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:
- Seminar: The Search for Safety: Police Brutality, Racism and Gay and Lesbian Stereotyping and Separation
- Lecture: Why Enlargement Fails: the Spiral of Double Disappointment in EU Enlargement Policy
- Conference: European AI Act: Transparency Before, Inside, and After the AI Black Box
- CMES Seminar: Bringing in the Other Islamists – Comparing Arab Shia and Sunni Islamism(s) in the Middle East.
- Development Lunch Seminar: “Women and Peacebuilding at Community Level in Post-Genocide Rwanda: Understandings, Contributions and Challenges”
- Lecture: Effective reading strategies
- Opportunity: NAI Nordic Scholarship Programme 2026
The Search for Safety: Police Brutality, Racism and Gay and Lesbian Stereotyping and Separation in the Queer Community, 1980s-2000s
Seminar
The Crip & Queer Seminar series is hosted by the Division of Gender Studies. During the fall term of 2025, the theme of the series is Violence, representation and radical change. After the seminars, which are open to students, staff, and the general public, we serve fika in the kitchen on the fourth floor of Gamla Lungkliniken.
This presentation examines the police raids and police brutality at the club Angles in Oklahoma City and the subsequent successful ways queer people fought back. Some bars reinforced ideas of white supremacy by requiring multiple ID checks for people of color or arbitrary “dress codes.” In response, queer people of color created their own bars and other spaces for community. I also explore the history of the Black queer bar Soakie’s in Kansas City as well as the separation and stereotyping in the bars between gay men and lesbians.
Dr. Lindsey Churchill is a Professor of History in the Department of History and Geography at the University of Central Oklahoma, USA. She is the creator of the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program and directs the WGSS major. In 2015, she worked with the campus community to create the Center which includes the Women’s Research Center and the BGLTQ+ Student Center. The Center is unique to the state of Oklahoma.
Date and time: 1 October 2025, 13:15 – 15:00
Location: G:a köket, Room 107
For more information, visit this page
Why Enlargement Fails: the Spiral of Double Disappointment in EU Enlargement Policy
Lecture
Despite repeated affirmations of support for enlargement, the European Union struggles to sustain momentum in integrating new member states.
This open talk explores the reasons behind the stagnation of the enlargement process, introducing the “Double Disappointment” model – a framework that traces how trust and commitment erode across multiple analytical dimensions such as actor level, policy domain, and evidence type. Drawing on a systematic review of more than 300 scholarly articles, the research reveals how reform fatigue, symbolic compliance, and unanimity rule interact in a negative feedback loop that undermines progress. Can these cycles be broken? And what can the EU learn from its past enlargement waves?
Iveri Kekenadze Gustafsson, Doctoral Student in European Studies
Anamaria Dutceac Segesten, Senior Lecturer in European Studies and Deputy Dean at the Joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology
Date and time: 1 October 2025, 12:15 -12:45
Location: Läsesalen at LUX, Helgonavägen 3 Lund.
For more information, visit this page
European AI Act: Transparency Before, Inside, and After the AI Black Box
Conference
The EU AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) marks a groundbreaking shift in AI regulation, laying the foundation for a potential global standard in AI governance, risk management, and transparency. A key pillar of the Act is data transparency, ie, the ability to understand and audit training data, algorithmic processes and AI output.
For example, the Act establishes the following obligations:
- During AI training (machine learning): Ensuring high-quality, unbiased, and representative training datasets.
- Inside the black box: Documenting and monitoring requirements related to algorithmic transparency, ensuring interpretability and traceability.
- AI output: Enabling human oversight, contestability, and post-market monitoring to mitigate risks and ensure accountability.
The AI Act also introduces transparency requirements to ensure that users are informed when interacting with an AI system. For example, AI systems generating synthetic content (such as deepfakes) must clearly label their outputs as artificially generated. Furthermore, providers of general-purpose AI models must meet specific disclosure obligations, including transparency regarding copyrighted content used for training models.
