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Prof. Dr. Dorothea Schulz

Professorin der Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie | Geschäftsführende Direktorin

  • Aktuelles und Informationen zur Sprechstunde

    Sprechstunde im Wintersemester 2024/25:

    • Mittwochs 14:15-15:30 Uhr

    Anmeldung über LearnWeb Ordner: „Office Hours Dorothea Schulz“

    Passwort bitte im Sekretariat bei Frau Osterheider nachfragen.

  • Forschung

    My research, publications, and teaching are centered on the Anthropology of Religion, of Mental Health and Spiritual Wellbeing, Political Anthropology, Islam in Africa, Gender Studies and Media Studies. I also bring to my research and teaching a strong background in critical theory, social theory, and the anthropology of social organization. I have extensive field research experience in West and East Africa, particularly in southern Mali and southwestern Uganda.
    In my new book “Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali”, I capitalize on my long-standing acquaintance with Malian politics and social history to make sense of the political crisis that has shaken the country for more than a decade. My analysis centers on the attitudes, judgments and practices by which inhabitants of a rural area in southwestern Mali attribute (or disclaim) the legitimacy of the state and of individual powerholders. I also draw on my earlier work on praise-singers – often referred to as "griots"– whose mass-mediated performances aimed to bestow praise and legitimacy on Mali’s changing political regimes, At the heart of this analytic endeavor is an effort to interrogate different dimensions, meanings and limits of political legitimacy in Mali.

    Since 2014, I have embarked on a research project that addresses questions pertaining to the broader thematic fields of religious pluralism and of spiritual and emotional well-being. Drawing on empirical research on Muslim minorities in two different regions of Uganda, I address the interplay between mental health, mourning, emotional coping, and future-making in a society haunted by traumatic experiences related to civil war. My analysis reaches beyond common approaches to „trauma“ through a sustained attention to the discursive and auditory practices and symbolic-aesthetic forms through which Muslims and Christians seek to achieve greater public prominence and to partake in debates over the ordering of moral and social life. By situating these dynamics in the broader context of Ugandan state politics, I explore points of articulations and tensions between local-level and national politics of religious difference, and between conflicting understandings of how past “trauma“ can be healed.

  • Forschungsschwerpunkte

    • Anthropology of Religion
    • Health and Well-being
    • Political Anthropology
    • Islam in Africa
    • Gender Studies
    • Media Anthropology

  • Forschungsregion

    Will follow soon

  • Lehransatz

    Will follow soon

  • Stipendien und Auszeichnungen

    2016 Fellow, Center for AFrican Studies - Harvard University (USA)
    2011 Fellow, Berlin Graduate School "Muslim CUltures and Societes" (USA)
    2010 Lehrpreis, Philosophische Fakultät, Universität zu Köln
    2010 Visiting scholar, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Oslo (Norwegen)
    2005 Fellow, Society for the Humanities, Cornell University, Ithaca (USA)
    2000 Visiting Scholar, Dept. of ANthropology. University of Chicago (USA)
    1996 Frobenius Forschungsförderungspreis - Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main

  • Ämter und Funktionen

    Seit 2006 Mitherausgeberin der Reihe “Mande Studies”, Lit Verlag
    Seit 2015 Mitherausgeberin der Reihe “Ethnographien”, Konstanz University Press
    Seit 2015 Fachreferentin (Ethnologie und Islamwissenschaften), Auswahlkommission Forschungsstipendien der Alexander-von-Humboldt Stiftung
    Seit 2019 Mitglied im Senats- und Bewilligungsausschuss für Graduiertenschulen, DFG
    Seit 2019 Mitglied des wissenschaftlichen Beirats, Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin

  • Aktuelle Projekte / Forschung - (Drittmittelförderung)

    EXC 2060 B3-20 - Testing and contesting religious pluralism in Uganda (2019 - 2025)
    Drittmittel: DFG - Exzellenzcluster - Förderkennzeichnen: EXC 2060/1

    Die auditive Herstellung von muslimischer Gemeinschaft in Uganda (2019 - 2020)
    Drittmittel: DFG - Sachbeihilfe/Einzelfördrung - Förderkennzeichnen: SCHU 1276/14 -1
    Projecting Futures: Resource use conflict, intergenerational tensions, and competing visions of future-making in the Rift Valley, Kenya;
    Drittmittel DFG, Teilprojekt im SFB „Future Rural Africa“ (Köln/ Bonn) (2018-2022)

  • Abgeschlossene Projekte (Drittmittelförderung)

    2011-2016 2 Förderungsperioden: DFG FOR 1501, “Mediality and local creativity in the negotiation of social-ecological resilience, collapse, and reorganization”, Teilprojekt im Rahmen der Forschergruppe “Resilience, Collapse, and Reorganisation in Social-Ecological Systems in Africa’s Savannahs”
    2011-2016 2 Förderungsperioden: DFG SCHU 1276-10/1-2: „Mediale Ausgestaltung translokaler sozialer Räume durch westafrikanische MigrantInnen in Europa“
    2012-2015  DFG SCHU 1276-11/1: Migrationsentwürfe immobiler Akteure. Erwartungen, Diskurse und Praktiken männlicher Jugendlicher in der Hafenstadt Mahajanga / Madagaskar