Research Centre Ukraine / Max Weber Foundation

“Hospitable Sea, Hostile Shores? Disentangling Histories of Connections and Conflicts in the Black Sea Region”

In this third workshop in the series, dedicated to rethinking areas of the Black Sea Region, we looked closer into primary sources from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century, discussing how personal stories, visual materials, and archival traces can help rethink established narratives about the Black Sea and Eastern Europe more broadly and exploring the region as a place of entanglements that enabled close contact between vastly different societies and cultures.

The workshop was held at our sister institution, the Orient-Institut Istanbul Max Weber Foundation on May 14, and was jointly co-organised by:

Research Centre Ukraine / Max Weber Foundation (Lviv, Ukraine)
Центр міської історії / Center for Urban History (Lviv, Ukraine)
Orient-Institut Istanbul / Max Weber Foundation (Istanbul, Turkey)
Center for Russian, Caucasian, Eastern European, and Central Asian Studies Cercec (Paris, France)
Center for Governance and Culture in Europe, University of St. Gallen (St. Gallen, Switzerland)

This workshop series is a part of the ongoing programs of the two institutions:
"Rethinking Areas: Black Sea Region" research area at the Research Centre Ukraine / Max Weber Foundation, funded by the Bundesministerium für Forschung, Technologie und Raumfahrt

"REESOURCES: Rethinking Eastern Europe" educational platform of the Center for Urban History, in particular, the project "Digital Resources for Teaching the Black Sea Region" supported by the Center for Governance and Culture in Europe at the University of St. Gallen.

Max Weber Stiftung

How can we rethink Eastern European history through the perspective of the Black Sea region, its archives, and its sources?

Last week in Bucharest, our workshop “Black Sea Region in War and Under Occupation: Diversifying Sources for Teaching and Research,” held at the Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania, gathered scholars from across Europe to think about these questions.

The discussions explored the potential of lesser-known, censored, and marginalized sources - especially visual materials and ego-documents - for researching the history and social realities of the Black Sea region during war and occupation. These perspectives help reveal everyday experiences, personal trajectories, emotions, decision-making processes, and new ways of understanding the past of the region.

The workshop is a part of the ongoing programs of the two institutions:

"REESOURCES: Rethinking Eastern Europe" educational platform of the Центр міської історії / Center for Urban History, supported by the Center for Governance and Culture in Europe at the University of St. Gallen.

"Rethinking Areas: Black Sea Region" research area at the Research Centre Ukraine / Max Weber Foundation

Co-organised in partnership with:
Institutul National pentru Studierea Holocaustului din Romania Elie Wiesel
Центр «Кримські cтудії» Києво-Могилянської академії

Max Weber Stiftung

How do we write a history of places shaped by many layers, voices, and lived experiences?

We discussed this last week in Lviv with the editor of the anthology "Lviv: A City of Many Sides", Jagoda Wierzejska (University of Warsaw). The volume brings together a carefully selected set of primary sources drawn from diverse, often conflicting perspectives, communities, and collective experiences, shedding light on the events of 1918–1919 in Lviv and Eastern Galicia.

Co-organizers:
Центр міської історії / Center for Urban History
Documenting Ukraine / IWM - Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen
Research Centre Ukraine / Max Weber Foundation

The event is part of the “Sources” research module at the Research Centre Ukraine / Max Weber Foundation

Max Weber Stiftung

Reading in Times of AI: What lies ahead?

Last week in Lviv, we reflected on how practices of reading are changing in the age of artificial intelligence and what this transformation means for the present and future of the humanities.

We are grateful to our speakers and moderators Klaus Benesch (Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich), Yaroslav Prytula (Ukrainian Catholic University), Daria Badior (Re/visions journal), and Natalie Nougayrède (Re/visions journal) for a rich and thought-provoking conversation.

The event was co-organised with Re/visions Journal and the Центр міської історії / Center for Urban History

Max Weber Stiftung

CfA: Summer School “Diversity and Marginality in the Black Sea Region”

We warmly invite applications for the international summer school “Diversity and Marginality in the Black Sea Region” and look forward to receiving your applications!

Dates: July 12–19, 2026
Location: Chișinău, Moldova
Application deadline: April 1, 2026

The summer school invites postgraduate students, early-career scholars, and practitioners to engage with the analytical frameworks of diversity and marginality as tools for interpreting and rethinking the Black Sea region as a historically constructed and repeatedly reimagined space shaped by interconnected social, cultural, economic, and political transformations.

Focusing on the transformations experienced by the region’s communities from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, ranging from political transitions between empires and nation-states to profound demographic and social changes. The program explores how individuals and groups navigated societal structures through resistance, cooperation, cooptation, and adaptation, the program aims to provide tools and methods for a comprehensive analysis of these processes informed by perspectives from history, cultural studies, and social sciences.

The format of the program combines lectures, research seminars, discussions, and study visits, and brings together leading experts on the Black Sea region.

Participation in the summer school is free of charge. The organisers will provide accommodation, lunches, and refreshments, and will offer travel grants to selected participants.

