Short Abstract

We invite Mittelbau colleagues across different career stages to join our ‘world café’ – a lab to discuss relevant topics that move the everyday realities of the Mittelbau. In discussion groups, we will talk about academic freedom, equity and diversity, and techno-environmental challenges.

Long Abstract

This lab is organised as a ‘world cafe’ in which small groups engage in collaborative dialogues around the material, political and ethical realities of the Mittelbau. Doctoral and postdoctoral researchers, academic staff in temporary or permanent positions, contract lecturers, junior professors, and others in positions between student status and lifetime professorships are invited to move between thematically organized tables, document the different perspectives, and collectively shape the outcomes of the lab around these topics:

a. academic freedom and freedom of speech, including censorship of teaching and research topics, obstacles to activist and professional engaged work, and the suppression of Mittelbau concerns by hierarchical structures;

b. the experienced practices and challenges of equity and diversity in academic institutions and departments;

c. ethical issues in our work and teaching in regard to social, environmental, and technological transformations, such as the use of AI, climate concerns, and issues that may deserve our attention.

This lab intends to complement the current work of the AG Mittelbau in addressing the structural problems in our working institutes and the Fixed-Term Contracts Act (WissZeitVG), by focusing on the challenges of our everyday realities. Through cross-institutional exchange, we aim to foster solidarity, identify shared challenges, and develop concrete requests and suggestions. We seek to produce a document of requests and suggestions and will invite the participating colleagues to follow up on the development of these issues through our network.

Please register beforehand via email to the lab convenors (m.goetze@em.uni-frankfurt.de / gil.hizi@uni-koeln.de), but feel also free to join spontaneously.