Former Fellow

Awet T. Weldemichael

Queen’s National Scholar and Associate Professor of African and World History, Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario)

Research project title:
Eritrea from the birth of its liberation movement in 1961 to the present

Abstract
My project is a study of contemporary Eritrea from the birth of its liberation movement in 1961 to the present. It aims to examine and better understand the origins of its current political system and the source of its sociopolitical malaise. Consistent with the Cluster of Excellence “Normative Orders”, it interrogates the worldviews, ideologies, declared visions and oft-repeated rationalizations of the liberation movement-cum-government through an in-depth documentation of the experiences of its leaders and rank-and-file. (Awet T. Weldemichael)

  • Biografische Angaben

    Awet T. Weldemichael is Associate Professor and Queen's National Scholar in the History Department at Queen's University and an Associate of the Indian Ocean World Center at McGill University. He holds a Ph.D. in History from UCLA. He is the author of Third World Colonialism and Strategies of Liberation (Cambridge, 2013), among other scholarly and policy publications. He has previously held teaching and research positions at African, European and U.S. universities, and worked for international organizations. He researches contemporary history and political economy of Northeast Africa.
  • Publikationen

    Piracy in Somalia: Violence and Development in the Horn of Africa (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). “The Law of the Sea and Il/Legal Fishing in Somalia,” The Nautilus IX (Spring 2018): 29-52. African Liberation Theology: Intergenerational Conversations on Eritrea’s Futures co-authored with Ghirmai Negash (Red Sea Press, 2018). “Formative Alliances of Northeast African Insurgents: the Eritrean Liberation Movement and the Ethiopian Armed Opposition between the 1970s and 1990s,” Northeast African Studies, Vol. 14, No.1 (2014), 83-122.

News from the research center

News
04.12.2025

The crisis of democratic theory from a sociological perspective

Sociologist Jenny Brichzin's lecture "Crisis of Democratic Theory? A sociological intervention" opened our lecture series "At the crossroads? On the future of democratic theory". The sociologist criticized the fact that social coexistence has so far been insufficiently addressed in democratic theory. A follow-up report

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Publication
21.11.2025 | Anthology

Handbook of Leadership. Applied Business Psychology for Managers

Felfe, Jörg; Dick, Rolf van (eds.) (2025): Handbook of Leadership. Applied Business Psychology for Managers. Springer.

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News
20.11.2025

Voluntary or compulsory? Military service, peace and democratic responsibility

Review of the 58th "Römerberggespräche". The topic of compulsory military service and the question of what a democratic state is allowed to demand of its citizens were at the center of the 58th "Römerberggespräche" "Conditionally ready for action? Military service and the duty to serve the state", which took place on November 15 in cooperation with the Research Centre Normative Orders in the Chagallsaal at Schauspiel Frankfurt.

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News
13.11.2025

Goethe Lecture Offenbach on ableist discrimination

Regina Schidel hat im Rahmen der Goethe Lectures Offenbach eine Kritik ableistischer Diskriminierung präsentiert. In ihrem Vortrag „Ich kann, also bin ich?“ diskutierte sie praktische Ausprägungen und philosophische Herkünfte von Ableismus.

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Event
10.02.2026 | Frankfurt am Main

Satanic Politics. Democracy after Liberalism

Lecture, Lecture Series

Lecture by Michael Rosen (Harvard University) as part of the lecture series "At the Crossroads? On the crisis of democracy" in the winter semester 2025/2026

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Event
04.02.2026 | Frankfurt am Main

Demokratien verteidigen. Zur Aktualität des Gewaltbegriffs bei Camus und Derrida

Lecture Series, Lecture

Vortrag von Christine Abbt (Universität St. Gallen) im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung "Am Scheidepunkt? Zur Krise der Demokratie" im Wintersemester 2025/2026

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Event
29.01.2026 | Frankfurt

Civil Geopolitics and the Dilemmas of the Democratic State

Lecture Series, Lecture

Vortrag von David Owen (Universtiy of Southampton) im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung "Am Scheidepunkt? Zur Krise der Demokratie" im Wintersemester 2025/2026

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Event
14.01.2026 | Frankfurt am Main

Vom Retten der Welt zum Vorbereiten auf den Kollaps: Neuorientierungen in katastrophischen Zeiten

Lecture Series, Lecture

Vortrag von Christine Hentschel (Universität Hamburg) im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung "Am Scheidepunkt? Zur Krise der Demokratie" im Wintersemester 2025/2026

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Event
10.12.2025 | Frankfurt am Main

How Democracy Relies on the Future

Lecture Series, Lecture

Vortrag von Jonathan White (LSE) im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung "Am Scheidepunkt? Zur Krise der Demokratie" im Wintersemester 2025/2026

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