This weekly digest is a collection of news, upcoming events and other opportunities from the Faculty of Social Sciences, Lund University and the wider area, compiled for Graduate School students.
In this week’s digest:
- Bodies of Work: Theorising Embodiment in Black Artistic Practices in Denmark, 1980s-2020s
- The New Geography of Danger – Japan’s Shifting Global Security Role and Relations with NATO
- KOM Seminar Series: Assoc. Prof. Fredrik Miegel
- PhD defence in Political Science: Malte Breiding
- CMES Seminar: Book launch of The Republic of Turkey and Its Unresolved Issues – 100 Years and Beyond.
- Internship Opportunity for Spring 2026: Operation 1325
- Internship Opportunity for Spring 2026: Svalorna Latinamerika
Bodies of Work: Theorising Embodiment in Black Artistic Practices in Denmark, 1980s-2020s
Seminar
Contemporary black visual artists have a rich record of working in Denmark. But while their work has been treated as topical, it is rarely approached as historical, producing significant gaps in knowledge about these artworks beyond their immediate contexts of creation.
This presentation will construct a genealogy of embodied practices as diverse as Maria Thastum’s digital self-portraiture in the 1980s, Michelle Eistrup’s endurance-based disruptions in the 1990s, Ellen Nyman’s mediatized happenings in the 2000s, Jeannette Ehlers’ collective figurations in the 2010s, and Jupiter Child’s audience activations in the 2020s. It does so to explore the effects of approaching black artists working in Denmark as a collective, but internally differentiated, group in contemporary art history, thus contributing to emerging discussions about the historicization and interpretation of black cultural production in Denmark and, more broadly, the Nordic region.
Nina Cramer is a PhD candidate at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Arts and Cultural Studies where her research explores artistic practices and discourses of the African diaspora in Denmark from the 1980s to the 2020s. Alongside Mai Takawira, she co-founded G/HOSTING, a curatorial platform that promotes critical and reparative approaches to ongoing colonial histories. She has also co-edited several publications, including Black Monument (forthcoming, 2025), Et ulydigt arkiv: Udvalgte tekster af Sara Ahmed (2020), and special issues of the art historical journal Periskop on “Blackness” (2021) and “Faroese Art History Today” (2024).
Date and time: 12 November 2025 13:15 to 15:00
Location: Gamla lungkliniken (House G), Room 335
For more information, visit this page
The New Geography of Danger – Japan’s Shifting Global Security Role and Relations with NATO
Lecture
NATO states and Japan share much in common, including core values of democracy, rule of law, human rights, and free markets. They also share a mutual security provider in the United States. Yet despite many common interests across economic, political, and security domains, relations remained strikingly undeveloped for most of the post-WWII era. This gradually changed in the early 2000s following 9/11, and again in the 2010s with the emergence of a more expansionist China. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, NATO-Japan relations have been dramatically upgraded. In this talk, I will discuss how the evolution of NATO-Japan cooperation has been principally driven by their respective security scopes and the idea of a shifting ‘geography of danger’. As NATO and Japan expand their scopes globally to incorporate such issues cyber and supply chains, security interests align and cooperation is spirited. In systematically tracing this transformation over the post-Cold-War period, I illustrate the past and present interlinkages between the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic and offer insight into the future course of NATO-Japan relations amidst what former NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg has termed the geography of danger.
Dr. Wrenn Yennie Lindgren is a Senior Research Fellow and Head of Center for Asian Research at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), as well as an Associate Research Fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI). Her research focuses on international relations in East Asia and the Indo-Pacific, foreign policy legitimation, the politics and foreign policy of Japan, traditional and non-traditional security issues and Asia-Arctic diplomacy. Wrenn’s peer-reviewed work has appeared in, inter alia, The Pacific Review, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Japanese Journal of Political Science, International Quarterly for Asia Studies, Asian Perspective, Asian Politics & Policy, Polar Geography, and Journal of Eurasian Studies. She co-edited the volume ‘China and Nordic Diplomacy’ (Routledge, 2018) and contributed chapters on Japan to the volume Kinship in International Relations (Routledge, 2018) and The Routledge Handbook of Arctic Security (Routledge, 2020).
Date and time: 12 November 2025 15:15 to 17:00
Location: Asia Library, Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Sölvegatan 18 B, Lund
For more information, visit this page
KOM Seminar Series: Assoc. Prof. Fredrik Miegel
Seminar
The KOM-seminar is organized by the subjects of Media History, Media and Communication Studies, Rhetoric and Journalism and funded by the HT faculties together with the Social science faculty. It is a lively, interdisciplinary seminar series where researchers in different fields explore issues around communication and media and share ongoing projects, manuscripts, and research ideas in progress. It is an open, informal space with low thresholds – everyone is welcome.
Fredrik Miegel is Associate Professor at Department of Communication LU. Departing from a few key texts, Fredrik will present and discuss with us how classical works in sociology are still useful in understanding recent developments in our digital media society.
