrated periodicals and global modernity
▪️ Caricature and nationalism
▪️ Visualizations of the “Other”
▪️ Caricature and multilingual publics
▪️ Visual satire and revolutionary movements
▪️ Comparative histories of satirical journals
▪️ Image transfer between Europe, the Ottoman world, the Caucasus, and colonial contexts
▪️ Caricature and race, class, gender, and religion
▪️ Visual humor and censorship
▪️ Digital humanities approaches to caricature archives
▪️ Theoretical approaches to visual media and social imaginaries

We especially welcome contributions that combine textual and visual analysis, comparative perspectives, or multilingual corpora.

Please submit:
▪️ Abstract (300–500 words)
▪️ Short biographical note (max. 150 words)
▪️ Institutional affiliation
▪️ Contact information

Please indicate in your application whether you need financial support for your participation.

Deadline for submissions is June 10, 2026. Applicants will be informed about our decision and further details on June 15, 2026.
Participants will be notified until the end of May.

✉️ Please send your proposals to [email protected].

🔎 Read the full CfA here: https://mwsgeorgia.hypotheses.org/13425

13/05/2026

We welcome Jonas Löffler, our new fellow at Tbilisi office of the MWNO - Max Weber Netzwerk Osteuropa.

His research focuses on the connections between music and empire, as well as on an interregional and interimperial history of the (South) Caucasus.Jonas Löffler received his doctorate in 2024 from the University of Cologne (Germany) with a thesis on musical change in Tiflis/Tbilisi between 1880 and 1917, which was awarded the 2025 Fritz Theodor Epstein Prize by the German Association of Historians of Eastern Europe (VOH).
Prior to that, he studied musicology at the universities of Basel, Oxford, and Cologne, and classical guitar performance at the Basel University of Music. He received support through numerous scholarships, including the doctoral scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation and the Clarendon Scholarship from the University of Oxford.

🎵We are happy to mention that he is the organizer of the upcoming conference "Confronting Musical Diversity in Western and Central Eurasian Empires during the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries" which will take place in Tbilisi in September, 2026.

🤩Our team wishes him an interesting and productive time in Tbilisi!

See more about Jonas Löffler's biography and research: https://mwsgeorgia.hypotheses.org/jonas-loffler

11/05/2026

📢 Call for Applications – Masterclass with Johannes Paulmann:
"Global Histories of Knowledge: Practices and Concepts from the 18th Century to the Present Day"

Submission Deadline: June 10, 2026

Dear Friends and Colleagues,
We are delighted to invite you to the final event of our "Global History Series".

We invite young researchers from the South Caucasus – master’s students, PhD and early PostDoc – to join a masterclass with Prof. Dr. Johannes Paulmann to discuss the most recent scholarship at the intersection of global history and histories of knowledge from the 18th Century to the Present Day.

▪️ Johannes Paulmann is a distinguished historian serving as the Director of the Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) and Professor of Modern History at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. He is widely recognized as a leading scholar in the fields of European, International and German history in a transnational perspective, known for his research on the histories of cross-cultural diplomacy, the negotiation of differences in modern Europe and the evolution of global humanitarian aid.

To apply for this class, please send a short motivational letter of approximately 400 words to [email protected] until 10 June, 2026. Please detail your background and current field of study and what you would like to present or discuss at the workshop.

💡This will be the final Workshop of the Global History Series of the Max Weber Office, Tbilisi, and ZEIT Stiftung Bucerius. It builds on previous classes held in Yerevan and Tbilisi.

🔎 Read the full CfA here:https://mwsgeorgia.hypotheses.org/files/2026/05/Announcement_Workshop-with-Johannes-Paulmann_3-July-2026.pdf

08/05/2026

The Turpanjian Institute of Social Sciences at AUA and the Max Weber Stiftung Georgia Branch Office are pleased to invite you to a lecture by Dr. Thomas Ertl, titled “How Beautiful is Mobility? Armenians in the Global Middle Ages.”

📍 May 22, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm | Yerevan, Akian Art Gallery, PAB

The talk will examine the interest in Armenia within Western medieval studies, situating it within the “global turn.” It will question the enthusiasm for mobility in global history by contrasting celebratory narratives of far-reaching Armenian trade networks with the lived realities. By foregrounding Armenian experiences, the speaker will discuss both the bright and the dark sides of mobility — back then and today.

▪️ Dr. Thomas Ertl is a professor of the history of the high and late Middle Ages at the Freie Universität Berlin. He is a leading scholar in the global turn of medieval studies, focusing on the social and economic interconnectedness of the pre-modern world.

🌐 The lecture is part of the MWF Global History Series and is jointly organized by the Turpanjian Institute of Social Sciences at AUA and the Max Weber Stiftung Georgia Branch Office in cooperation with ZEIT Stiftung Bucerius.

08/05/2026

The Turpanjian Institute of Social Sciences at American University of Armenia and the Max Weber Stiftung Georgia Branch Office are pleased to invite you to a lecture by Dr. Sebastian Conrad on his recent book, The Making of a Global Icon: Nefertiti’s Modern Career.

📍 May 21, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm | Yerevan, Akian Art Gallery, PAB

The characteristic image of Nefertiti, the ancient Egyptian queen, is known all over the world. Discovered in 1912 and first exhibited in 1924, her bust has turned into an icon of universal beauty that is globally recognized. How did this transformation happen, from ancient queen to modern beauty standard? How can we explain her worldwide resonance in places like Germany and Britain, Brazil and Egypt, Bengal and the United States — places with vastly different aesthetic traditions? So far, Nefertiti’s true planetary career has not yet been explored.

This presentation addresses the worldwide reach of her fame for the first time. This is a story of struggles over legal ownership and restitution; it is also a story about competing beauty standards in a globalizing world. But it is more: Claiming Nefertiti was about making claims on modernity. Understanding Nefertiti’s global fame, from German Egyptologists to Michael Jackson and Beyoncé, tells us much about the changing patterns of cultural globalization, from the era of high imperialism to the neo-liberal global age.

▪️ Dr. Sebastian Conrad is a prominent historian holding the Chair of Modern History at the Freie Universität Berlin. He is widely considered one of the leading figures in the field of global history, known for systematizing its methodology and expanding its scope to include intellectual and social dimensions.

🌐 The lecture is part of the MWF Global History Series and is jointly organized by the Turpanjian Institute of Social Sciences at AUA and the Max Weber Stiftung Georgia Branch Office in cooperation with ZEIT Stiftung Bucerius.