Visiting Scholars
Scholars from around the world come to work at the ZtG through ERASMUS-cooperation agreements. They often give seminars or guest lectures, and always greatly enrich our colloquiums, workshops, and symposiums. The Zentrum für transdisziplinäre Geschlechterstudien (ZtG) offers international scholars, whose research projects are compatible with our research focuses, the opportunity for self-financed research stays at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. The duration of stay and time period can be determined by the scholar as they wish.
Our visiting scholars are invited to actively take part in our academic life, including but not limited to the scientific events and discussions at the ZtG. Additionally, visiting scholars are welcome to present their research projects in a suitable format.
Visiting scholars have various resources at their disposal, for example the Gender Library and electronic resources such as the computer pool. Unfortunately, the ZtG is unable to fund research projects directly.
Application Details
Applications to the ZtG are fundamentally always possible. These are to be directed to:
ztg-sekretariat@gender.hu-berlin.de
If applicable, enquiries for documents required for external funding are to be submitted to the ZtG at least four weeks, or eight weeks during the semester break, before the financing deadline.
Application documents - postdocs / professors:
- Statement on the aims of the research stay, the desired cooperation and assistance, the duration of the stay, and the envisaged time period
- CV including a list of publications
- Short description of the project (approx. 2,300 characters)
Application documents - doctoral students
The requirement for a guest stay as a doctoral student is the co-supervision of their project by a professor or postdoctoral researcher during the duration of their stay.
If doctoral students are interested in doing their doctorate at the HU, the general conditions can be found on the university's Doctoral Candidates' Portal.
- Statement on the aims of the research stay, the desired cooperation and assistance, the duration of the stay, and the envisaged time period
- CV including a list of publications
- Exposé of the project (approx. 10,000 characters)
We invite our guest researchers to actively participate in the academic life, events and discussions at the ZtG and to present their research projects at events such as our Doctoral Students' Day.
As a guest researcher you can use our gender library, electronic resources and computer pool for your work. Unfortunately, we cannot directly support your research project in any way.
2024
Dr. Nyla Aleem Ansari (assistant professor, Institute of Business Administration, Karachi, Pakistan) continued to develop the curriculum for a self-leadership program for early-career women in April-May 2024.
Fahimeh Azmoudeh (PhD student, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran) conducted research for her project "How Gender Identity in Iranian Society is Based on Dramaturgy Theory" at the ZtG.
Farnaz Bakhshi Jahromi (PhD student, Kharazmi University, Tehran) is researching for her "Study on the Form of the Narrative of Femininity in the Novels of the Constitutional Revolution Period" at the ZtG from February to August 2024.
Thomas Martin Møller Burø (assistant professor, Department of Engineering Technology and Didactics, Technical University of Denmark) worked on a research article on a collective coping mechanism among activists working for gender equality in technology entrepreneurship, in April 2024.
Sher Muhammad (associate professor, Govt Ambala Muslim Graduate College, Sargodha, Pakistan) is a visiting scholar at the ZtG from August to October 2024, working on the project "Asian Women Parliamentarians Swimming against the Tides of Political Ruptures, Post-Conflict and Authoritarianism."
Zahra Mousawy (director, Afghanistan Women's Studies Academy, AWSA) is working on a conference report and website-based documentation following AWSA's first hybrid conference in Berlin in August 2023.
Susan Ahmadi (board member, Afghanistan Women's Studies Academy, AWSA) has been continuing her work with AWSA at the ZtG, since August 2023. Her focus area is psychosocial support.
Kate R. Stanton (PhD student, University of Oxford) worked on her project "‘Einig Mutterland nicht in Sicht’: An Oral History of the East German Feminist Movement," at the ZtG from September 2023 to July 2024.
Andrew Michel Thomas (PhD student, University of Toronto) conducted fieldwork for his project "Ontological Abduction: Black Queer Geographies as a Problem of Thought, and the Homo Saceren Figure of Modernity" at the ZtG from June 2023 to July 2024.
Past visiting scholars at the ZtG include the following.
2023
Dr. Cordula Böcking (Assistant Professor, Department of German, Maynooth University, Ireland) worked on her monograph "Joan of Arc in Germany: (Trans)National Adaptations in German-Language Texts and Films" at the ZtG from September 2022 to July 2023.
