EPICUR Activities
EPICUR Seminar SS 2023 "Critical Aspects of European History: Memory Wars in Media"
"During an intensive week of excursions, we were not only able to get to know today's Thessaloniki, its culture and cuisine, but also take a look behind the modern facades of Greece's second largest city: Ancient Macedonian foundation stones, the splendor of old Byzantine frescoes in early Christian churches, the almost forgotten multiculturalism when Thessaloniki was part of the Ottoman Empire, but also the darker side of the city's history: the wars and conflicts in the 20th century, the expulsion of the Muslim-Turkish population, the occupation by Nazi Germany and the murder of a large part of the city's population, the Sephardic Jews. When political currents today misuse, change and or deliberately forget parts of this history, it becomes clear how important a holistic culture of remembrance is."
Matthias Gmeiner, KIT (translated by DeepL)
EPICUR Seminar WS 2022/2023 "Media and Various Forms of Memory Wars"
"It was a great honor for me to take part in this fantastic EPICUR course, which brought me unforgettable memories and a profound understanding of controversies in memory culture. Before the EPICUR course at Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań (AMU) we had several online courses on background knowledge about the concept and examples of Memory Wars. The teaching staff, boths historians, shared an abundance of educational perspectives with us. Furthermore, we had the opportunity to discuss our own perspectives during the course. The four-day EPICUR course in Poznań/Poland was great because we could not only discuss our presentations with the professors face to face, but also visit the city of Poznań - rich in history, architecture and culture.
Professor Wiktor Werner and Adrian Trzoss are knowledgeable and easygoing, they made the four-day EPICUR course in Poznań even more wonderful!"
Xinchao Gao, Master German Studies, KIT
EPIC Missions 2022/23
With an intensive kick-off week, the EPIC Missions 2022/23 have started their first physical round after a virtual pilot in 2021/22: From August 22-26, students and mission guides from the EPICUR partner universities were guests at BOKU Vienna to form a total of six EPIC Mission Teams. The teams will work on their respective EPIC Missions from September 2022 to January 2023. In doing so, they learn to work internationally and goal-oriented on real projects.
This year's missions are provided by six stakeholders: ECOLAS, Social City Vienna, La Nef des Sciences Mulhouse, Solare Zukunft e.V. Freiburg, Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe, and the Municipality of Thessaloniki giving students the exclusive opportunity to engage with influential social institutions and a wide range of topics.
The EPIC-Missions 2023/24 kick-off event will again take place at one of the 9 EPICUR universities.
Expansion of cooperation with Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh)
After Prof. Jannis Pangalos (AUTh School of German Language and Literature) and Prof. Maria Kavala (AUTh School of Political Sciences) have already co-organized the first EPICUR lecture series with the participation of three partner universities (AUTh, AMU, KIT) in spring 2022, further cooperations are in the pipeline: Among other teaching projects, an Erasmus+ contract between several humanities and social science institutes of AUTh and the KIT Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences is being prepared in order to both perpetuate the existing connections and to enable the mobility of students and academic staff of both partners in the future.