Viadrina organizes seminars, exhibition and public events on the Oder River

"Pani Odra and German-Polish Relations"

How was the ecological catastrophe in the Oder River in the summer of 2022 managed and communicated across the German-Polish border, and what is behind the idea of giving the river a personal rights status?

Around these questions revolve seminars and public events in the summer semester 2023 at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder). Sociologist PD Dr. Estela Schindel and political scientist Dr. Anja Hennig reflect on the man-made ecological catastrophe in courses and public talks and respond to the Polish initiative "Osoba Odra" (Person Oder), which aims to give the Oder River the status of a legal subject.

In her seminar "Asymmetries in the River: The Oder as a Mirror of German-Polish Relations", Dr. Anja Hennig analyzes crisis communication and crisis (mis)management at the state, transregional, and civil society levels.For this purpose, she plans to interview, among others, non-governmental organizations from the environmental sector, Brandenburg's Minister of the Environment Axel Vogel, and the Polish Embassy.

PD Dr. Estela Schindel devotes herself and her students in the seminar "The Oder as a Legal Person? On the (Legal) Subjectivity of Rivers and Nature" to the question of the relationship between humans and nature in the age of the Anthropocene. The demand to give the Oder a legal status is exemplarily addressed here in comparison with precursor initiatives, among others in Latin America.

Accompanying the seminars will be public events and an exhibition on the Oder:

Wednesday, May 24, 2023
In a public panel discussion on Wednesday, May 24, 18.00 PD Dr. Estela Schindel and Dr. Anja Hennig discuss, among others, with Dr. Andreas Gutmann from the University of Kassel, what added value it has in the human age to recognize nature as a legal entity. Interested parties are invited to attend the event of the Viadrina Institute for European Studies entitled "Pani Odra? Of rivers as legal persons in the ecological crisis" at the Logenhaus, room LH 101, Logenstraße 11 in Frankfurt (Oder). Andreas Gutman, a legal scholar, is a member of the project "Nature as a Legal Person," which is funded by the German Research Foundation.

Also on Wednesday, May 24, the exhibition "The Tears of the Oder" with prints by artist Ryszard Matecki about the fish death in the Oder River in 2022 opens in the Gräfin-Dönhoff-Building of the Viadrina.The exhibition is organized by Frankfurter Kunstgriff e. V. in cooperation with the University-City-Cultural Coordinator Constance Krüger.

Tuesday, May 30, 2023
On Tuesday, May 30, 16.00 PD Dr. Estela Schindel invites you to a public interview with Robert Rient, founder of the initiative "Osoba Odra". The event will also take place at the Logenhaus, room LH 101, Logenstraße 11, in Frankfurt (Oder).

If you are interested in interviews with Viadrina scholars PD Dr. Estela Schindel and Dr. Anja Hennig, please contact: presse@europa-uni.de