Annalisa Cananzi (PhD student, University of Bologna) analyzed the relationship between feminist theory and technology, at the ZtG from January to July 2023.
Sarah Carretero Sudres (PhD student, Paris Nanterre University) will be based at the ZtG to investigate Marie Pauline Thorbecke’s collections from Cameroon in Germany as part of her thesis project “An Object of One’s Own? ‘Ethnographic’ Collections of Western Women Travellers, 1850-1914" from July to September 2023.
Zeinab Nobowati (PhD student, University of Oregon) conducted research for her project "Critique and the Ambivalence of Colonial Modernity: Towards a Postcolonial Genealogical Critique" from May to September 2023.
Rieke Schröder (doctoral researcher, Aalborg University Copenhagen) conducted research for her PhD project "The Mobility of ‘the Closet’. Queer Refugees Transgressing Heterosexual Borderlands" at the ZtG from April to July 2023.
Olga Shnyrova (professor, Ivanovo Center for Gender Studies) worked on her project "Woman as a resource of the revolution: The policy of the Comintern and the International Women's Secretariat in organizing the international communist women's movement 1919-1926” at the ZtG from September to December 2023.
Rodante van der Waal (doctoral researcher, University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht) was based at the ZtG for her research on obstetric violence and obstetric racism from April to September 2023.
Tobias Haimin de Fønss Wung-Sung (postdoctoral researcher, Department of Nordic Studies, University of Copenhagen) will work on the project "A Cultural History of Aids in Denmark" (CHAD) at the ZtG for three months from March 2023.
Merna Aboul-Ezz (PhD student, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies Geneva) is conducting research for her thesis "Between CEDAW and Shari'a: Islamic Feminists Searching for a Common Ground" at the ZtG for a year, starting in April 2022.
2022
Hannah Maruci Aflalo (PhD student, PhD student in Political Science at the University of São Paulo) worked on her project "Which women? An analysis of the category 'woman' in female political representation in Brazil" at the ZtG from June to December 2022.
Ezgi Sarıtaş (Research Assistant, Ankara University, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Gender Studies Division, Turkey) was a visiting scholar at the ZtG from January to September 2022, working on her post-doc project "Entangled Histories of Sexual Modernity: Transfer, Translation, and Adaptation of Sexual Discourses in the Late Ottoman Empire and Early Turkish Republic, 1850-1950."
Sher Muhammad (Assistant Professor, Government Graduate College, Bhalwal, Sargodha, Pakistan) had a post-doctoral visiting fellowship at the ZtG from December 2021 to June 2022, working on the project "Gender Quota and Women-Friendly Legislation - A Case Study of Pakistan."
Sima Nabizadeh (Assistant Professor, Architecture Department, Binaloud Institute of Higher Edu3cation, Mashhad, Iran) carried out research for her project "Negotiating Modernity and Islam; the Border of Body and Boundary of Home in Contemporary Iran" at the ZtG from September 2021 to September 2022.
Hazel Rhodes (PhD student, Columbia University, New York) worked on her dissertation project at the HU from the winter semester 2021/2022 to the summer semester 2022: "Tracing Transgender Feeling in Sexual Modernity: The Emergence of Gender Identity and Queer Affinities between German Modernist Literature & Science."
2020/2021
Taiana Catharino do Carmo (PhD student, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal) researched her PhD project "My life, my words, my view - The perception of women about the role of their personal online narratives" at the ZtG from October to December 2021.
Maryoriet Rosales Salgado (Junior Researcher, ZEF, University of Bonn) conducted research at the ZtG in May and June 2021 for her PhD project “The stay-at-home paradox; urban narratives of domestic violence in the Central District of Honduras during COVID-19."
Ty Vanover (PhD student at University of California, Berkeley) conducted research for his doctoral thesis "Graphic Impulses: Drawing, Science, and the Homoromantic in Germany, 1871-1933" between September 2020 and September 2021.
Eszter Kováts (PhD student, ELTE University, Budapest, DAAD scholarship) worked here from January to May 2020 on her project "Das Feindbild Genderideologie in einem globalen Kontext".
2019
Juliana Claassens (University of Stellenbosch, South Africa) worked from September until November 2019 on her project "Representing the Unrepresentable: Exploring the Intersection of Gender and Trauma in Biblical and Contemporary Trauma Narratives," aiming at finishing a book.
