Project presentation

WHERE: Polish Academy of Sciences, Scientific Centre in Vienna, Boerhaavegasse 25, 1030 Vienna - Austria
VENUE: Sobieski-Hall (Sobieski-Saal)
WHEN: Wednesday, May 22nd, 2-4 pm and Thursday, May 23rd, 10 am - 4 pm

Learn more about the project under this link.

Learn more the Spectral Recycling ECR Team.



Ghosts are usually depicted as the spirits of the dead haunting the living. However, what if we understood them as the material remains that reveal the neglected past events and enable us to comprehend the experience of the otherness? The ERC StG project “Recycling the German Ghosts. Resettlement Cultures in Poland, Czechia and Slovakia after 1945 (SpectralRecycling)” proposes such an approach in the research on territories that were formerly inhabited by Germans in Slavic Central Europe, but after a forced migration were resettled by the new inhabitants of various ethnicities. With hauntology as the proposed research framework, the project operationalizes the category of “post-displacement” as a form of afterlife and explores the settlers’ experiences with things that previous inhabitants had left behind.

On May 22, 2 pm, Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska, Karina Hoření, Michal Korhel and Magdalena Bubík presented their preliminary findings and discussed them with Claudia Kraft and Kerstin von Lingen, Professors for Contemporary History at the University of Vienna.

On May 23, 10 am, we could learn more about the project. Based on pre-circulated readings we discussed with you the hauntological approach in research on forced migrations and emerging of new cultures in post-displacement regions in East Central Europe and beyond.