RSS Feedhttps://cas.au.dk/en/en-gbThu, 22 Oct 2026 14:54:50 +0200Thu, 22 Oct 2026 14:54:50 +0200TYPO3 EXT:newsnews-37655Thu, 22 Oct 2026 11:00:00 +0200Materialized Science Fiction: Speculative Narratives as Infrastructure for Corporate Power and Governancehttps://cas.au.dk/en/currently/events/event/artikel/materialized-science-fiction-speculative-narratives-as-infrastructure-for-corporate-power-and-governanceVisiting Scholar lecture by Ali Rıza Taşkale, Roskilde UniversityVisiting Scholar lecture by Ali Rıza Taşkale, Roskilde University

Silicon Valley's most powerful figures do not merely borrow their ideas from science fiction; they build the world with it. This lecture develops the framework of materialized science fiction to show how speculative narratives - Asimov's Foundation, Tolkien's palantíri, Stephenson's Snow Crash - are converted into working infrastructure: surveillance platforms, rocket programmes, financial instruments and company towns. Drawing on Palantir's "technological republic", SpaceX's 2026 flotation and Starbase, the corporate settlement in South Texas where a private firm sets the rules of local government, it argues that these fictions do not simply legitimate corporate power after the fact. They organise it, supplying a vocabulary in which private authority appears as destiny and democratic deliberation as obsolete delay. At stake is not only who owns the technologies of the future but who is authorised to imagine it. The lecture closes by asking how science fiction's imaginative resources might be reclaimed for democratic rather than corporate ends.

Bio 
Ali Rıza Taşkale is External Lecturer at Roskilde University and an editor of Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory. He writes on speculative fiction, finance and political power, and is the author of Post-Politics in Context (Routledge) and Fictional Worlds and Financial Realities in Speculative Literature and Film (Palgrave, forthcoming).

Funded by:The Research Programme on Political Futurity in and beyond Democracy (PolFut) 

Poster
Download below

]]>Globale StudierPolitical FuturityAfdelingerBende IngvorsenThu, 22 Oct 2026 11:00:00 +0200Thu, 22 Oct 2026 13:00:00 +0200MZ-stuen, 1422-125MZ-stuen, 1422-1251792659600179266680017926596001792666800news-38323Thu, 22 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0200ECLC lecture series Fall 2026https://cas.au.dk/en/currently/events/event/artikel/eclc-lecture-series-fall-2026-1'THINGS CHINESE' What Objects can tell us about China's Past and PresentDr. Xiang Wei (Tsinghua University)

From Chang'an to Nara: The lnfluence of Tang Culture on Japan

Poster
Download below with a QR code for registration

]]>Globale StudierMette Brynolf CáceresThu, 22 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0200Thu, 22 Oct 2026 13:30:00 +0200Online via Zoom or physically at the School of International Studies at Peking UniversityOnline via Zoom or physically at the School of International Studies at Peking University1792663200179266860017926632001792668600news-35763Fri, 23 Oct 2026 14:00:00 +0200Come celebrate all Global Studies alumni!https://cas.au.dk/en/currently/events/event/artikel/default-22e671cd93For the third year in a row, we celebrate our alumni at Global Studies! Sign up and join us!We celebrate our alumni for the third year in a row at Global Studies with all the programs that have its home in our current department and their predecessor programs, including Arab and Islamic Studies. Sign up and join us! Come alone or contact some of your former classmates and bring them along.

GLOBAL STUDIES – Arab and Islamic Studies, Brazil Studies, China Studies, European Studies, GLAS, India and South Asia Studies, International Studies, Japan Studies, Russia Studies, and related former study programs – will have their third alumni event. 

MEET former fellow students and enjoy exchanging news from your fields, and ideas for future collaborations.

FIND current students for internships, ‘erhvervs-‘ MA thesis or PhD thesis, student jobs and more.

NETWORK for new job opportunities and business insights. We are looking forward to seeing you all reuniting and getting to know other GS alumni and current students

PLEASE SIGN UP BEFORE OCTOBER 19: 
https://event.au.dk/events/global-studies-alumni-event-2026

QUESTIONS? 
If you have any questions, please forward them to GS department secretary: Bende Ingvorsen: bi@cas.au.dk

POSTER
Download below

]]>Europastudier, Ruslandsstudier og Internationale StudierGlobale StudierBende IngvorsenFri, 23 Oct 2026 14:00:00 +0200Fri, 23 Oct 2026 18:00:00 +02001792756800179277120017927568001792771200