Munir Moosa (Sindh Madressatul Islam University) worked from 22 July to 6 August 2019 at the ZtG on his project "Gender and Sexual Diversities (GSD) and Socio-Cultural Identities-Identifying the Challenges Associated with the Construction and Contestation of Gender Identities and Social Integration among Muslim Youth in Pakistan and Germany."
Eszter Kováts (ELTE University, Budapest supported by the CENTRAL-scholarship) worked at the ZtG in January 2019 on her research "Das Feindbild Genderideologie in einem globalen Kontext."
Stephanie Belmer (PhD from York University; teaching at Vanier College, Montreal, QC) was at the ZtG from January to April to work on her project "Desire Lines: Intimacy and Antagonism as Institution Critique."
Scott Olson (PhD candidate, University of Iowa, USA) conducted research for his project "From Stonewall to Mauerfall: Transatlantic Collective Memory in German LGBTQ Organizing" as a visiting scholar at ZtG from autumn 2018 until September 2019.
Sadia Akbar (University of the Punjab, Pakistan) was engaged in research at the ZtG for her PhD project "Body Image and Sexuality: Personal Perspectives of Physically Disabled Women in Pakistan" for three years beginning in the summer semester of 2015.
2018
Aleida Luján Pinelo (PhD candidate, Turku University, Finland) was engaged in research in Berlin from October to Dezember 2018 about "fem(ni)zid."
Sofia Varino (doctoral candidate, Stony Brook University, NY, USA) was a visiting scholar at the ZtG, working on her PhD project “Vital Differences: Indeterminacy and the Biomedical Body” from autumn 2015 until March 2018.
Kateřina Kolářová (Assistant Professor, Dept. Gender Studies, Charles University, Prague) worked on her research project "HIV/Aids: Chronic Embodiments and Biological Citizenship in the Postsocialist Czech Republic" at the ZtG in the academic year 2018.
William Burton (doctoral candidate, Department of French and Romance Philology,
Columbia University, New York) was a visiting scholar at the ZtG, researching for his PhD project “'Les mots même se font chair': Rousseau’s materialist theory of linguistic embodiment" from February until the end of August 2018.
Jana Cattien (doctoral candidate, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) was engaged in research at the ZtG for her PhD project "Contemporary Cologne: Unsettling Feminisms, Alliances and Events" from mid-October 2017 until the end of March 2018.
2017
Professor Carrie Rentschler (McGill University, Montreal, Canada) worked on her book project (tentative title) "From Passive Spectator to Active Intervener: Media Activism and the Redefinition of the Bystander" from 1 September to 31 December 2017.
Dr Alex Muller (Associate Professor, University of Cape Town, South Africa) conducted research for her project "Sexual orientation, gender identity, medicine and the law in South Africa 1948-1994" from 1 July until 13 September 2017. During her time at the ZtG, she also guest-edited the issue ‘Considering intersectionality in Africa’ for the journal Agenda – Feminist Media.
Talia Meer (PhD candidate, University of Cape Town, South Africa) was engaged in research at the ZtG for her doctoral thesis on "Strange Space - Fem bodies and other Others in Observatory, Cape Town" from 1 July until 13 September 2017.
Lucia Wieger (master's student, University of Vienna) worked on her master thesis "How women live. The one-kitchen-building in Vienna and Berlin and its meaning as a female public of the 1st women's movement" at the ZtG from 1 March to 31 July 2017.
Prof Dr Chia Longman (Ghent University, Belgium) was a visiting scholar at the ZtG while working on her book project "Post-secular Femininities: Women's Spirituality in Contemporary Well-Being Culture" from mid-September 2016 to the end of July 2017.
Beatrice Frasl (Doctoral Candidate, University of Vienna, and Junior Fellow, IFK - Internationales Forschungszentrum für Kulturwissenschaften, Vienna) was engaged in research at the ZtG for her PhD project "Who is the monster and who is the man? - Heteronormativity and Constructions of (sexual) Otherness in Disney's animated feature films" in June 2017.
Dr Munir Moosa Sadruddin (Assistant Professor, SMI University, Karachi, Pakistan) was at the ZtG researching for his project "Exploring Self-Identity of Youth in Pakistan and Germany: Identifying Pushing Buttons towards Violence/Silence, and Suggest a Plan of Action" from 1 June until 30 June 2017.
