As part of the doctoral programme of the core research area “Trans-Mediterranean Entanglements: Mobilities and Relations in the Mediterranean and Beyond” at the Faculty of Humanities, we warmly invite you to an interdisciplinary workshop on “Coasts, Cultures, Constructs: Impulses from Emerging Research for a Trans-Mediterranean Perspective”. The workshop, which will take place on April 17 and 18, 2026, at the University of Graz, is aimed at early-career researchers. The Mediterranean region is far more than just a geographical space. As an age-old contact zone of cultures, it has for thousands of years served as a foil for developing concepts of identity, history and memory, as a place of longing as well as a stage for complex political, economic and cultural negotiations. The diversity of Mediterranean discourses is reflected in a wide array of academic disciplines—ranging from archaeology and history to the study of art, literature and linguistics.
The aim of the workshop is to bring together PhD students and postdoctoral researchers as well as Master’s students from various fields within the humanities, and to create an open forum for exchange, discussion and networking. Besides the presentation of individual projects, we want to highlight methodological impulses and conceptual as well as thematic intersections, to foster synergies, and to open up interdisciplinary perspectives on the Mediterranean and its multifaceted representations. The concept of ‘trans-Mediterranean entanglements’ serves as a framework to focus particularly on inter- and transcultural exchange, on open and dynamic constructions of identity, and on the resulting imaginations and artefacts. To further develop the synergies generated, a round table will be held to identify connections between the contributions, which will be visualised in an AI-supported digital mind map intended for online publication.
The workshop is organised by doctoral candidates in the programme and is aimed at early- career researchers whose projects are related to the Mediterranean—from antiquity to the present day. Possible contributions could address, for example, the following areas:
• Mediterranean spaces and topographies: coasts, cities, islands, hinterlands, and their
connectivity
• Migration, mobility, and cultural exchange in and beyond the Mediterranean region
• Utopias, myths and imaginations of the Mediterranean, including (synchronic or diachronic)
cultural entanglements
• (Trans-)mediterranean discourses in texts, images and material culture
1 up to max. 2 years after doctorate.
Presentations of (dissertation) projects should be approximately 20 minutes long, followed by a ten-minute moderated discussion. Master’s students are invited to present their work in the form of a poster. PhD and postdoc researchers may choose to contribute either a presentation or a poster. A dedicated timeslot for poster presentations will be scheduled between the talks. Interested participants are kindly asked to submit an abstract of 250–300 words (indicating whether a presentation or a poster is planned), along with a brief biographical statement (working title of the dissertation or Master’s thesis, academic discipline, home institution) by October 5, 2025, to: transmediterranean@uni-graz.at. Accepted contributions will be announced by early December. A certificate of participation can be issued upon request, and we will make every effort to partially cover travel and accommodation costs if needed. For further questions, please feel free to contact us by email (transmediterranean@uni-graz.at).
The organisation team:
Hannah Barmüller
Juliana Reinisch
Hans Scherer