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offuniversity.bsky.social
Off University
@offuniversity.bsky.social
230 followers 220 following 83 posts
Self-organization of displaced and persecuted scholars. Visit us on offuniversity.org #universitywithoutborders #onlineseminars
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offuniversity.bsky.social
Invitation to a Film Screening and Discussion
📅 31.10.2026,🕓 20:00 at @boell.de in Berlin

Traces: Cinema, Memory and Peace
curated by Nilgün Yelpaze and Leyla Toprak

-> offuniversity.org/forum-for-pe...

Organized by @offuniversity.bsky.social, @rosaluxstiftung.bsky.social, @boell.de
October 6, 2026 at 7:44 AM
offuniversity.bsky.social
We are excited to announce 3 NEW COURSES in our 2026-27 WINTER SEMESTER starting in mid-October.

JOIN US in sustaining spaces where learning, solidarity, and critical inquiry can continue despite violence and repression.

SIGN UP TODAY!
-> offuniversity.org/current-cour...
September 18, 2026 at 8:12 PM
offuniversity.bsky.social
We are happy to announce that the contributions to the Cities at War Lecture Series are now available as texts online:
off.pubpub.org/citiesatwar

offuniversity.org/contribution...
Contributions tothe Cities at War Lecture Series
Cities at War Lecture Series: Written versions of the lectures are published online and available through open access.
offuniversity.org
July 24, 2026 at 11:35 AM
offuniversity.bsky.social
"Critical Peace and Civil Society,” led by @dr-ferda-fa.bsky.social is an interactive online lab examining how mid-level actors connect communities and decision-makers in conflict settings.
ℹ️ offuniversity.org/current-cour...
🗣️ KURMANCÎ
@rosaluxstiftung.bsky.social @humboldtuni.bsky.social
April 9, 2026 at 10:37 AM
offuniversity.bsky.social
Gender-based violence is structural, political, and contested. This course explores its dynamics in West Asia, from domestic abuse to conflict-related violence, while highlighting activism, survival strategies, and spaces of resistance across the region.
➡️ offuniversity.org/current-cour...
April 1, 2026 at 12:14 PM
offuniversity.bsky.social
In our History Textbook Workshop we will have Elena Monke with us this week. She will explore how textbooks are built, using examples from her work in preschool pedagogy and children’s literature.

Feel invited to join us
🕓 April 1st, 16:00 CET by signing-up now
offuniversity.org/current-cour...
History Textbook Workshop
The History Textbook Workshop is an innovative online course designed for participants aged 14 to 25, which investigates the ways in which history textbooks reflect political, cultural, and ideologica...
offuniversity.org
March 30, 2026 at 7:20 PM
offuniversity.bsky.social
What does it mean to live through historical rupture? This course explores war, displacement, and crisis through performance ethnography, using Playback and Documentary Theatre to transform lived experience into collaborative, research-based performance.

Register: offuniversity.org/current-cour...
March 30, 2026 at 7:48 AM
offuniversity.bsky.social
Amid rising authoritarianism, can universities offer refuge and continuity for human rights defenders in exile? Join an interdisciplinary, practitioner-led course examining real-world strategies, networks, and challenges across global contexts.

Register here:
offuniversity.org/current-cour...
Exile, Activism and the University with Alexander Kalgin, Magnolia, 15.04.2026 - 22.07.2026, 6 ECTS This course examines the role of universities as spaces of protection for human rights defenders in exile, focusing on how academic institutions can provide protection for activists. Today, authoritarianism is rising globally, and those who dare to contest authoritarian governments are often forced into exile. Traditional measures of human rights protection may not be sufficient. In this context, universities have the capacity to function as semi-safe spaces that offer resources, networks, and communities that allow human rights defenders to sustain their work.
March 26, 2026 at 11:43 AM
offuniversity.bsky.social
Check our our latest newsletter full of courses in this upcoming Spring Semester 2026: mailchi.mp/a5a93ce4d926...
The 2026 Spring Semester at Off University
mailchi.mp
March 23, 2026 at 11:02 AM
offuniversity.bsky.social
We are happy to have Yadviha Lukashyk in our History Textbook Workshop. Her research explores everyday life on the Eastern Front during the First World War through photographic sources.

Sign-up here: offuniversity.org/current-cour...

#Universitywithoutborders
March 23, 2026 at 10:45 AM
offuniversity.bsky.social
At a time of incessant wars, widespread mass displacement and rising authoritarianism, the dissemination of knowledge is under threat. Join us in sustaining spaces where learning, solidarity, and critical inquiry can continue despite violence and repression.

offuniversity.org/current-cour...
March 20, 2026 at 10:09 AM
offuniversity.bsky.social
We are inviting proposals for an online laboratory on the Memory of the Syrian War to be taught by scholars at risk.