Erica Meiners (Professor, Northeastern Illinois University, United States) worked on a project documenting and exploring abolition politics, or resistances to policing and imprisonment. She was specifically looking at feminist responses to sexual violence outside of criminalization. She was Berlin for May 2017, and held a guest lecture on the topic "Challenging US carceral feminism: Reclaiming safety in the Trump era" on 15 May 2017.
2016
Amin Benamra (doctoral candidate, Autonomous University of Madrid) was engaged in research at the ZtG for his PhD project "The New Communication Technologies and the Dynamics of Feminine Subaltern public Spheres within the Virtual Space" from 10 until 23 November 2016.
Stefanie C. Boulila (Center for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, University of Leeds, UK) worked at the ZtG from September 2013 to February 2016 on her disseration "Dancing Salsa in Post-Thinking Europe: A Queer Intersectional Analysis of Gender and Sexuality Discourses in Salsa Communities in Switzerland and the UK."
Karla Elliott (doctoral candidate, Centre for Women's Studies and Gender Research, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia) worked with the ZtG from January 2015 until February 2016 as a visiting scholar, conducting research for her PhD project "Caring Masculinities and Men's Friendships."
Dr Laia Falcón (Universidad Complutense, Madrid) was engaged in bibliographical research on "Early prevention of social risks such as gender violence and sexism from education and media literacy" at the ZtG from 2 to 31 August 2016.
Chiara Iorino (doctoral candidate, IMT Institute for Advanced Studies, Lucca, Italy) was conducting research for her project on the "Intersection between feminist theories, practices of appropriation and iconoclasm with a focus on the second half of the XX century" from 1 March to 22 July 2016.
Dr Gundula Ludwig (Universität Wien) was a visiting scholar at the ZtG working on her habilitation project "Der Körper des Demos" from 1 October 2015 to 30 September 2016.
Prof Ph.D. Manon Niquette (Université Laval, Québec, Canada) conducted research at the ZtG for her project on "Construction of motherhood in online pharmaceutical advertising" from 4 to 29 July 2016.
Tiina Pitkäjärvi (doctoral candidate, Uppsala University, Sweden) worked on her PhD dissertation "Breast cancer awareness and fundraising campaigns in Sweden from a material-semiotic perspective" at the ZtG from 15 August until 30 November 2016.
Dr Birgit Schippers (St Mary's University College, Belfast) was engaged in research at the ZtG for her project "Posthumanist Challenges to Human Rights: Gendering the Posthuman" from 5 July 2016 to 31 August 2016.
Katalin Ráhel Turai (doctoral candidate, Central European University, Budapest) was working as a visiting scholar at the ZtG on her PhD dissertation "Shifting Gender in Desire. Narratives of bisexually changing attraction, practice, and subjectivity in present-day Hungary" from 18 April to 22 July 2016.
2015
Mag. Persson Perry Baumgartinger (MA, Universität Wien) visited the ZtG to work on his project "Staatliche Regulierung von Geschlecht als Zweigeschlechterkonstrukt - Kritische Diskurshistorische Dispositivanalyse anhand des so genannten 'Transsexuellen-Erlasses' 1980-2010 in Österreich" from March 2014 until October 2015.
Professor Dr. Janik Bastien Charlebois (Université du Quebec à Monstréal) conducted research on intersexuality at the ZtG again from the beginning of June until the end of August 2015.
Daniel Hardegger worked as a visiting scholar on his project "Ph.D. Candidates in the Humanities at the Universities of Berlin, London and Columbia University, New York, 1871-1913" from September 2014 until September 2015.
Joseph De Lappe (The Open University, UK) conducted research for his PhD project "'Asexy and we know it': The emergence of Asexual Activism as a contemporary Sexual and Gender Social Movement" at the ZtG in June 2015.
Dr. Jane Messer (Macquarie University, Australia) worked at the Philosophy Institute of the HU and the ZtG on "Work, Care and Identity: Reconceptualising Maternal Labour".
Dr. Annalisa Murgia (Universität Trento, Italien) was as a visiting scholar at the ZtG, where she worked on her post-doc project "Precariousness and subjectivities and the progressive growth of freelancers in Europe" in November 2015.
