Abstracts and Participants
Berber Bevernage
Department of History, Ghent University
History as religion of modernity? On post-secular critiques and the case for a secular historicizing attitude
This paper examines the recurrent claim—revived in post-secular thought—that secular historical consciousness is either genealogically indebted to religion or functionally equivalent to it, thus making history “the religion of modernity.” Post-secular critiques, drawing from Christian apologetics, critical theory, and postcolonial thought, frequently present the historicizing attitude as the ultimate expression of a secular worldview that both denies and secretly replicates religious structures of meaning. The paper first reconstructs the major genealogical and functional theses linking history and religion: the religious breeding ground thesis, the ideational continuity thesis, and the functional analogy thesis. It then argues that while these perspectives reveal important cultural entanglements, they often rest on vague notions of influence, overlook secular transformations of inherited ideas, and rely on an equivocal conception of “religion.”
In dialogue with Gabriel Motzkin’s alternative genealogy of secular historical thinking—grounded in the emergence of retrospection in early modern memorialist writing—the paper explores how this new temporal attitude generated a distinctively secular relationship to time by inverting the normative orientation of tradition: judging the past from the standpoint of the present rather than the reverse. While acknowledging Motzkin’s insight into the secularizing effects of retrospection, the paper challenges his conclusion that secular history functions merely as an ersatz for religious transcendence.
In its final part, the paper advances a conditional defence of the historicizing attitude. It argues that secular retrospection is best understood as a paradoxical yet productive temporal imagination—conceiving times as both differential and ontologically equivalent. This paradox underpins the critical and emancipatory potential of historical thinking, enabling it to desacralize claims of timeless authority without constructing new totalities. The paper concludes that a reflexive, plural, and self-situated form of secular historicizing remains indispensable for navigating the tensions of modernity, against both naïve progressivism and post-secular calls for the re-theologization of history.
Berber Bevernage is Associate Professor of historical theory at the Department of History at Ghent University (Belgium). His research focuses on the dissemination, attestation and contestation of historical discourse and historical culture in post-conflict situations. He has published in journals such as History and Theory, Rethinking History, Memory Studies, Social History and History Workshop Journal. Berber is (co-)founder of the interdisciplinary research forum 'TAPAS/Thinking About the PASt' which focuses on popular, academic and artistic dealings with the past. Together with colleagues he established the International Network for Theory of History (INTH) which aims to foster collaboration among theorists of history around the world.
Marta Kurkowska-Budzan
Institute of History, Jagiellonian University in Cracow
“Situational analysis” in the study of social construction of heritage narratives
This interactive seminar invites doctoral students to explore and test the application of situational analysis, as proposed by Adele Clarke, in examining the social construction of historical narratives and heritage. It presents a perspective aligned with the constructivist paradigm, while acknowledging the scientific rigor inherent in its assumptions, making it compelling for researchers across paradigms.
The initial segment will elucidate the underpinnings of this methodological approach, anchored in grounded theory. The attributes of both grounded theory and situational analysis, concerning historical research focused on the presence and significance of the past in contemporary culture, will be presented. Emphasis will be placed on the challenges this perspective imposes on researchers. Participants will engage in practical exercises, applying the presented analytical techniques to their own doctoral research topics, including the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) as analytical tools. This hands-on approach will allow attendees to assess the applicability and versatility of situational analysis within their specific fields of inquiry, while collectively testing the claimed universality of this methodological framework. Working with LLMs will also illuminate the transformed research situation facing contemporary humanities and social sciences.
Through an exposition of a completed research project, the presenter will delineate the sequential stages of the research procedure, including various research and analytical techniques such as discourse analysis, multi-site ethnography, oral history interviews, mapping, and graphical representations.
Marta Kurkowska-Budzan is a Professor at the Faculty of History at Jagiellonian University in Cracow. She earned her PhD in history at JU and completed postgraduate sociology studies at the University of Kent. Kurkowska-Budzan held postdoctoral positions at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, and the E.M. Remarque Institute for European Studies at New York University, working under the supervision of Tony Judt. Her research focuses on public history, oral history methodology, representations of the past, and the cultural history of labor. She leads the international group Homo [Lab]orans and is active in Una Europa. Recently she published (with Marcin Stasiak) Sport and Polish Society (Routledge 2024) and edited a collected volume Embodied Labour (Routledge 2025, in print).
