Research Projects (2006–2017)

Alms, Eric, M.A. (doctoral student Geography at the URPP)
Project title: A Political Ecology of Nature Conservation and Sustainable Tourism in Chinese Conservation Areas
Doctoral committee: Prof. Dr. Norman Backhaus, Prof. Dr. Ulrike Müller-Böker, Prof. Dr. Mareile Flitsch
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2011–2014)

Bofinger, Martina, M.A. (doctoral student Indian Studies at the URPP)
Project title: Commercial Hindi Movies and their Influence on Hindi as a National Language: A Juxtaposition of Hindi and English
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Angelika Malinar
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2010–2011)

Böhler, Natalie, Dr. (doctoral student Film Studies at the URPP)
Project title: Made in Thailand: Thainess, Performance and Narration in Contemporary Thai Cinema
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Andrea Riemenschnitter (Zweitbetreuerin und zuständige Fachvertreterin)
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2006–2009), SNSF – Fellowship for Prospective Researchers (2009–2010)
Degree: doctorate (2010)

Bollo, Sofia, M.A. (doctoral student East Asian Art History at the URPP)
Project title: Reframing Ancient China: A Multi-perspective Study on Neolithic Pottery Displays in Modern Chinese Museums
Doctoral committee: Prof. Dr. Hans Bjarne Thomsen, Prof. Dr. Mareile Flitsch, Dr. Marzia Varutti
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2013–2017)

Boulos, Samir, Dr. (doctoral student Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the URPP)
Project title: European-Protestant Missionary Institutions in Egypt: Locations of Cultural Entanglement (1900–1956)
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Andreas Kaplony
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2008–2011), SNSF – Fellowship for Prospective Researchers (2011–2012)
Degree: doctorate (2012)

Coppens, Laura, Dr. (doctoral student Social and Cultural Anthropology at the URPP)
Project title: Film Activism in Contemporary Indonesia: Queer Autoethnography, Film Festival Politics, and the Subversion of Heteronormativity
Doctoral committee: Prof. Dr. Mareile Flitsch, Prof. Dr. Bettina Dennerlein, Prof. Saskia Wieringa (University of Amsterdam)
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2009–2012), SNSF – Fellowship for Prospective Researchers (2012–2013), Stiefel-Zangger Foundation (2013–2013)
Degree: doctorate (2014)

Delfs, Tobias, M.A. (doctoral student History at the URPP)
Project title: Lifeworlds of Protestant Missionaries in India (1770–1813)
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Jörg Fisch
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2009–2010)

Eisner, Rivka, Dr. (postdoc Performance Studies at the URPP)
Project title: Performance Avant-Gardes: Memory Cultures, Contemporary Arts, and Social Change in Vietnam
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe

Fichtner-Egloff, Jeanne, Dr. (doctoral student East Asian Art History at the URPP)
Project title: Kindai bijutsu: The Reception of Western Concepts of Art in Japan around the Year 1900
Doctoral committee: Prof. Dr. Hans Bjarne Thomsen, Prof. Dr. Mareile Flitsch, Prof. Dr. Hiroshi Kurushima
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2011–2014)
Degree: doctorate (2017)

Hirt, Alfred, Dr. (postdoc History at the URPP)
Project title: Zwischen Orient und Okzident: Die kulturelle Transformation Phönikiens (1000 v.Chr. – 500 n.Chr.)
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Christian Marek
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2008–2009), SNSF – Fellowship for Advanced Researchers (2009–2012)

Jaguścik, Justyna, Dr. (doctoral student Chinese Studies at the URPP)
Project title: Literary Body Discourses: Corporeality, Gender and Class Difference in Contemporary Chinese Women’s Poetry and Fiction
Doctoral committee: Prof. Dr. Andrea Riemenschnitter, Prof. Dr. Bettina Dennerlein, Lidia Kasarełło (University of Warsaw)
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2009–2012), Forschungskredit of the University of Zurich (2012–2013)
Degree: doctorate (2014)

Jain, Rohit, Dr. (doctoral student Social and Cultural Anthropology at the URPP)
Project title: Between Assimilation, Exoticism and Global Indian Modernity: Transnational Subject-Making of ‚Second Generation Indians’ from Switzerland
Doctoral committee: Prof. Dr. Shalini Randeria (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies), Prof. em. Claudia Honegger (University of Bern), Prof. Dr. Gianni D’Amato (University of Neuchâtel)
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2007–2010), Forschungskredit of the University of Zurich (2010–2011)
Degree: doctorate (2014)

Krajnc, Rita, Dr. (doctoral student Indian Studies at the URPP)
Project title: Freedom, Individuality, and the Establishment of a Female Artist’s Existence in Mrdula Garg’s Hindi Novel ‘Cittakobra’ (1979)
Doctoral committee: Prof. Dr. Angelika Malinar, Prof. em. Dr. Peter Schreiner
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2008–2011)
Degree: doctorate (2015)

Lanckau, Jörg, Prof. Dr. (postdoc Theology at the URPP)
Project title: Constructions and Transformations of Judaism in the Hellenistic Period
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2008–2011)

Leung, Virginia Yee-Yarn, M.A. (doctoral student Chinese Studies at the URPP)
Project title: Coming of Age in Hong Kong: A Study of a Colonial Literary Field in the 1950s
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Andrea Riemenschnitter
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2012–2013), SNSF – Project Funding (2014–2016)

