KonaK Vienna
The association Konak Vienna (research and cultural club for con tinental a merika and K aribbean) was in on 25 October 1996 Vienna Josefstadt founded. The association has been based in Vienna-Favoriten since 2002 . In 2018 the KonaK began its work in Graz , which largely dispensed with the addition of Vienna.
Goals, members and events
The KonaK promotes cultural and scientific cooperation between Austria, continental America and the Caribbean, especially at the level of scientific exchange between Austrian and European institutions on the one hand and institutions in continental America and the Caribbean on the other. The best-known members of KonaK Vienna included the German cultural anthropologist Hanns-Albert Steger , who died in 2015, and the German-US-American historian Georg Iggers, who died in 2017 . Other well-known members are the German historian Michael Zeuske , the Austrian political scientist Reinhard C. Heinisch , the Austrian social anthropologist and journalist Leo Gabriel , the Austrian cultural philosopher Franz Martin Wimmer , the Venezuelan writer and social scientist Luis Britto García , the Cuban historian Sergio Guerra Vilaboy and the American historian and philosopher Marcus Rediker . From 1998 until his death on November 9th, 2015, the Austrian painter, sculptor and architect Ernst Fuchs held the function of a cultural advisory board.
KonaK Vienna has been organizing international conferences, congresses and symposia since 2006. In 2006, during the EU-LAK summit in April / May 2006, the international symposium “Exile-Migration-Identities” took place at the Urania in Vienna under the patronage of the Austrian Federal President Heinz Fischer . This was followed in 2010 by the international Outlaws congress “in the Caribbean, past and present” and in 2012 the international conference “Nomadism and Mobile Ways of Life in the Americas”. KonaK Vienna is a member of the " Association of Latin American and Caribbean Historians " (ADHILAC). From September 18 to 22, 2014, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Congress of Vienna in 1814/15, the association hosted the XI. International Conference 2014 of ADHILAC. The conference “The Congress of Vienna and its global dimension” held in the Austrian Federal Chancellery and at the University of Vienna was integrated into the Slave Route Project of UNESCO . Among the keynote speakers were Leonel Fernández Reyna , Dieter Langewiesche , Jonathan Israel and Immanuel Wallerstein .
The chairman of the KonaK Vienna is the Austrian historian Christian Cwik , who works at the University of Graz .
Mobility programs
Since 1999, a total of more than 600 students from Europe and Latin America have taken part in KonaK Vienna's mobility programs to almost all countries in continental America and the Caribbean. The European cooperation partners include and include a. the Institutes for History, Economic and Social History and Romance Studies at the University of Vienna and the Institute for Iberian and Latin American History at the University of Cologne . From 2006 to 2008, a total of eight courses were held in Caracas as part of the Intercambio Internacional Estudiantil mobility program together with the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela . Cooperation agreements have existed with the universities of Cartagena de Indias and Magdalena (Santa Marta) in Colombia since 2009, with the Universidad de La Habana in Cuba since 2011 and with the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago since 2013 . In 2020, joint projects took place with the Université des Antilles in Martinique and the University of Curacao.
Library
The Amauta library comprises around 8,000 volumes, with a focus on Latin American and Caribbean history, politics and ethnology. A large part of the book and magazine inventory are works in Spanish and Portuguese, which come directly from the countries of continental America and the Caribbean. Use of the library is free.
Publications
- KonaK - Reality excerpts from continental America and the Caribbean No. 1–97 (1996–2019). Self-published by KonaK Vienna. Published by Verena Muth ISSN 1561-8056
- Américas - Contributions to the exploration of continental America and the Caribbean. 1997–2007, 33 issues, edited by Christian Cwik. Scientific publishing house Berlin. ISBN 978-3-86573-090-9
- Esclavitud, Huida y Resistencia en Cuba (Edited by Christian Cwik Michael Zeuske and Javier Laviña). Scientific publishing house Berlin. Berlin 2013, p.206. ISBN 978-3865737588
- From Vienna to Barranquilla: Stations of the Flight into Caribbean Exile, 1938/39. (Edited by Christian Cwik and Verena Muth), Society for the Studies of Continental America and the Caribbean. Vienna 2012, p.188. ISSN 1561-8056
- Towards memory: Female heroes of the Americas. (Edited by Christian Cwik and Verena Muth), Society for the Studies of Continental America and the Caribbean. Vienna 2011, p. 100. ISSN 1561-8056