The library talks are dedicated to artistic methods of re-historicizing. Within the bi-weekly lecture and talk series, invited artists, art philosophers, media activists and collectives work with different approaches on the decentralization and de-skilling of hegemonic historiography. In sci-fi and other settings, they communicate with the past and fabulate with potentialities. Our guests move between/with entanglements, enter into intergenerational alliances and uncover silenced, buried practices. Archival images are activated, artistic centers beyond the Eurocentric view are sought out. Experiences of forced migration or poverty are included.
Such de-historicizations queer the structures of normalization and coloniality. Furthermore, they take care of vulnerable learning spaces, for example for thinking about historical knowledge and its processual production, which seeks to distinguish itself from structures of reproduction. In the winter semester 2024/25, the library series will be flanked by a collaborative seminar by Anna Bromley and Lilian Haberer and an associated seminar by Karina Nimmerfall and Leon Filter at University of Cologne. 

Concept and organization: Anna Bromley, Lilian Haberer, Karina Nimmerfall, Leon Filter.

Dates: Thursdays, November 7, November 21, December 4, 2024, January 9, January 23 and January 30, 2025

5 p.m., KHM library in the Overstolzenhaus, Rheingasse 8, 50676 Cologne

Due to limited space, early registration for the event is required. Mailing address