Workshop "Working All Night" (Prague)

Principal Investigator Ger Duijzings organizes a workshop at Charles University Prague together with Graduate school guest PhD student Lucie Duskova.

In the modern era, work, production processes and services have started to extend into the night, which is usually understood as the result of capitalist expansion and ‘colonisation’. In this interdisciplinary workshop we aim to broaden our view and explore the emergence and proliferation of the ‘night shift’ in various other political and economic contexts (such as under socialism and fascism), a topic largely ignored in labour history.

The keynote lecture will be held by Prof. Hanah Ahlheim (Universität Giessen). Technical developments and the availability of electric light in the 19th and 20th century have decisively altered everyday life in modern societies: Mankind entered a permanently changing relationship with never-sleeping machines in ever-lighted spaces, and the night became a time not only for sleeping and dreaming, but also for working, for consuming, for travelling and partying. The talk follows tired soldiers, US-American DJs, German steel workers, flying pilots and small sparrows through their "nights": How did the idea of staying awake and making human resources available around the clock affect our understanding of labor, of time, of the human body and of society as a whole?

Program

Full workshop program

Poster of the keynote lecture

Workshop "Working All Night. Modernity, Night Shifts and the Temporal Organization of Labour across Political and Economic Regimes"

Where: Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prage, Prostor 39

When: Thursday to Friday, 14-16 November