Rodrigo Turin
History Department, Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Unirio)
Inhabiting the unpredictable: openness of the future, emerging temporalities and potential regimes of historicity in the Anthropocene
The talk aims to analyze how our experiences of time are changing in response to climate change, focusing on two key dimensions. The first dimension examines the everyday perceptions of time associated with new forms of governance that have emerged in recent decades to address the unpredictability of the future. The second dimension explores how these new experiences resulting from climate change, along with other factors, can be understood through new forms of potential regimes of historicity. By analyzing concepts such as precaution, preemption, and preparedness—developed in various contexts to cope with the new unpredictability of the future—we aim to connect these ideas to contemporary philosophies of history.
Rodrigo Turin is an Associate Professor of Theory of History at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO) and a CNPq researcher. He obtained his doctorate from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (2009), during which he completed a research internship at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, in Paris, under the supervision of François Hartog. He worked as a visiting researcher at the EHESS between 2018 and 2019, at the Center for Historical Research (CRH). He currently works as a visiting researcher at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and the University of Bologna. He is the coordinator of LETHE - Laboratory of Studies in Theory, Historicity, and Aesthetics, based at the School of History at UNIRIO.
Panel Discussion
Aurelia Adamczuk, Wiktoria Czekaj, Małgorzata Gonia, Jarek Kamiński, Teresa Knapowska, Vasyl Kononenko, Aleksandra Dorota Krzyżaniak, Aleksandra Joanna Krzyżaniak, Bartosz Smoczyk, Wojciech Sławnikowski, Przemysław Wąsik, Alan Woźniak, Laura Żary
Epistemic Experiments: Rethinking Method through Interdisciplinarity, Relationality and Embodiment
In a world transformed by geopolitical, technological and ecological change, the humanities face the challenge of redefining their role and relevance. The panel brings together PhD students from the Doctoral School of Humanities at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, representing a wide range of disciplines—from philosophy, art history, musicology and theology to anthropology, archeology, history and cultural studies. Each participant proposes a distinct “epistemic experiment” that rethinks the methods and boundaries of their field. History's call to focus on the peripheries of global history in Central and Eastern Europe is echoed by musicology's turn towards contextualism, reintegrating sound into its social and ritual worlds. Cultural studies advocates for public humanities and co-created knowledge, generated in collaboration with communities rather than extracted from them, while anthropology experiments with activist and collaborative research, transforming participant observation into ethical co-labor. Archeology stresses the importance of interdisciplinarity in researching early human populations, which theology mirrors by bridging scientific and spiritual understandings of the mind and integrating neuroscience into research on pastoral practice. Similarly, philosophy presents a posthumanist stance that dissolves rigid divisions between the mind and matter, an approach further reflected by art history’s material turn, which brings to the fore the material and technological aspects of artistic practice. Together, these perspectives demonstrate how the humanities can respond to uncertainty not through retreat, but through experimentation—by reimagining knowledge as relational, embodied and responsible. The panel invites dialogue on how such approaches can sustain the relevance of the humanities and their critical, creative and collaborative engagement with the world we inhabit together.
Aurelia Adamczuk is a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Her main research interests revolve around feminism and postcolonial notions of contemporary culture. Through the inquiry into the past and present oppression systems, she composed a research project on the so-called people’s history as an emerging trend in Poland. The future doctoral dissertation related to this idea is going to centralize the said topic with the intention of closely analysing the narratives in the Polish popular cultural texts.
Wiktoria Czekaj is a PhD candidate at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań in the discipline of Archaeology. My interests focus on the Roman Iron Age, with particular emphasis on Germanic and Gothic tribes, and the Wielbark culture in Polish lands. In my works, I write about the social structure and relationships among members of ancient peoples. My doctoral dissertation is dedicated to the social role of women of the Wielbark culture in the Lubowidz phase in Greater Poland, Pomerania, and the Baltic Sea coast.
Małgorzata Gonia is a PhD student at the Doctoral School of Humanities of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, specializing in Art Studies. Her doctoral dissertation focuses on Giovanni Francesco de Rossi (1626 – ca. 1677), a Roman Baroque sculptor. Her research interests concern Roman Baroque sculpture and Polish-Italian artistic relations in the seventeenth century. Since 2024, she has been employed as a Senior Specialist at the Audiovisual Archive of the Faculty of Art Studies, where she works on cataloguing the photographic documentation of Baroque sculpture in Silesia from the legacy of Professor Konstanty Kalinowski.
