A Report on the CRC’s Spring School 2025:

Human Differentiation: Understanding the Cultural Making of Human Categories

4. Juni 2025
Lisa Weglinski

From April 2 to 10, 2025, the Collaborative Research Center 1482 “Human Differentiation” was delighted to host an international Spring School entitled “Human Differentiation: Understanding the Cultural Making of Human Categories” at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. We hosted 29 pre- and postdoctoral researchers from outside Mainz, based at universities in Europe, the United States, South America, and India.

The interdisciplinary event brought together early-career scholars and established researchers to critically engage with the cultural, historical, and institutional processes through which human differences are constructed, maintained, and contested. It was our Spring School’s goal to offer a dynamic academic environment. With its major four components, it combined keynote lectures, intensive workshops, peer-to-peer and expert exchanges, and writing breakfasts. Moreover, it featured a curated leisure program, fostering both academic and informal dialogue in the vibrant setting of Mainz.

The central focus of the Spring School was on the processes and politics of differentiation. We thus asked how distinctions such as race, gender, class, ability, sexuality, age, religion, and the human/non-human divide are culturally constructed and experienced? 

Our four keynote lectures featured well-renowned scholars: Prof. Dr. Gabriele Schabacher gave the introductory keynote lecture entitled “Studies in Human Differentiation: An Introduction”. Prof. emerita Angelika Linke spoke about “Social Space, Social Bodies and How They Construct Each Other”, Prof. Dr. Mia Bay’s talk was entitled “‘Blood in Savannah’: The Forgotten History of the South’s Streetcar Riots and What They Can Tell Us about the Connections Between Segregation and Municipal Transportation”, and Prof. Dr. Ori Schwarz held his keynote lecture on “Playing With Axes: From Intersectionality to Angularity as a Cultural-Political Resource”. 

Gabriele Schabacher
Angelika Linke
Mia Bay
Ori Schwarz

Workshops were held by Dr. Terry Au-Yeung (Cardiff University), Prof. Dr. Mia Bay (University of Cambridge), Prof. Dr. Mehita Iqani (Stellenbosch University), Dr. Anna Ripatti (University of Helsinki), Prof. Dr. Ashley Shew (Virginia Tech), and Prof. Dr. Anne Schult (Washington University in St. Louis), as well as members of the CRC,  Prof. Dr. Sascha Dickel, Prof. Dr. Damaris Nübling, Prof. Dr. Oliver Scheiding, and Dr. Svenja Völkel.

We were very happy and grateful to be able to welcome a diverse group of international pre- and postdoctoral researchers from across disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, philosophy, history, media studies, disability studies, and science and technology studies (STS). This interdisciplinarity enriched the dialogue and encouraged multifaceted approaches to Human Differentiation. The academic program was complemented by a reading and discussion with Mithu Sanyal on her novel Identitti (2021, transl. 2022).

Mithu Sanyal

Overall, the Spring School successfully fostered a transdisciplinary network of early-career and senior researchers. It facilitated critical reflection on the cultural mechanisms of categorization, and enhanced participants’ understanding of intersectional and historical dimensions of difference. Over the course of the week-long program, we thus explored how difference is not merely observed but actively produced and lived in versatile ways.