Children Born of War - Sharing Knowledge and Lived Experience through Performing Arts

A cooperation between the Universities of Leipzig and Birmingham and the Landesverband der freien Theater in Sachsen e.V.

Throughout the history of armed conflicts children have been conceived by foreign soldiers and were born to local mothers. Among those are children conceived in rapes, as well as those born out of more or less consensual relationships. They usually grow up without their fathers in a tension between integration and exclusion, frequently under difficult circumstances. Children Born of War (CBOW) and their experiences, like few other themes, have been dominated by a comprehensive silence. Between 2015 and 2019, fifteen doctoral students, supported by an EU-funded project (www.chibow.org), researched this theme. In addition to scientific engagement with the topic, new paths were explored in order to raise public awareness of the experiences of CBOW. In 2021, Prof. Dr. Heide Glaesmer (Universität Leipzig) and Prof. Dr. Sabine Lee (Uni-versity of Birmingham) received the Ralf-Dahrendorf-Prize for the European Research Area for this project. The prize money has supported this theatrical dissemination project arising from the doctoral research.

The symposium combines lectures on the sharing of scientific ideas through theatre-based forms of dissemination, three performance art projects focusing on Children Born of War and an intersectoral panel discussion exploring challenges and opportunities of such dissemination.

We look forward to welcoming colleagues, students, and anybody interested in this topic at this event. Please click here to view the event's full programme.