The Marie Jahoda Center aims to create a stimulating research environment for gender studies at RUB. The interdisciplinary research profile, which is particularly rooted in the field of cultural and social sciences, is clearly outlined and consistently used for collaborative projects. The next generation of scientists also play a major role at the Marie Jahoda Center.
The research interests of the members currently run along the following lines:
Digitalisation, Sexuality, Affect
The spread of digital technologies in almost all areas of society raises questions about transformations of communication, mediality and sociality. Moreover, as digitalisation progresses, new responsibilities, social relationships and identity models are emerging. The concepts of privacy, publicity and security are renegotiated, often along with the re-drawing of ethical and moral boundaries. The current status of documentary material in the digital age is explored as part of the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft — German Research Community) post-graduate programme “Documentary Material. Withdrawal and Excess”.
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky
Selected publications/projects:
- Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky: Graduiertenkolleg „Das Dokumentarische“
Knowledge and Methods
Research on the history of knowledge, epistemology and the sociology of science can fall under this heading. From a diachronic perspective, they include studies on proto-eugenic thinking in Europe between 1750 and 1870 (Prof. Dr. Maren Lorenz) or on the exhibition and living concepts of modernism, which are based on specific, gender-coded knowledge formations (Prof. Dr. Änne Söll).
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Maren Lorenz
Prof. Dr. Änne Söll
Selected publications/projects:
- Maren Lorenz: “Protoeugenisches Denken in Westeuropa und den USA (1750-1870) – Zum Zusammenhang von Wissenstransfer und Staatsutopie” (Proto-eugenic Thinking in Western Europe and the USA (1750-1870) — on the Connection between Knowledge Transfer and the Utopian State)
- Änne Söll: “Period rooms. Museale Verhandlungsräume zwischen Gegenwart und Vergangenheit, Ausstellen und Wohnen” (Period rooms. Museum negotiating spaces between the present and the past, exhibition and living) (DFG Project)
Bodies and Violence
Bodies in their social and historical constitution are the subject of a wide variety of assessment and disciplinary procedures, which are often experienced as violence and thus evoke (human) legal questions. Prof. Dr. Katja Sabisch explores, from a sociological perspective, how invasive medical practices can produce gender dualism. How the portrayal of hegemonic masculinity on the 18th century operatic stage was modelled by violent interventions in the prepubescent male body and how it was received in other European cultures is demonstrated by Prof. Dr. Christian Grünnagel.
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Katja Sabisch
Prof. Dr. Christian Grünnagel
Selected publications/projects:
- Katja Sabisch, Beate Kortendiek, Birgit Riegraf: “Handbuch interdisziplinäre Geschlechterforschung” (Interdisciplinary Gender Research Handbook)
- Christian Grünnagel: “Von Kastraten, Hermaphroditen und anderen Grenzgängern lateinamerikanischer Männlichkeit in Literatur und Film (1967-2007)” (On Castrati, Hermaphrodites, and Others who Crossed the Border of Latin American Masculinity in Literature and Film (1967-2007)).