Date and time: 12 November 2025 13:00 to 15:00
Location: SOL:A158c Finngatan 1, 223 62 Lund
For more information, visit this page
PhD defence in Political Science: Malte Breiding
PhD Defence
Malte Breiding has written a thesis entitled: European Sexual Dis/Integration: An Agonistic Paradox of Legitimacy in a Contested Union
Abstract:
This dissertation examines how the legitimacy of the European Union’s (EU) support for LGBTIQ equality should be assessed and asserted amid the far right’s promotion of a rival vision for European cooperation rooted in anti-gender politics. Drawing on agonistic and queer theory, the EU’s support for LGBTIQ equality is conceptualised as an effort to forge a European pro-LGBTIQ consensus, termed sexual integration. Sexual integration faces a paradox: when support for LGBTIQ equality is legitimised as an expression of the EU’s true nature, the far right responds by seeking to redefine what the Union is and should be. Sexual integration may thus function as a ‘constraining consensus’, entrenching polarisation between rival conceptions of the Union’s nature. The legitimacy of sexual integration is therefore ‘im-possible’: possible insofar as it rests on a dominant LGBTIQ-friendly conception of the Union, yet impossible because the EU can always be imagined otherwise. The dissertation addresses this paradox in three steps. First, Richard Bellamy’s and Kalypso Nicolaïdis’ normative political theories on the EU are deconstructed, showing the limits of grounding legitimacy in contested conceptions of the Union. Second, an agonistic conception of European sexual citizenship and an analytical framework termed Global Queer Agonism are proposed to capture the contested nature of the EU’s support for LGBTIQ equality. Third, these tools are applied through discourse analysis, demonstrating how the EU’s legitimation of sexual integration shapes far-right efforts to advance a rival anti-gender EU conception in internal and external relations. To unsettle this state of polarisation, a post-foundational conception of the EU as ‘transitive’ and ‘vulnerable’ is proposed, affirming support for LGBTIQ equality while acknowledging the Union’s contested nature. The dissertation argues, first, that normative political theory on the EU should assess the legitimacy of sexual integration by attending to the polarising effects of forging consensus on the EU’s nature, while reconceiving how an LGBTIQ-friendly Union can be understood, justified, and pursued in ways that disturb such political divides; and, second, that the EU should assert the legitimacy of its support for LGBTIQ equality by affirming liveable lives for all across the pro-LGBTIQ and anti-gender divide, rather than seeking to master the Union’s nature beyond contestation.
Date and time: 13 November 2025 13:00
Location: Edens auditorium, Allhelgona kyrkogata 14, Lund
For more information, visit this page
CMES Seminar: Book launch of The Republic of Turkey and Its Unresolved Issues – 100 Years and Beyond.
Seminar
This open access book explores the Republic of Turkey’s unresolved issues that have persisted over the past 101 years. It adopts an interdisciplinary perspective to explore the challenges facing the country to critically analyse the broader historical, political, economic, social and psychological dimensions that intersect with these challenges. It offers a rich and nuanced understanding of Turkey’s complex history and contemporary issues, covering topics that have often been undermined or silenced, including but not limited to the Armenian and Dersim genocides, xeno-racism, feminist approaches to sexual morality, queer resistances, environmental movements, and the right to the city. — read more here.
Programme & Participants:
Prof. Emerita Jenny White (Stockholm University)
Discussant
Dr. Nisan Alıcı (University of Derby)
Panelist and author of the chapter: “Confronting the Shadows: Transitional Justice and the Armenian Genocide in Turkey”
Assoc. Prof. Pınar Dinç (Lund University)
Co-editor and author of the chapter: “Dersim: A Century of State-Led Destruction and Resistance”
Assoc. Prof. Olga Selin Hünler (Acibadem University)
Co-editor and author of the chapter: “Higher Education Reforms: A Century of State Interventions in Turkish Higher Education”, will be joining online.
Date and time: 13 November 2025 13:15 to 14:30
Location: CMES seminar room, Finngatan 16
For more information, visit this page
Internship Opportnunity for Spring 2026: Operation 1325
Internship
Operation 1325 works to promote women’s influence in security policy and peace processes in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1325. It is an umbrella organization with Swedish women’s and peace organizations as members. Operation 1325 works on mutual capacity development together with women’s and peace organizations in conflict countries, especially in the Middle East and North Africa. They currently have ongoing projects in Palestine, Sudan and Yemen and work with peace and security actors to develop and improve methods for the implementation of Resolution 1325. Operation 1325 conducts advocacy work towards Sweden, the EU and the UN to ensure that women’s perspectives on security permeate all peacebuilding work.
Internship Details:
Each semester, students intern at Operation 1325. As Operation 1325 is a small team, the office and board work closely together to make a significant difference for women, peace and security. This means that the role of an intern is fluid and can involve many different tasks where no day is the same.
Every week, the office has a weekly and work meeting where we go through the assigned tasks for the week. In addition, as an intern, you have a supervisor and together you set goals and tasks for your internship period and have regular reconciliations. In between, it is important that you are independent, take responsibility and drive your own work forward. Since the office is small, the intern always has a supervisor close at hand for guidance and support.
As an intern with us, you will gain a unique insight into how Operation 1325 works for the women, peace and security agenda, as well as good practical experience of what it is like to work at a civil society organization. Doing an internship with us is challenging, developing and fun!
Application Deadline: 16 November 2025
For more information, visit this page
Internship Opportnunity for Spring 2026: Svalorna Latinamerika
Internship
Svalorna Latinamerika works for gender equality and sustainable development. They collaborate with local organizations in Bolivia, Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras. Together they create opportunities for women, youth and children to improve their living conditions.
As an information intern with us, you will have the opportunity to develop and explore several areas within communication and marketing. Together with your supervisor, you will work with our digital channels, plan and implement events, and help spread knowledge about our business. The internship will give you insight into how we as an organization work strategically with communication—from planning to implementation and follow-up—as well as the administration involved.
As a program intern, you will gain practical experience of what it is like to work in a civil society organization in Sweden. Among other things, you will assist the program administrator in preparing applications and reports for various funding bodies. A lot of translation and administrative tasks are also included.
Send your application, consisting of a cover letter explaining why you are applying for this internship (max. one A4 page) and your CV, to rekrytering@svalorna.se. You can apply for both positions.
Application Deadline: 15 November 2025
For more information, visit this page