Check the details of the application requirements, what you should submit to apply and how here on the call page
ℹ️ offuniversity.org/call-for-an-...
📆Deadline: April 13th, 2026
March 18, 2026 at 8:51 AM
offuniversity.bsky.social
We are inviting proposals for an online course on War, Memory, and Gender to be taught by scholars at risk.

Check the details of the application requirements, what you should submit to apply and how here on the call page
ℹ️ offuniversity.org/call-for-cou...

📅 Deadline: April 13th, 2026
Call for Course Proposals on War, Memory, and Gender
March 17, 2026 at 11:40 AM
offuniversity.bsky.social
In our History Textbook Workshop we have Daryna Zhyvohliadova with us to explore Ukraine’s history and culture through key artifacts, texts, and artistic works. You are invited to join this Wednesday, March 18th, 4pm CET.
Just a quick registration here:
offuniversity.org/current-cour...
History Textbook Workshop
The History Textbook Workshop is an innovative online course designed for participants aged 14 to 25, which investigates the ways in which history textbooks reflect political, cultural, and ideologica...
offuniversity.org
March 13, 2026 at 9:33 PM
offuniversity.bsky.social
There are only few places left in our History Textbook Workshop. Please write to (our proton mail account) [email protected] until March 2nd, 2026 if you want to join us next Wednesday!
offuniversity.bsky.social Off University @offuniversity.bsky.social · Dec 19
Enthusiastic about history and between 14 and 25? Join our History Textbook Workshop to learn how and by whom history is written, engage with history textbooks from different parts of the world and understande the uses of history in political narratives.
ℹ️ offuniversity.org/call-for-par...
You Can Rewrite History!
You Can Rewrite History! Learn How! Apply to participate in the History Textbook Workshop
offuniversity.org
February 26, 2026 at 10:42 AM
Reposted by Off University
the-academy.bsky.social
WOMEN, LIFE, FREEDOM, HOPE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

20 February, 16:00-18:00
Lichthof Ost, Humboldt University, Berlin

This talk, moderated by Alice von Bieberstein, will introduce the Academy of Social Science, its research communes, and the Journal Democratic Modernity.
February 7, 2026 at 8:11 PM
Reposted by Off University
the-academy.bsky.social
JIN JIYAN AZADÎ
HÊVÎ JI BO SEDSALA 21'EMÎN

21.02.2026
16.00-18.00
Komel Berlin
(Residenzstraße 53-54, 13409 Berlin)
February 14, 2026 at 8:26 PM
offuniversity.bsky.social
In the next-to-last session of our lecture series Cities at War, we are welcoming Aimal Formolly speaking on "Spatial Justice and Everyday Resilience: Navigating Post-Conflict Urbanism in Kabul". Join us on January 28th, 4pm CET time: offuniversity.org/current-cour...
#universitywithoutborders
This lecture examines the lived experiences of Kabul’s residents amid the enduring legacies of conflict, emphasizing the intersections of spatial justice, social cohesion, and participatory urban planning. By integrating gamified urban design models with ethnographic insights and geospatial analysis, it outlines pathways for strengthening resilience, equity, and collective memory in fragile urban environments.
January 27, 2026 at 8:31 AM
offuniversity.bsky.social
We are a partner of the universities in #Rojava. Our thoughts and solidarity are with the students and scholars in the region who are facing escalating violence and deteriorating humanitarian conditions. Please read this statement of solidarity here: drive.google.com/file/d/1aEdK...
January 23, 2026 at 12:38 PM
offuniversity.bsky.social
Scholars and students at the universities in Rojava are part of our Online Lecture Series Cities at War. Their education is disrupted, they had to flee the approaching violence and now live under deteriorating and dangerous conditions. Stop the War now!
offuniversity.bsky.social Off University @offuniversity.bsky.social · Nov 3
Join the third session of our Cities at War Lecture Series: "Kobanê — Between The Ashes of War and The Dawn of Reconstruction" by Aras Hiso this Wednesday at 4pm CET.

You can visit our website offuniversity.org/current-cour... for more information and registration.
Kobanê — Between The Ashes of War and The Dawn of Reconstruction by Aras Hiso - Cities at War Lectures Series - 3, 05.11.2025, 16:00 CET After the liberation of Kobanê in 2015, the residents of Kobane undertook the task of rebuilding their city despite ongoing warfare and the constraints of a severe embargo. As part of this reconstruction, they made the decision to establish the city’s first university now serving over 1000 students. What motivated the founding of the university? How was the city rebuilt? And how does the ever-present threat of renewed violence continue to shape the reconstruction? Aras Hiso, who experienced this period first as a student and now as a faculty member at the University of Kobanê, offers a first-hand account.
January 23, 2026 at 12:22 PM
offuniversity.bsky.social
Scholars and students at the universities in Rojava are part of our Online Lecture Series Cities at War. Their education is disrupted, they had to flee the approaching violence and now live under deteriorating and dangerous conditions. Stop the War now!
offuniversity.bsky.social Off University @offuniversity.bsky.social · Nov 4
Join the third session of our Cities at War Lecture Series: "Teaching 300 Metres Beyond the Border" by Luqman Guldivê this Wednesday at 5 pm CET.

