What makes a certain historical narrative transnational? How does the aspiration of transnational approach correlate with the postcolonial perspective? Are we about to experience a revival of national history writing? What aspects, what themes of the Ukrainian past could be particularly productive for integrating the Ukrainian studies into the newly defined global history?
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Andrii Portnov is a Ukrainian and German historian. He graduated from Dnipro and Warsaw Universities, and after research work in Lviv and Kyiv moved in 2012 to Germany. In 2018-2025 he was a Professor of Entangled History of Ukraine at the European University Viadrina. At the moment he is a Fellow at the Centre of Advanced Study Sofia, Associate Member of the Viadrina Centre of Polish and Ukrainian Studies, and Director of PRISMA UKRAINA Research Network Eastern Europe in Berlin. Prof. Portnov is the author of 10 books, among them the award-winning Dnipro: Entangled History of a European City (2022) and a German-Language Introduction into Ukrainian Studies (2025).
An online seminar series, focused on East/Central Europe within the international and transnational academic and cultural context.
In an age when walls are being rebuilt — physically, politically, and epistemically — transnationalism is no longer just a buzzword. It has re-emerged as one of the most pressing cultural and intellectual questions of our time. Brexit, Trump’s return, and the steady rise of nationalist and illiberal movements across Europe and beyond have shaken the very idea of cross-border solidarities. Yet these new nationalisms are themselves transnational phenomena: they feed on circulating narratives, shared symbols, and contagious affects that move across borders and media.
Our seminar series, Reclaiming Transnationalism, revisits the concept as both an analytical framework and a socio-cultural phenomenon. Rather than seeking a comprehensive account of neo-nationalisms, we focus on concrete lines of inquiry: transnational comparisons, cultural and literary production across genres and media, and the symbolic geographies of contested borderlands such as the Donbas or Upper Silesia. We explore how transnationalism emerges in video games, literature, film studies,memory practices, and intellectual life — as method, as critique, and as lived cultural reality.
By centering East-Central and Eastern Europe, we test the promise and limits of transnationalism in regions marked by shifting borders, imperial legacies, migration, and conflict. Together, our speakers will ask: not only what transnationalism is, but what it does.
Zoom link for the seminars (valid for all sessions): LINK
- 20 Nov — Andrii Portnov (Sofia): How to Write a Transnational History of Ukraine
- 27 Nov — Imme Klages (Mainz): Transnational Film History: The Digital Platform Filmexil.de and the Günter Peter Straschek Archive
- 11 Dec — Víctor Navarro-Remesal (Mataró): Regionality, History, and Game Studies
- 15 Jan — Gisèle Sapiro (Paris): What Does Transnationalism Mean? Some Reflections through the Sociology of Intellectuals and of Culture
- 22 Jan — Jasmina Lukić (Vienna): Transnational Turn in Literary Studies
- 29 Jan — Eneken Laanes (Tallinn): Memory and Environment
This seminar series is jointly organised by Natalya Bekhta (Tampere), Stanisław Krawczyk (Wrocław), Jana-Katharina Mende (Halle), Denys Shatalov (Kryvyi Rih/Berlin) and Oleksandr Zabirko (Regensburg) within the framework of the research network “Young Network TransEurope ” based at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
Contact: Natalya Bekhta