WOC Research Center Digital Diaspora

The WOC Research Center Digital Diaspora is part of the interdisciplinary and collaborative research platform Worlds of Contradiction (WOC) of U Bremen and associated to the ERC Starting Grant project AFROEUROPECYBERSPACE (funding ID: 101110473). The WOC Research Center’s members and fellows investigate the (self-)positionings of diasporic groups in the digital space and explores the consequences of decentralized transterritorial online networking for diasporic self-images, forms of representation and practices. In a postdigital age, the entangelements of analog and digital practices and the transmedial projections of diasporic realities come into focus. The WOC Research Center is interdisciplinary in nature and combines in an innovative way medial artefacts with cultural studies approaches that focus on the semiotically charged “textures” of these digital diasporic positionings.

To this purpose, the WOC Research Center aims to break down the dichotomy between the analog and virtual worlds, between texts circulating in printed form and those generated and available in digital space, between traditional and new spheres of knowledge production, aiming at traversing supposed contradictions between different research subjects, disciplines and realities.

The WOC Research Center was officially inaugurated on 10 December 2024. For activities please see “Events” and the WOC website.

It builds on the prior work of the WOC research lab Digital Diaspora, funded in 2020 by Julia Borst, Linda Maeding and Gisela Febel. For past activities of the research lab, including video recordings of keynote lectures by Koen Leurs and Sandra Ponzanesi, please see the lab website.

Past and current guests and fellows of the WOC Research Center Digital Diaspora: #

2026:

Prof. Dr. Eduard Arriaga, Language, Literature & Culture and Digital Humanities, Clark U (USA)
Jessica Mawuena Lawson, writer, Germany
Lucía Asué Mbomío Rubio, writer and journalist, Spain
Johanna Vollmeyer, German Studies, U Complutense Madrid (Spain)
Kwanza Musi Dos Santos, co-founder of QuestaèRoma, trainer and consultant, Italy / Brazil
Valeria Angola, writer, podcaster and co-founder of Afrochingonas, c, Mexico
Fiona Quast, Graduate Center for the Study of Culture, JLU Giessen (Germany)

2025:

thabo thindi, filmmaker, Berlin / Huhudi Township
Prof. Dr. Cécile Accilien, French and Francophone Studies, U Maryland (USA)
Jenaba Samura, Postcolonial Studies and Afroeuropean Literary Studies, Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung Berlin (Germany)
Prof. Dr. Margherita Dore, European, American and Intercultural Studies studies, Sapienza U (Italy)
Prof. Dr. Alfonso Bartolomé, Spanish studies, Virginia State U (USA)
Prof. Dr. Polo Moji, African and Afrodiasporic Literary and Cultural Studies, U of Cape Town (South Africa)
Claudia Sackl, German Studies, U Zurich (Switzerland)

2024:

Minna Salami, writer and social critic, fellow of THE NEW INSTITUTE, UK / Germany

Director #

Prof. Dr. Julia Borst PI, ERC Starting Grant project AFROEUROPECYBERSPACE, U Bremen

Members and associated members: #

Prof. Dr. Shola Adenekan: PI, ERC Starting Grant project YORUBAPRINT, Ghent U
Dr. Francesca Aiuti, Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, U Bremen & former postdoctoral researcher of the ERC Starting Grant project AFROEUROPECYBERSPACE
Ximena Cervantes Englerth, M.A.: Doctoral candidate, ERC Starting Grant project AFROEUROPECYBERSPACE, U Bremen
Prof. i.R. Dr. Gisela Febel: Former Professor of French studies, U Bremen
Dr. Merveilles Mouloungui: Postdoctoral researcher, ERC Starting Grant project AFROEUROPECYBERSPACE
Prof. Dr. Linda Maeding: Profesora Titular German studies, U Complutense Madrid
Dr. Alison Posey: Assistant Professor of Foreign Languages, Transylvania U, & Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, U Bremen
Dr. Nelson Sindze Wembe, Postdoctoral researcher, French and Francophone Studies, U Bremen & former postdoctoral researcher of the ERC Starting Grant project AFROEUROPECYBERSPACE
Corina Wieser Cox, M.A.: Doctoral Candidate, English-speaking cultures, U Bremen