The core of the international workshop “Innovation to Discourse – Normative Concepts in Transformation in the Arab Spring and Beyond”, which took place from November 16^th to 24^th 2013 at the Freie Universität Berlin, was to debate the role of normative concepts such as freedom, justice and dignity in the current transformation processes. Young German and Egyptian scientists, along with prominent experts worked out a common understanding of Arab transformation processes. Moreover, new impulses were created for methods and theory-development concerning the Arab Spring, as well as insights on revolutionary upheavals in general. The workshop focused on topics related to democracy, media, gender, religion, art and culture. Social and political scholars, economics, cultural scholars, Islamic scholars, philosophers, as well as art and literature scholars were involved in the workshop. Doctorates and advanced students were also among the participants, who received the opportunity to present their research projects. Lectures were held by Prof. Dr. Cilja Harders, Prof. Dr. Gudrun Krämer and Prof. Dr. Carola Richter from the Freie Universität Berlin, among others. The videos to the lectures are available here.

The event planners for the workshop were the Institute for Islamic Studies of Freie Universität Berlin, the Department of English Literature of Cairo University and the Excellence Cluster “The Formation of Normative Orders” of Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main. The workshop was financed by resources provided by the foreign office within the framework of transformation partnership with Egypt.