Relational Borders and (Cross-) Border Relations

14th UniGR-CBS Seminar Border Studies
25-26 June 2026, Saarland University

Borders are often imagined as lines of separation—demarcating territories, cultures, languages, identities, and political orders. Yet across contemporary Border Studies, borders are increasingly understood as relational and processual formations: historically situated, materially entangled, and continuously reconfigured through relations of power, mobility, temporality, and exchange that extend beyond the human alone. Approached in this way, borders do not simply divide; they emerge through ongoing interactions among people, infrastructures, environments, and cultural practices.

This UniGR-CBS Border Seminar invites contributions that explore relational borders and (cross-) border relations as perspectives for rethinking borders beyond static, territorial, or purely institutional frameworks.

This UniGR-CBS Border Seminar encourages dialogue across different geopolitical and epistemic contexts, including European, transatlantic, and American perspectives, as well as comparative and connective approaches that think borders across regions and scales.

Call for Contributions (31/05/2026)

We welcome contributions from Border Studies, the Humanities, American Studies, Cultural Studies, Social Sciences, Geography, Linguistics, Literary and Media Studies, History, Political Theory, and the Arts, etc., as well as interdisciplinary, comparative, and practice-based research.

Contributions from early-career researchers are explicitly encouraged.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Relational theories of borders and bordering
  • Cross-border relations and transnational entanglements
  • Temporalities, spatialities, and chronotopes of borders
  • Language, translation, and multilingual border practices
  • Postcolonial and decolonial perspectives on borders
  • Displacement, migration, diaspora, and embodied border experiences
  • Aesthetic, narrative, and artistic engagements with borders

By centering relations in a broader sense, the conference aims to foster interdisciplinary exchange and to rethink borders as relational formations in motion, rather than fixed or self-contained entities.

Abstracts (approx. 250 words) for presentations, panels, roundtables or other formats may be submitted in English, German, or French and should be sent to borderstudies@uni-saarland.de by 31 May.

Download the Call for Contributions here

Program

Day 1 - Thursday

09:00-09:15

Welcome & Opening
E1.7, Foyer
Prof. Dr. Astrid M. Fellner (Head UniGR-CBS at Saarland U)

09:15-10:30

Presentations of Projects and Initiatives
E1.7, Foyer

10:30-11:00

Coffee Break - E1.7 Foyer

11:00-12:00

Panel 1-A (EN) 
E1.7, R. 0.01
UniGR-CBS Working Groups in Dialogue: 
Labor & Education and Bordertextures

Panel 1-B (EN) 
E2.5, R. 0.39
Academic Relations Across Borders

12:00-01:00

Lunch Break

01:00-02:00

Panel 2-A (EN) 
E1.7, R. 0.01
Borders and Cross-Border Relations in Literature

Panel 2-B (EN)
E2.5, R. 0.39
Discourses of Bordering

02:00-02:30

Coffee Break - E1.7 Foyer

02:30-03:30

Panel 3-A (EN) 
E1.7, R. 0.01
Rethinking Borders & (Cross-) Border Relations

Panel 3-B (EN) 
E2.5, R. 0.39
Representations & Imaginaries

04:00-06:00

Online Roundtable SUUN (EN) 
online via zoom
Borders in Flux and Academic Communities: Ukrainian Higher Education in a Wartime Context

Day 2 - Friday

09:00-10:00

Keynote Lecture
A2.1, R. 0.01
Ass.Prof. Dr. María Verónica Elias 
(University of Texas, San Antonio; UniGR-CBS Fellow 2026 RPTU)
Governing the Border Through Discretion: Administrative practice at the U.S.–Mexico Border

10:00-10:30

Coffee Break

10:30-12:00

Panel 4-A (EN, DE) 
A2.1, R. 0.01
Relations in Spatial and Linguistic Border Studies

Panel 4-B (EN) 
E1.7, R. 0.01
Gender (Relations) Across Borders

12:00-01:00

Lunch Break

01:00-02:30

Panel 5-A (DE, EN) 
A2.1, R. 0.01
WG Bordertextures 
(public)

Panel 5-B (DE,EN,FR) 
C5.3, R. 23.1
WG Labor & Education (internal)

Panel 5-C (EN)
online via zoom
Border Crossings & Transnational Entanglements (online)

02:30

Good bye

 

Download the current version of the program here and find all the details in this document.

Here you can find the campus map pf Saarland University highlighting the event locations.


In addition to the on-site program, we are pleased to offer two fully online sessions:

This UniGR-CBS Border Seminar is conceived as a joint event that brings together different research and exchange formats. It merges

  • the UniGR‑CBS Border Seminar, a two‑day research workshop devoted to a specific border‑related theme 
  • a workshop within the East Partnership project “Border Chronotopes,”
  • the UdS American Studies Graduate Forum, an open-topic platform for junior researchers, graduate students, and PhD candidates in American Studies (previous editions), co‑organized with the German‑American Institute (DAI).

 

Logos Seminaire Border Studies


Contact
Eva Nossem borderstudies@uni-saarland.de