Diversity Lecture Series
In 2021, the University of Bamberg launched a new program for Diversity Guest Professorships. Each year, about six international guest professors cooperate with Bamberg colleagues on diversity-related research projects, contribute to teaching, and advise PhD candidates. They also present their projects in public talks as part of the ongoing series “Diversity Across the Disciplines: An International Lecture Series.” For details about the diversity guest professors and their projects, click here.
Diversity Guest Lectures 2023
Dr. Guillermo Aguirre Martínez - Romance Studies and Translation, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain
Lecture title: "Manuel Álvarez Ortega, una singularidad en el canon poético de la Modernidad"
Dr. Noran Amin - English Language and Literature, Cairo University, Egypt
Lecture title: "Who Am I? A Cultural Exploration of the Construction, Deconstruction, and Reconstruction of the Self Across Egyptian Media"
Dr. Elisabeth Punzi - Critical Heritage Studies, Gothenburg University, Sweden
Lecture title: "Problematizing Mental Health and Disability with Respect to Gender, Ethnic and Religious Background: Empirical and Narrative Perspectives"
Diversity Across the Disciplines: An International Lecture Series 2022
In 2022, nine international visiting professors working jointly with Bamberg colleagues on diversity-related research projects presented their work as part of the public series “Diversity Across the Disciplines: An International Lecture Series.”
Dr. Yariv Feniger - Education, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
Lecture title: "The STEM Gender-Equality Paradox: Further Evidence from a Within-Country Analysis"
Prof. Dr. Dr. Dion A. Forster - Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
Lecture title: "Revisiting an ‘Olive Agenda’? How the interaction of sustainability and diversity issues is being misused in populist discourses in South Africa"
Prof. Dr. Antonella Ghersetti - Arabic Language and Literature, Ca’Foscari University of Venice, Italy
Lecture title: "One, No One and One Hundred Thousand: Diversity against Uniformity in the Arabic Language in the Eyes of al-Suyuti (d. 1505)"
Dr. Mervi Kaukko - Education, Tampere University, Finland
Lecture title: "What enables refugee background students’ educational success? ‘Zooming in’ on the practice architectures of multicultural learning environments"
Prof. Dr. Nancy Kendall - Educational Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin – Madison, USA
Lecture title: "Malawian Education System and the Production, Reproduction, and Transformation of Gender in Schools"
Prof. Dr. David D. Kim - European Languages and Transcultural Studies, University of California, LA, USA
Lecture title: "America without Natives: Hannah Arendt’s Defense of the Constitutional Republic"
Dr. Daniel Mayerhoffer - Computational Social Science, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Lecture title: "Researching Inequality and (Intersectional) Discrimination Using Digital Tools"
Dr. Laura Swift - Classical Studies, Open University, UK
Lecture title: "Gender Fluidity in Euripides’ Bacchae"
Prof. Dr. Don E. Walicek - Linguistics, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras
Lecture title: "Other kinds of things? Uniformitarianism and social difference in the Caribbean’s early colonial societies"
Diversity Across the Disciplines: An International Lecture Series 2021
In 2021, six international visiting professors working jointly with Bamberg colleagues on diversity-related research projects presented their work as part of the public series “Diversity Across the Disciplines: An International Lecture Series.”
The lecture series opened with a joint lecture by guest professor Dr. Anna Nedoluzhko (Charles University Prague, Czech Republic), Hellìk Mayer, and Prof. Dr. Sandra Birzer on "Modeling Learner Diversity: First Results from the Russian Learner Corpus." This inaugural event took place on 06 May 2021 as part of Bamberg University’s public workshop on "Linguistic structures in foreign language acquisition from three perspectives," organized by Prof. Birzer (Slavic Linguistics).
Guest professor Dr hab. Maria Nowak (University of Warsaw, Poland) carried out research at the University of Bamberg between 4 September and 21 September 2021. To present the results of this short-time fellowship, she gave a talk on 15 November 2021 entitled “Unity in Diversity? Status in Roman Egypt” that comprised an introduction to the phenomenon of status in Roman Egypt and a case study of Greek papyri.
Between 11 October and 22 October 2021, guest professor Dr. Ella Peltonen (University of Oulu, Finland) visited the University of Bamberg. As part of the "Woche der Forschung," she delivered a talk on "Failing in Research: How to overcome and publish negative results" on 15 October 2021 and contributed to the lecture series of the Smart City Research Lab with a talk on "Crowdsensing with connected cars and other mobile devices in urban and rural areas" on 16 December 2021 (online).
Guest professor Prof. Dr. Alexander Yao Cobbinah (University of São Paulo, Brazil) conducted research at the Institute of Romance Studies from 29 November until 15 December 2021. As part of his research stay, he taught a section on “West-African Heritage in Colonial Brazil: Language, Culture, and Resistance in Minas Gerais” in Prof. Dr. Enrique Rodrigues-Moura’s course on “Cultural Resistance in Latin America.” During his time in Bamberg, guest professor Cobbinah was also available for PhD student consultations and worked on the upcoming publication on Obra Nova de Língua Geral de Mina (Christina Märzhäuser, Enrique Rodrigues-Moura, eds., 2022). Additionally, he and his Bamberg colleague co-organized the international online workshop on “Historical Perspectives on Linguistics and Cultural Exchanges between the African Costa da Mina and Minas Gerais/ Brazil” (07 December - 08 December 2021). Professor Cobbinah’s public talk on “Rhetoric and Pragmatic Structures in Transatlantic Language Contact” took place on 13 December 2021.
Prof. Dr. Sophia Labadi (University of Kent, Great Britain) and Prof. Dr. Mona Hess (Digital Technologies in Heritage Conservation) taught a joint online seminar on “Genders, Diversities, and Heritage” from 12 January until 09 February 2022. Professor Labadi’s public talk at Bamberg University took place in the summer term 2022.