Spring Seminar 2023

For this year’s Spring Seminar we will travel to Kraków – Poland’s historical, spiritual and intellectual capitol. There, we will explore the intertwining of past and present in Polish society, while meeting with several representatives of religious and worldview communities and current discourse-defining experts from academia and activism.

Together, we will study the religious heritage and today’s interreligious and worldview coexistence in Poland and examine the interactions between Polish politics, civil society, and activism regarding women’s rights, gender equality and queer and minority rights.

We want to train our participants on what plurality can mean and which plurality competences are needed to navigate the current situation where Polish society has become increasingly divided in recent years. During our Seminar, Poland will serve as a case study to reflect upon how and why European countries have shifted to the political Right and how the relationship between religion and politics is currently being renegotiated. In Poland, the Catholic Church has formed an almost symbiotic relationship with the rightwing governing parties, which results in an increasing restriction of fundamental human rights and a threat to many parts of Polish society.

To complete the programme, our participants will meet members and representatives of several religious and worldview communities: among others the Jewish Community Center Kraków, the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland and a group of Indonesian Muslim students in Kraków. We will dive into Krakóws past with the help of Prof. Michał Galas and Dr. Edyta from the Institute for Judaistic at the University of Kraków, who we are happy to call our official partner for this Seminar.