German Historical Institute Warsaw, Prague Branch (Web)

Time: 26.-28.05.2026
Venue: Prague
Proposals by: 16.11.2025

The conference aims to advance and consolidate research on the histories of gender and sexual diversity, queer lives, and LGBTQIA+ experiences in East Central Europe throughout the twentieth century. Although pioneering studies have already opened this field, scholarship on the region remains comparatively limited. The cultural, social, and political trajectories of queer lives in East Central Europe are still only partially integrated into the broader historiography. Shaped by the overlapping legacies of empire, war, authoritarian regimes, state socialism, and post-socialist transition and transformation, these histories complicate linear narratives of progress and call for innovative methodological and comparative approaches.
In Prague, we invite participants to approach these questions through the lenses of archives, emotions, and histories. Attention to secrecy and disclosure, to silences and absences in the archive, and to the affective dimensions of memory and everyday life opens up new ways of writing queer histories in the region. These perspectives not only uncover hidden or suppressed voices but also reimagine the very forms of knowledge and evidence on which queer historiography can be built.
Prof. Ann Cvetkovich (Univ. of Texas at Austin) will deliver the keynote lecture “Feeling My Way through the Archives: A Journey in Queer Method” to frame and inspire our discussions. Her influential work on the archive of feelings and on the intersections of affect, memory, and queer culture has profoundly shaped queer studies and historiography. Therefore, her speech will provide a conceptual anchor for exploring how emotions, archives, and intimate experiences can serve as vital sources for rethinking queer histories in 20th-century East Central Europe.

This conference builds on the preparatory workshop held in Marburg in 2025, where researchers began conceptualizing queer histories in East Central Europe and presented early stages of their projects. Read more and source … (Web)