Eastern Europe’s Invisibilities: Epistemics, Politics, Arts

Inaugural Conference of the Institute of Slavic and Eastern European Studies (ISOS) at the University of Zurich

Invisibility is a political condition of public non-presence. It can be both a product of power and a situation of powerlessness. What is visible to one may be invisible to another—and vice versa. Overlooking, just as much as seeing, is a capacity of power and an ethical practice. Noticing abuse and other forms of violence is both a cultural and individual act, shaped by social and political forces. Historically, the humanities have striven to bring to light the techniques of power, thus enabling ethical reconsideration and societal self-reflection.

Key questions of the conference on Eastern Europe’s Invisibilities include: How is invisibility produced, overcome, and experienced—and what does it mean for Europe’s East and Eastern European studies? How do Eastern European perspectives help us better understand current political transformations, and how might they offer insights for shaping positionality amid disinformation and increasing authoritarianism? What emancipatory responses do Eastern European studies offer to post- and de-colonial thought and vice versa?

The liberation from the dictatorships in 1989 and the related opening of the archives, in particular the partial opening of the secret service archives, and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, have made invisibilities visible within research in a variety of avenues. But what exactly makes the perspectives of the viewers change, how are facts reframed and visions reshaped, and what are the preconditions for these changes? Who have been the producers of invisibilities? What made those invisibilities perceptible for some and invisible for others? What are the active practices of making something or someone invisible?

When are invisibilities products of violence, and when are they strategies of power(lessness) or resistance? What role do the arts and humanities play in the undoing and analysis of invisibility?

The University of Zurich is establishing the Department of Slavic and Eastern European Studies (ISOS) to strengthen interdisciplinary research on Eastern Europe.  This new interdisciplinary institute specializes in the analysis of contemporary historical, cultural, social, linguistic, and political developments across Eastern, East-Central, and South-Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. The international conference “Eastern Europe's Invisibilities: Politics, Epistemics, Arts” will officially celebrate the opening of the ISOS in spring 2026.

Programm

Mai 6, 2026 (Aula, KOL-G-201), University of Zurich, Rämistrasse 71, 8001 Zurich

15:00 Welcome Address: Prof. Dr. Katharina Michaelowa (Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities)

15:15 Introductory Remarks: Botakoz Kassymbekova, Jeronim Perović, Sylvia Sasse

Panel I: Colonial invisibilities in Eastern Europe (15:30-17:30)

With Manuela Boatcă (University of Freiburg), Mart Kuldkepp (University College London), Jasmin Mujanović (Pell Center at Salve Regina University), and Botakoz Kassymbekova (chair).

Keynote & Evening Reception (from 18:15)

18:15 Welcome address: Prof. Dr. Michael Schaepman (President of the University of Zurich)

18:30 Keynote by Svetlana Alexievich

May 7, 2026, KO2-F-152

Panel II: Invisible Languages and Speakers (9:30-11:30)

With Tobias Alexander Herrmann (Universität Köln), Katrin Karl (University of Bern), Katharina Tyran (University of Helsinki), and Florian Wandl (chair).

Panel III: Invisible Academia: Of Pseudo-Science, Extinguished Research and Invisible Universities (12:00-13:15)

With Andrea Pető (CEU, Vienna), Balázs Trencsényi (CEU, Vienna & Invisible University), Katharina Gerund (UZH), and Julia Richers (University of Bern).

PANEL IV: Civil Society, Social Movements, and (Invisible) Resistance (15:00- 17:00)

With Mariam Bibliashvili (CEES–Fellow; Masaryk University, Brno), Jan Matti Dollbaum (University of Fribourg), Valentina Petrović (University of Vienna), and Jeronim Perović (chair).

Evening Program (Strauhof, Lavaterhaus, St. Peterhofstatt 6, 8001 Zürich)

18:30 Tschornobyl – Archiv der unsichtbaren Katastrophe. Swetlana Alexievich im Gespräch mit Sylvia Sasse and Philine Bickhardt (UZH).

May 8, 2026, KO2-F-152

PANEL V: Negotiating (In)Visibility (10:00-13:15)

With Éva Forgács (University of Pasadena), Rasa Kamarauskaitė (University College London), Emese Kürti (Central European Research Institute for Art History, Budapest), Dorota Sajewska (University of Bochum), Tomáš Glanc & Matthias Meindl (chairs).

PANEL VI: Secret services and the production of invisibility (14:45 – 17:15)

With Andriy Kohut (Director of the Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine), Evgenija Lezina (Leibniz Center for Contemporary History, Potsdam), Ilija Trojanow (Vienna), Roman Horbyk & Sylvia Sasse (UZH, chairs).

Organizers: Prof. Dr. Tomáš Glanc, Prof. Dr. Botakoz Kassymbekova, Dr. Cristiana Lucchetti, Dr. Matthias Meindl, Prof. Dr. Jeronym Perović, Prof. Dr. Sylvia Sasse, Dr. Aleksej Tikhonov