Application should include the following documents:
– Academic CV (max. 3 pages)
– Description of a research, educational or cultural project related to the Black Sea region’s countries, topics of marginality and diversity (max. 500 words)
– Motivation letter (max. 500 words)

Please send your application as a single PDF file to: [email protected] by April 1, 2026. Please note that all application documents must be in English.

Full details are available via the link:
https://www.maxweberstiftung.de/en/newsfeed/calls-and-vacancies/single-news-calls/call-for-applications-summer-school-diversity-and-marginality-in-the-black-sea-region-research-centre-ukraine.html

Organizers:
Center for the Interethnic Relations Research in Eastern Europe, Kharkiv, Ukraine/ Центр дослідження міжетнічних відносин Східної Європи
Center for Governance and Culture in Europe, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland,
Research Centre Ukraine / Max Weber Foundation, Lviv, Ukraine
National Historical and Memorial Reserve Babyn Yar, Ukraine

Max Weber Stiftung Ira Klymenko

Reading in Times of AI: What lies ahead? A conversation with Klaus Benesch, Yaroslav Prytula, Daria Badior and Natalie Nougayrède

16 March, 2026, 18:30
Venue: Lviv, 79005. Akademika Bohomol'tsya St, 6. Conference Room - first floor.

Organisers: Research Centre Ukraine / Max Weber Foundation, Re/visions Journal, Центр міської історії / Center for Urban History

A lot is being written these days about the decline of reading and the deterioration of reading comprehension skills. However, this is a good time to reflect on what we actually mean by reading itself. Is it only reading from paper, and therefore, reading books? Can scrolling be considered a new practice of reading? Are listening to audiobooks, podcasts, and texts read by AI also forms of reading?

Essayists and intellectuals are trying to analyze why the number of regular book readers is steadily decreasing. Yet, depending on how we define reading, the number of readers and the hours spent reading may vary.

In this moment of uncertainty, we can look to the past and consider how technology has radically changed practices of storytelling and perception: from the invention of the printing press to the invention of sound and video recording; from radio and television to the personal computer and smartphone. With the rapid integration of artificial intelligence into our daily routines, as well as our private and professional lives, we are once again re-evaluating our practices and concepts of reading.

Is what we are witnessing a decline? And is the development of artificial intelligence and large language models to blame? How are we affected by social media algorithms and the flickering of screens that we are constantly surrounded by? Ultimately, what is the future of the written word and of reading, which has already weathered more than one crisis?

We will discuss this with Klaus Benesch, Professor of American Studies at the University of Munich, author of the book The Myth of Reading, and Yaroslav Prytula, Founding Dean of the Faculty of Applied Sciences at the Ukrainian Catholic University. The conversation will be moderated by editors of the re/visions journal, Daria Badior and Natalie Nougayrède. .

Participants:

- Klaus Benesch is professor of English and American Studies at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich. His research interests include American literary and cultural history; architecture, urbanism, and the history of technology; mass media and cultural theory.
His 2021 book The Myth of Reading: Book Culture and the Humanities in the Information Age examines the impact of technological shifts on reading.
He is director of the Bavarian American Academy. He was a 2004 Mellon Fellow at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas, and has taught at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) and Weber State University (Utah). He is a member of the editorial board of the Encyclopedia of American Studies Online, published by the Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Yaroslav Prytula is a Senior Vice-Rector at the Ukrainian Catholic University. He has a doctorate in mathematical analysis. As a researcher, he is involved in econometric modeling and prognosis and is an expert in micro- and macroeconomics.
He is founding dean of the Applied Sciences Faculty of Ukrainian Catholic University (2016) and professor of quantitative methods for making business decisions and economics at the UCU Business School.
His current research is connected with quantitative methods in the social sciences, socio-economic regional development in Ukraine, and also corruption and informal practices in business and higher education. He is the author of numerous publications in economics in international and Ukrainian publications.
- Daria Badior is a critic, editor, and film curator based in Kyiv. For several years, she was the head of the Culture section at the Ukrainian online outlet LB.ua. Since 2021, Daria has edited a series of publications on the commemoration of 1941, the reconstruction of Ukraine during and after the current war, and has published articles in Der Tagesspiegel, The Independent, Hyperallergic, Osteuropa, Dwutygodnik, and others. She is a member of the Preparatory Committee of the European Press Prize. She co-curates the Kyiv Critics' Week film festival. Daria co-edited the 2024 book We Who Have Changed.
- Natalie Nougayrede is a journalist, former editor-in-chief of Le Monde and member of The Guardian's editorial board from 2015 to 2020. She covered post-1989 transitions in Central Europe, including in Ukraine. She was Le Monde's bureau chief in Moscow (2001-2005) and its diplomatic correspondent (2006-2012). Natalie was awarded the Albert Londres journalism prize for her coverage of Russia’s war against Ichkeria. She supports media and civil society initiatives in the “Eastern Partnership” region.

Illustration: Nika Aheyeva

Max Weber Stiftung Ira Klymenko Sofia Dyak