Anniken Sørli (Universität Oslo) was engaged in research for her PhD project "Legal Gender meets reality: the right to gender identify in a life cycle perspective" from 12 September to 13 December 2015.
2014
Prof. Dr. Janik Bastien Charlebois (Université du Québec à Montréal) conducted research as a visiting scholar on intersexuality from the start of June to the end of August 2014.
Elena de Barrio Alvarez (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid) worked at the HU on her dissertation project "Psychological effects on the victims of trafficking: Revision of the legal framework" from November 2013 until July 2014.
Professor Dr. Vandana Joshi (Associate Professor, University of Delhi, India) was the Alexander-von-Humboldt Fellow from September 2012 to early 2014. She worked with Professor Claudia Bruns of the Institute for Cultural Studies and the ZtG on her project "Wartime Sexuality: State Policies and Social Practices in Germany and Britain (1939-45)”.
Dr. Lisa Marchi (University of Trento, Italy) conducted research for her postdoctoral project "Liminal Tensions: Women Poets of the Arab Diaspora" as a visiting scholar at the ZtG from end of October until mid-December 2014.
Professor Dr. Elisabeth Reitinger (Associate Professor, Universität Klagenfurt, Wien and Graz) worked at the ZtG as a visiting researcher from March to July 2014, examining "Age(s), Gender, Dementia" ("Alter(n), Gender, Demenz").
William Schlesinger (Yale University, USA) visited the ZtG for the academic year 2013/14 on a Fulbright research grant, studying "HIV/AIDS, immigration, and the politics of integration in Berlin."
2013
Prasheela Karan (University of New South Wales, Sidney) worked at the ZtG on her dissertation project "Gender Mainstreaming of Microcredit Programs" from mid-July until mid-December 2013.
Jón Ingvar Kjaran (doctoral fellow, University of Iceland) worked from February to March 2013 as a visiting scholar at the ZtG on his dissertation „Heterosexual discourse and the experiences of queer students in Icelandic upper secondary schools.”
Karin Hostettler (lic. phil. I, Research Training Group "Representation, Materiality and Gender" University Basel) worked on her dissertation "Denk(t)raum Mensch. Kant zu Rasse und Geschlecht" at the ZtG from July 2012 until December 2013.
Dr. Ruth Preser (Gender Studies Program, Bar-Ilan University, Israel) worked on her postdoctoral fellowship book project "Belonging Travels" during the academic year 2012/13 at the ZtG and the Institue for European Ethnology.
2012
Kim Fordham (University of Alberta, Canada) was a visiting scholar at the ZtG from August 2011 to June 2012, while working on her research project, “I Hurt: Victims Becoming Perpetrators in Contemporary Fiction by German-Speaking Female Authors.”
Georg Gierzinger worked on his dissertation “Deconstruction of Masculinity in Literature” at the ZtG from April 2011 until March 2012. The Office for International Relations at Innsbruck University supported his project with a fellowship for short-term scholarly research abroad.
Professor Dr. Theresa Kulawik (Department for Gender Studies, Södertörn University, Stockholm) conducted research for her book "Körperpolitik in Deutschland, Polen und Schweden" at the ZtG from July to December 2012.
Professor Yi-Chien Chen, J.S.D. (Associate Professor & Director, Graduate Institute for Gender Studies, Shih Hsin University, Taiwan) researched as a visiting scholar on a fellowship from July until December 2012. She worked on her project "Transgender Rights - a Comparative Law Study."
2011
Robin Ford (University of Alaska, Anchorage, USA) visited the ZtG as a Fulbright scholar at the ZtG during the winter semester of 2010/2011.
Dr. Thomas Hilder (Royal Holloway, University of London) conducted research on music, gender and sexuality in a project titled, "The Role of Musical Performance in Transnational Queer Activism" throughout 2011.
2010
A conference on 11 June 2010, “Normality on Probation?: Lesbian and Gay Politicians in Democratic Media,” resulted from the cooperation between Andreas Heilmann and the ZtG.
Tuula Juvonen (University of Helsinki) worked on her project „Non-normative sexualities of female and male politicians“ at the ZtG during summer 2010.
Furthermore, Shamira A. Meghani (University of Sussex) visited the ZtG in the summer semester of 2010.