You can visit our website offuniversity.org/current-cour... for more information and registration.
#universitywithoutborders
Teaching 300 Metres Beyond the Border by Luqman Guldivê - Cities at War Lectures Series - 3 During the 1990s, paramilitary operations systematically eliminated the artisans and emerging middle class in the town of Nisêbin just a few hundred meters north of Qamislo, across the border. The renewed destruction in late 2015 erased urban space, left inhabitants with deeply fragmented memories and a dislocated sense of place. The subsequent reconstruction further severed these connections, erasing the sites of collective memory once embedded in the urban fabric. As an educator at the University of Rojava, Luqman Guldiv narrates the emotional and intellectual challenges of working within sight of a place so violently transformed.
January 23, 2026 at 12:21 PM
offuniversity.bsky.social
Join us for Batoul Yassine and Mariam Bazzi's lecture "From Archiving to People-Centred, Heritage-Led Urban Recovery. The Cases of Gaza and Nabatieh" this Wednesday, January 21st at 4pm CET.
-> more offuniversity.org/current-cour...

#universitywithoutborders
Thanks to @urbanstudiesfoundation.org
This lecture advances the argument that urban recovery can start during war in many forms and practices, one of which is the act of archiving. Archiving the city does not only preserve but also enable the emergence of multiple narratives through unarchiving, a process that disrupts and re-organizes the archival collection, leading to the formation of future imaginaries tied to the recovery of sites of urbicide. This proposition is explored through two cases: Gaza, Palestine, and Nabatieh, Southern Lebanon, where a team of the Beirut Urban Lab has engaged in planning amid complex conditions of war.
January 20, 2026 at 8:48 AM
Reposted by Off University
urbanstudiesfoundation.org
⏰ Reminder: Urban Urgencies funding call now open

There’s still time to apply for the Urban Urgencies grant from the Urban Studies Foundation — supporting rapid, collaborative research on pressing urban challenges worldwide.

🗓️ Deadline: 23 March 2026 (23:59 UTC).

🔗 ow.ly/FUIn50XGtgz
USF flyer with USF logo for the Call for Applications "Urban Urgencies" Grant on a picture via Flickr by Hanif Omar, and the quote "The Urban Studies Foundation is launching a major new grant to support rapid-response collaborative research on the world’s most pressing urban challenges." USF flyer with USF logo for the Call for Applications "Urban Urgencies" Grant on a picture via Flickr by Hanif Omar, and the quote "The Urban Studies Foundation is launching a major new grant to support rapid-response collaborative research on the world’s most pressing urban challenges."
January 7, 2026 at 9:45 AM
offuniversity.bsky.social
We are happy to welcome Nevin Soyukaya this week in our Lecture Series "Cities at War". She will speak on "Diyarbakır/Suriçi: Conflict and Urbicide as the Erasure of Collective Memory" on January 14th at 4pm CET.

register here -> offuniversity.org/current-cour...

#universitywithoutborders
Dating back to the 5th millennium B.C., Diyarbakır is one of the rare urban centers where the evolution of urban history and the cumulative layers of the past can be observed in all phases up to the twenty-first century. Between October 2015 and March 2016, however, this deeply layered urban fabric was violently disrupted. Following declarations of self-governance in twenty Kurdish cities, intense armed clashes broke out between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and Turkish state security forces, involving heavy weaponry leading to widespread urban destruction. This paper examines the dynamics of armed urban conflict and the subsequent practices of urbicide through the case of Diyarbakır’s historic core, Suriçi. It analyzes the socio-spatial consequences of this violence, with particular attention to its erasure of historical layers, transformation of the urban fabric, and displacement of local communities.
January 13, 2026 at 8:19 AM
offuniversity.bsky.social
The first session in the Cities at War Lecture Series in 2026 will be given by Viktoriia Grivina on #Kharkiv is a Dream. Planning a Future During War". Join her timely talk on Wednesday, 07.01.2026 at 4 pm CET.
offuniversity.org/current-cour...

@urbanstudiesfoundation.org
#universitywithoutborders
In 2022, Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine withstood months of relentless Russian artillery strikes that razed entire residential districts of the city, with its population dropping from 1.6 million to 800 000. A short Ukrainian counteroffensive in summer 2022 eliminated the fears of occupation. People started to return, and grand plans involving foreign architectural bureaus for rebuilding have appeared. But are we allowed to think of the future when Kharkiv continues to be attacked by drones, guided bombs, and missiles every day? During this lecture, I invite you to dream and think of the future of a war city with me.
January 5, 2026 at 1:11 PM