Announcements
July 2024
From July 2024, Dr Mezna Qato (UK) will work in Prof Dr Claudia Derichs' team for 18 months. Dr Qato has been awarded a Humboldt Research Fellowship for experienced researchers. She is an expert on the social history of Palestinians and will be working with us on the topic of Peasant Pedagogies: Khaduri School, Development and Rural Capitals in Palestine. Dr Qato's most recent work includes the monograph 'Education in Exile: Palestinians and the Politics of Regeneration'. It studies the education system developed for Palestinians in Jordan after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. With her work and expertise, Dr Qato is a welcome guest researcher for the field of 'Transregional Southeast Asian Studies', but can also dock onto other departments within our institute and the Berlin area.
October 2024
In the coming winter semester, Dr. Benjamin Baumann, University of Heidelberg, is offering an online seminar on "Gender and Religion in Buddhist Southeast Asia" as part of the T(h)ai-Studies-Network-Germany (TSNG).
Time: Thursdays 10:00 – 12:00 Uhr (1st session 17. October 2024)
Abstract:
This seminar looks at the intersections of gender and religion in the predominantly Buddhist societies of mainland Southeast Asia. Buddhism is generally portrayed as a male dominated sphere of life. We will,
therefore, look at the roles Buddhism plays in imagining and reproducing manhood in Southeast Asia.However, this seminar will also look at the ways Buddhism influences imaginations of womanhood and how women preserve the Buddhist faith through their active roles as nuns or pious lay practitioners. Combining perspectives from anthropology and religious studies as well as gender and queer studies this seminar will also look at the increasingly prominent roles that transwomen and homosexual men are playing in spirit possession cults, magical ritual and healing traditions in the predominantly Theravada Buddhist cultures of mainland Southeast Asia. This rapidly growing phenomenon contrasts with much past research on religion and queer genders and sexualities in mainland Southeast Asia, with many earlier studies emphasizing the roles of female ritual specialists in spirit cults while queer studies has tended to view religion as intolerant of gender and sexual diversity.
Registration:
External students register directly with the lecturer by writing an email to: benjamin.baumann (at) eth.uni-heide
Students from the IAAW can receive credit for the seminar in the ÜWP Module.
January 2025
From January 2025, Tuwanont Phattharathanasut (Thailand) will work in Prof Dr Claudia Derichs' team for 24 months. Mr Phattharathanasut has received a Humboldt Research Fellowship for postdoctoral researchers. He completed his doctorate at Waseda University in Tokyo on the famous "Milk Tea Alliance" in East and Southeast Asia. In Berlin, he will strengthen Claudia Derichs' team of doctoral students by researching the intra-Asian connections of political youth movements in Asia since the 1960s.