At the same time, questions remain about how the transparency obligations in the AI Act interact with other legal frameworks, including:
- Fundamental rights under the EU Charter
- Copyright protection for content used as training data in AI development
- Trade secret protection for training data and AI system operations
- Obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regarding personal data protection
- Competition law restrictions on data access and potential abuse
Against this backdrop, this workshop—featuring leading experts, policymakers, and industry professionals—will explore how these requirements translate into real-world AI compliance strategies and what challenges remain in opening the black box while preserving innovation and competitiveness.
Date and time: October 1 2025, 09:00 -15:30
Location: Stadshallen (Lund City Hall), Lund, Sweden, and online
For more information, visit this page
CMES Seminar: Bringing in the Other Islamists – Comparing Arab Shia and Sunni Islamism(s) in the Middle East.
Seminar
Presentation by Jeroen Gunning, King’s College & Morten Valbjørn, Aarhus University
Despite being rich and nuanced, the field of Islamism studies has traditionally been narrow, in that it has primarily drawn from a Sunni-centric case universe. In recent years, growing attention has been paid to this Sunni-centrism, reflected in calls to include “the other Islamists”—namely, Shia actors. However, there has been limited reflection on why and how this inclusion matters. In our talk, we argue that expanding the case universe is not merely about adding more data—it requires a deeper understanding of the rationale, methods, and implications of such expansion.
Drawing on insights from fields such as democratization, social movement theory, and international studies, we introduce a typology outlining three ideal-typical ways in which the inclusion of Shia Islamists can enrich Islamism studies: theory-testing, theory-development, and meta-theorizing. These approaches demonstrate how Shia cases can help test existing hypotheses, generate new research puzzles, and prompt critical reflection on the field’s assumptions and boundaries. Ultimately, we invite scholars to reflect more on how knowledge is produced and how case selection shapes both the questions we ask and the answers we arrive at.
Date and time: October 2 2025, 13:15 – 15:00
Location: CMES seminar room, Finngatan 16, Lund
For more information, visit this page
Development Lunch Seminar: “Women and Peacebuilding at Community Level in Post-Genocide Rwanda: Understandings, Contributions and Challenges”
Seminar
Welcome to a Development Lunch Seminar with Rosette Nkundimfura (University of Rwanda/University of Gothenburg).
About the Development Research Lunch Series: The Development Research Lunch is a bi-weekly research seminar for all scholars interested in development research, broadly defined. The series is a collaboration between the Development Group at the Department of Economic History at Lund University, and the Development Research School (in turn a collaboration between the Universities of Lund, Gothenburg and Uppsala, and the University of Ghana). The seminar series encourages both junior and senior scholars to present, from a wide range of disciplines.
Date and time: 2 October 2025, 12:00 – 13:00
Location: This is an online seminar, hosted via Zoom. Attend by following this link.
For more information, visit this page
Lund University Academic Support Centre- Lecture on effective reading strategies
Lecture
On a number of occasions each semester, the Academic Support Centre offers lectures that all students at Lund University are welcome to attend.
The lecture about reading strategies looks at strategies that can help you to better understand and recall what you read. During the lecture you will also receive tips about note-taking strategies, and advice about how to handle long reading lists.
Date and Time: 9 October 2025, 10:00–12:00
Location: Genetikhuset, Sölvegatan 29B, Lund
For more information, visit this page
NAI Nordic Scholarship Programme 2026
Opportunities
If you are a student or researcher engaged in Africa-focused studies at a University in Sweden, Finland, Denmark or Iceland, the Nordic Scholarship Programme gives you the opportunity to visit the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala for one month.
Through the Nordic Scholarship Programme, NAI aims to contribute to building capacity in the production of knowledge about Africa, and to promote and establish relations with and between Nordic research communities.
Who can apply?
- You must be a master student, PhD candidate or postdoctoral researcher in the social sciences or humanities.
- You may apply regardless of citizenship, but you must be affiliated to a university or research centre in Sweden, Finland, Denmark or Iceland.
- You must be pursuing Africa-oriented studies/research.
What’s in it for you?
You get access to a workspace in a shared office at the Institute for your one-month stay. The scholarship covers travel expenses, accommodation and a subsistence allowance.
Deadline: 12 October 2025
For more information, visit this page