Personal News

Motaz Alnaouq (legal studies/URPP Asia and Europe) was awarded a Civil Society Scholar Award from the Open Society Foundations for the completion of his doctoral thesis “The Right to Life in the Palestinian Society: The Case of the Death Penalty from Comparative Human Rights Perspective” (September 2014 to February 2015).

Yasmine Berriane (URPP Asia and Europe/political sociology) was a visiting scholar at the Centre de Recherche, Economie, Société et Culture (CRESC) of the Université Mohamed VI Polytechnique in Rabat (June to July 2014), where she also is an associate researcher (since June 2014). Furthermore, since October 2014, she is an associate member of the research project “Spaces of Participation: Topographies of Political and Social Change in Morocco, Egypt and Palestine” at the Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) in Berlin.

Ulrich Brandenburg (Islamic and Middle Eastern studies/URPP Asia and Europe) was awarded a Forschungskredit from the University of Zurich for the completion of his doctoral thesis “Japan and Islam 1890–1914: Between Global Communication and Pan-Asiatic Movement” (September 2014 to August 2015).

In March 2015, Patrick Brozzo (legal studies/URPP Asia and Europe) completed his doctoral thesis “Marriage in Islamic and Jewish Law: Cultural Diversity and Marital Law.”

In September 2014, Laura Coppens (social and cultural anthropology/URPP Asia and Europe) completed her doctoral thesis “Film Activism in Contemporary Indonesia: Queer Autoethnography, Film Festival Politics, and the Subversion of Heteronormativity.” Additionally, she took up a position as an assistant at the Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern, starting in August 2014.

Amir Hamid (Islamic and Middle Eastern studies/URPP Asia and Europe) took up the position as coordinator of the German-Tunisian research project “Tunisia in Transition” at the Institute for the Near and Middle East, LMU Munich, starting in January 2015. The project is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with support from the German Foreign Office.

In July 2014, Pia Hollenbach (geography/URPP Asia and Europe) completed her doctoral thesis “The Paradox of Good Intentions: The Biography of Private Giving in Post-Tsunami Sri Lanka.”

Lisa Indraccolo (Chinese studies/URPP Asia and Europe) was awarded a Forschungskredit from the University of Zurich for the completion of her research project “Debate Arena: Argumentation and Persuasion in Warring States Philosophical Discourse” (October 2014 to September 2016).

Eliza Isabaeva (social and cultural anthropology/URPP Asia and Europe) was awarded a fellowship from the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology to continue her dissertation project “Social Citizenship from Below and the Making of State in Kyrgyzstan: Migrants Making a Living in the Squatter Settlements of Bishkek” at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, starting in October 2014.

Starting in June 2014, Rohit Jain (social and cultural anthropology/URPP Asia and Europe) took up a position as a scientific officer at the NCCR On the Move, University of Neuchatel. In October 2014, he completed his doctoral thesis “Between Assimilation, Exoticism and Global Indian Modernity: Transnational Subject-Making of ‘Second Generation Indians’ from Switzerland.”

In February 2015, Rita Krajnc (Indian studies/URPP Asia and Europe) completed her doctoral thesis “Freiheit, Individualität und die Etablierung einer weiblichen Künstlerexistenz in Mrdula Gargs Hindi-Roman ‘Cittakobra’ (1979) [Freedom, Individuality, and the Establishment of a Female Artist’s Existence in Mrdula Garg’s Hindi Novel ‘Cittakobra’ (1979)]”.

Phillip Lasater (biblical studies/URPP Asia and Europe) took up a position as a research and teaching assistant at the Institute of Theology, University of Zurich, starting in September 2014.

Robert Leach (Indian studies/URPP Asia and Europe) and Angelika Malinar (Indian studies/URPP Asia and Europe) received three years’ funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation for their reseach project “Taxomies of Religious and Philosophical Knowledge in Classical Sanskrit Literature ,” starting in May 2014.

Virginia Leung (Chinese studies/URPP Asia and Europe) and Andrea Riemenschnitter (Chinese studies/URPP Asia and Europe) received three years’ funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation for their research project “Coming of Age in Hong Kong: A Study of a Colonial Literary Field in the 1950s,” starting in May 2014.

Christoph Mittmann (URPP Asia and Europe/Japanese studies) was awarded a Young Researchers’ Exchange Program fellowship from the ETH Zurich and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) for a three-month stay at Tōkai University (January to April 2015).

Shalini Randeria (social and cultural anthropology/URPP Asia and Europe) was appointed as rector of the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna and took office in January 2015. She remains a professor of social anthropology and sociology at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva.

Andrea Riemenschnitter (Chinese studies/URPP Asia and Europe) received a Confucius China Studies Program (CCSP) scholarship to visit Shanghai Fudan University as a senior research fellow in January/February 2015.

Roman Seidel (Islamic and Middle Eastern studies/URPP Asia and Europe) was awarded a POINT PostDoc Fellowship at the Freie Universität Berlin. Starting in February 2015, he took up a position as a postdoc at the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies.

Almut Höfert (URPP Asia and Europe/history) submitted her habilitation “Kaisertum und Kalifat: Der imperiale Monotheismus im Früh- und Hochmittelalter” to the University of Basel and successfully completed her habilitation review in April 2014.

From June to July 2014, Paola von Wyss-Giacosa (social and cultural anthropology/URPP Asia and Europe) was invited as a fellow to the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt. Furthermore, since November 2014 and until November 2015, she is acting junior professor (50%) for the chair of “Entangled History” at the same institution.

Starting in December 2014, Ralph Weber (URPP Asia and Europa/philosophy) accepted a position as an assistant professor (tenure track) of European global studies at the Institute for European Global Studies (Europainstitut) of the University of Basel.

Dagmar Wujastyk (Indian studies/URPP Asia and Europe) was awarded a fellowship from the Research Talent Development Fund of the Zurich University Association from October 2014 to June 2015. Furthermore she was awarded an ERC Starting Grant for her project “Medicine, Immortality, Moksha: Entangled Histories of Yoga, Ayurveda and Alchemy in South Asia,” which she will pursue at the University of Vienna. Starting in July 2015, she accepted a position as an associate professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

Dinah Zank (East Asian art history/URPP Asia and Europe) took up a position as a researcher at the Seminar of East Asian Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, starting in October 2014.

(Asia & Europe Bulletin, 4/2015, pp. 26–27)