CONFERENCE PRORGAM: 

Monday, 4 May 2026
 

17:30-18:00 Opening comments

18:00-19:30 Keynote lecture

Michal Frankl (Leibniz GWZO Prague)
“Humanitarian Border Crossings: Aid in No Manʼs Landˮ

Moderator: Jan Musekamp

The talk follows the trajectories of humanitarians who helped refugees stranded in the no manʼs land that formed along the shifting borders inEast Central Europe in the late 1930s. These refugees languished between boundary stones, fences, or barriers in a no manʼs land that could take the shape of barren, windy fields, cold, hostile forests, a rusty barge, or decrepit, abandoned factories. The material and other aid provided by aid workers was essential for the survival in no manʼs land, but it also expressed the hierarchies and tensions inherent in humanitarian activity. Drawing on the experience of no manʼs land in 1938–39 and on current research in humanitarianism and border studies, the talk will explore border crossings and border experience as integral to and constitutive of humanitarian activity generally. The talk argues that studying borders and border crossings provides new insights into humanitarianism in its various forms, locales, and scales.

Tuesday, 5 May 2026

10:00-12:30: Panel 1: Phantom Borders

Chair: Sandra Dahlke (MWNO)

Izabela Paszko(GHI Warsaw) 
‘When Borders Disappear: The Afterlives of Infrastructure at the Three Emperorsʼ Cornerʼ

David Jishkariani (MWNO Tbilisi)
‘Making Visible Borders in the South Caucasus: The Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in
Action (1922–1936)ʼ

Ralf Meindl (GHI Warsaw)
‘Invisible borders – Ermland in the 19th and 20th centuriesʼ 

Richard Wittmann (OI Istanbul),
‘Mount Athos as a Sacred Borderlandʼ

13:45-15:00: Panel 2: Bordering and Urban Space

Chair: Petra Terhoeven (GHI Rome)

İclal Ayşe Küçükkırca (OI Istanbul)
‘Homelessness and Homemaking in a Border City:Nusaybin in Post-Conflict, 2016-2023ʼ

Jaromír Mrňka (GHI Warsaw, Prague Branch Office)
‘Queer Underworlds as Border Infrastructures: Rethinking Spatial Form under State Socialismʼ

15:30-17:30: Panel 3: Redefining Imperial Boundaries

Chair: Christoph K. Neumann (OI Istanbul)

Debarati Bagchi (MWF Delhi) 
‘The Making of an Agrarian Frontier: Land Rights in a Border District in Colonial Indiaʼ

Ruslana Bovhyria (MWNO Tbilisi)
‘The Property Frontier of Empire: Lianozov Company and the Making of the Russo-Iranian Borderland, 1870-1916ʼ

Zeynep Tezer (OI Istanbul)
‘Mobility, Borderscapes, and Imperial Entanglements in Ottoman North Africaʼ

18:00-19:30: Panel discussion

‘Uncommon Experiences: Sharing Borders in Contemporary Europe’ 

Chair: Andrew Tompkins (GHI Warsaw)

Julia Buyskykh(University College Cork/GHI Warsaw)

Jan Musekamp(GHI Warsaw)

Ettore Recchi (Sciences Po Paris)

Wednesday, 6 May 2026

10:00-12:30: Panel 4: Border-making Materials

Chair: Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska (GHI Warsaw)

Felix Lüttge (GHI London) 
‘Towards an Amphibious History of the Sea’

Andrew Tompkins (GHI Warsaw)
‘Fish, Ships, and Oil: Territorial Conflict between East Germany and Poland, 1945–1989’

Melike Şahinol, Gülşah Başkavak, and Ayşe Berna Uçarol (OI Istanbul)
‘Beyond Borderlines: Paper Walls as Mobile Boundary Infrastructures in Transnational Surgical-Craftscapes’

13:45-15:45: Panel 5: Paperwork as Borderwork

Chair: Sebastian Schwecke (MWF Delhi)

Didi Tal (GHI Washington)
‘Paper Borders: Gender, Visas, and Cinematic Storytelling in Hold Back the Dawn (1941)’

Alexandre Bibert (GHI Paris)
‘Detours, Intimidation, Visas: The Deterritorialized Iron Curtain in Franco–GDR Trade Union Circulations (1950s–1960s)’

Atiba Pertilla (GHI Washington)
‘Showing Money, Seeing Race: The Debate over Financial Tests at the American Border, 1890–1930’

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All events will be held in the Conference Room on the 3^rd floor of the German Historical Institute Warsaw (Aleje Ujazdowskie 39, 00-540 Warszawa). We do not offer online participation.