Jarek Kamiński is a PhD candidate at the Adam Mickiewicz University in the discipline of philosophy (Department of Philosophy of Politics and Communication). His research focuses on the mental capacities of non-human animals (animal minds). He previously studied Polish philology and biology, and wrote his MA thesis—on the limits of language and the applicability of this term to animal communication— under the supervision of Prof. Andrzej W. Nowak. He is currently studying play behavior in insects, conducting research under the supervision of Prof. Michał Wendland within the embodied cognition (4E) paradigm, working at the intersection of philosophy of mind (neurophenomenology) and ethology.
Teresa Knapowska is a second-year PhD candidate in Art History at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (AMU). Her research examines the techniques and materials used in 15th-century French and Flemish miniature workshops, with a particular focus on manuscript copies of the Livre des Tournois by King René of Anjou and the materiality of color in these works. She holds an MA in Art History from AMU and studied Digital Humanities at the École nationale des chartes in Paris.
Vasyl Kononenko is a PhD candidate at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. He received his education at Vinnytsia State Pedagogical University (2006) and the Institute of History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (2009). He completed a research fellowship at the University of Warsaw (2010–2011) and has conducted projects at the University of Warsaw, the German Historical Institutes in Warsaw and Moscow, and the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. His research focuses on the Hetmanate, the heritage of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on the left bank of the Dnipro, cultural heritage preservation, and Polish-Ukrainian dialogue.
Aleksandra Dorota Krzyżaniak is a Ph.D. candidate in socio-cultural anthropology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and member of the Centre for Migration Studies. She conducts ethnographic fieldwork within the NCN-funded project Private Hosting of Refugees from Ukraine in Polish Homes, examining refugee sponsorship and everyday humanitarianism. Her broader interests include migration, political anthropology, and gender. Previous projects addressed women’s political participation in Poznań’s local government, religious identity among Latter-day Saints, and urban social diagnostics. Her work contributes to debates on solidarity, intersectionality, and the gendered dynamics of politics and migration governance.
Aleksandra Joanna Krzyżaniak is a first-year doctoral candidate at the Doctoral School in the Humanities, majoring in theology, she received her Master of Arts in Theology from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań in 2025. Her master's thesis focused on angelology in John Paul II's Wednesday catechesis. She is preparing her doctoral dissertation on eschatology in funeral orations.
Wojciech Sławnikowski is a doctoral candidate in the Doctoral School of Humanities of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, in the discipline of Art Studies. He holds an MA in Film and Media Studies as well as BAs in Polish Philology and Philosophy. His research interests include auteur cinema, Nazi propaganda, film theory and environmental humanities (ecocriticism, posthumanism, animal studies).
Bartosz Smoczyk is a PhD student at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań in the field of history. Throughout his education, he has been involved in history at AMU and studied for a semester at La Sapienza University in Rome. His research focuses on Polish-Italian relations in the interwar period. His doctoral thesis centers on an attempt to identify and recognize inequalities and stereotypes between East and West, represented by Italy and Poland. He is a member of the Polonia-Italia association in Poznań and the Polish Memory Studies Group.
Przemysław Wąsik is a PhD candidate in the field of cultural studies at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. In his scientific career he has studied in the fields journalism, interactive media, film studies and cultural studies. During his studies, he mainly dealt with minority issues and their portrayals in Polish filmography, which was also the subject of his master’s thesis in film studies. His doctoral dissertation will focus on varying images of the apocalypse and visions of the end of the world in popular cinema.
Alan Woźniak is a PhD candidate at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań in the discipline of art studies. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Polish philology and a master’s degree in musicology. His master’s thesis examined the publishing tradition of Piotr Artomiusz’s hymnbook (1587–1672) and analyzed its repertoire. He is a member of the research team preparing the Dictionary of Musicians of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 18th Century, a project funded by the National Program for the Development of Humanities. He is currently working on a doctoral dissertation on Polish Masonic music of the Classical period.
Laura Żary is a PhD candidate in the Doctoral School of Humanities of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, in the discipline of Cultural Studies. Her research analyses the media representations of China in Poland from 2008 to 2025, employing a theoretical framework grounded in Edward Said's concept of Orientalism and its subsequent critical derivations. She further enriched her perspective through a research fellowship at Tianjin Normal University in China. Her broader interests include discourse analysis and postcolonial studies. Her work contributes to understanding how media narratives shape cross-cultural perceptions and contemporary geopolitical imaginaries.
