About

European Times/Europäische Zeiten – A Transregional Approach to the Societies of Central and Eastern Europe“ (EUTIM) is a joint project of the Chair of Eastern European Literature at the European University Viadrina, the Chair of Cultures and Literatures of Central and Eastern Europe at Potsdam University and the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin.

EUTIM takes a look at narratives of time and space at the edges of Europe. Based on historical experiences and ways of thinking in the societies of Central and Eastern Europe, EUTIM analyzes disparate concepts of “old vs. new” and “East vs. West” on a pan-European level, with a focus on the second half of the 20th century and the present. The research college takes a systematic and methodical look at these effects of non-simultaneity and shows how productive or destructive these regimes of temporality are used in institutions, arts, science and societies.

The cultural and historical sub-project, located at the European University Viadrina and carried out by a group of researchers headed by Annette Werberger and Andrii Portnov, questions, among other things, notions of stasis during the Cold War, as science itself was affected by processes of the hastily expected “Westernization” of temporality.

At the University of Potsdam, a group of young literary scholars led by Alexander Wöll is investigating arts in which inequalities have been attentively illustrated and texted. Despite the socio-political demand for European contemporaneity, artistic practices can be observed, especially in literature, that reveal inequalities. The projects offer a starting point for a profound analysis of European societies and a reflection on European or universal norms in relation to contemporaneity and modernization.

The Forum Transregionale Studien is responsible for the area of communication, which facilitates forms of joint work, arranges transfer processes, disseminates research standpoints and results, and networks EUTIM transregionally.

EUTIM has been funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) since April 2021 in the framework of the guideline for the promotion of regional studies (area studies) for an initial period of three years.