Marseglia, Nathalie, lic.phil. (doctoral student Social and Cultural Anthropology at the URPP)
Project title: Lebende Staatsschätze: Über den Wert handwerklichen Schaffens am Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts, mit Fokus auf die japanische Keramik
Doctoral committee: Prof. Dr. Mareile Flitsch, Prof. Dr. Hans Bjarne Thomsen
Funded by: Humer-Foundation for Academic Talent (2014–2016)

Müller, Urs , Dr. (postdoc Geography at the URPP)
Project title: Overcoming the Nature-Culture Dualism?: Notions of Nature and Nature Protection in Model Regions for Integrated “Nature Conservation“
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2007–2009)

Nef-Saluz, Claudia, Dr. (doctoral student Social and Cultural Anthropology at the URPP)
Project title: Living for the Caliphate: Hizbut Tahrir Student Activism in Indonesia
Doctoral committee: Prof. Dr. Shalini Randeria, Prof. Dr. Heinzpeter Znoj (University of Bern), Prof. Dr. Martin van Bruinessen (University of Utrecht)
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2007–2011), SNSF – Fellowship for Prospective Researchers (2008–2009), Forschungskredit of the University of Zurich (2011–2012)
Degree: doctorate (2012)

Ohm, Britta, Dr. (postdoc Social and Cultural Anthropology at the URPP)
Project title: The Meaning of Turkey: Negotiations of the Secular and the Islamic on Commercial Turkish Television
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Shalini Randeria
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2008–2009)

Sievert, Henning, Dr. (postdoc Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the URPP)
Project title: Libyen im späten 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert: Wissen, Vermittlung und politische Kommunikation
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe

Sivaganesan, Anusooya, M Law (doctoral student Legal Studies at the URPP)
Project title: Forced to Marry – A Human Rights’ Violation within its Euro-Asian Entanglements: Unfree Marriages from a Multi-Country Perspective Exemplified by Switzerland, Great Britain, Holland, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Turkey
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Andrea Büchler
Funded by: Humer-Foundation for Academic Talent (2014–2017)

Trakulhun, Sven, Prof. Dr. (assistent professor History at the URPP)
Project title: Asian Revolutions: Conceptions of political change in the Orient, 1644–1818
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2008–2014)
Degree: habilitation (2012)

Trüper, Henning, Dr. (postdoc History at the URPP)
Project title: The Grammar of Modernity: Inquiries into the History of 19th and early 20th Century Oriental Philology
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2009–2011), Marie Curie Fellowship (2012–2014)

Trüper, Henning, Dr. (postdoc History at the URPP)
Project title: The Grammar of Modernity: Inquiries into the History of 19th and early 20th Century Oriental Philology
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2009–2011), Marie Curie Fellowship (2012–2014)

Vitale, Marco, PD Dr. (doctoral student History at the URPP)
Project title: Eparchie and Koinon in Asia Minor from the End of the Roman Republic to the Third Century AD
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Christian Marek
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2006–2009), SNSF – Fellowship for Prospective Researchers (2009–2010)
Degree: doctorate (2010)

Vitale, Marco, PD Dr. (doctoral student History at the URPP)
Project title: Das Imperium in Wort und Bild: Römische Darstellungsformen beherrschter Gebiete in Inschriftenmonumenten, Münzprägungen und Literatur
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe
Degree: habilitation (2016)

Wenner, Miriam, Dr. (doctoral student Geography at the URPP)
Project title: Monopolising a Statehood Movement: Gorkhaland between Authoritarian Parties and “Aware Citizens”
Doctoral committee: Prof. Ulrike Müller-Böker (UZH), Prof. Dr. Shalini Randeria (University of Geneva), Dr. Urs Geiser (UZH)
Funded by: Humer-Foundation for Academic Talent (2010–2013), SNSF – Doc.Mobility (2013–2014)
Degree: doctorate (2015)

Wu, Helena, M.Phil. (doctoral student Chinese Studies at the URPP)
Project title: (Re-)Configurations of Place, Person and Thing in Hong Kong Cinema and Literature after the Millennium
Doctoral committee: Prof. Dr. Andrea Riemenschnitter, Prof. Dr. Sandro Zanetti
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2013–2016)

Wujastyk, Dagmar, Dr. (postdoc Indian Studies at the URPP)
Project title: When the Vaidya Met the Doctor: Medical Exchanges in 17th–19th Century India and the Reimagining of a Great Medical Tradition
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2011–2014), Research Talent Development Fund of the Zurich University Association (2014–2015)

Zangger, Andreas, Dr. (doctoral student History at the URPP)
Project title: Fast Money and Enduring Relationships: Swiss Business in Colonial Singapore and Sumatra, 1860–1930
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Jörg Fisch
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2006–2009), SNSF – Fellowship for Prospective Researchers (2009–2010)
Degree: doctorate (2010)

Zank, Dinah, M.A. (doctoral student East Asian Art History at the URPP)
Project title: Divine Mothers Across Borders of National Identities: Japanese-Indian Artistic Exchanges in Early Twentieth-Century Buddhist Paintings and the Reception of the British Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’s Concept of ‚Spirituality’ and ‚Sensitivity’
Doctoral committee: Prof. Dr. Hans Bjarne Thomsen, Prof. Dr. Angelika Malinar, Prof. Dr. Monica Juneja
Funded by: URPP Asia and Europe (2011–2014)

Zhuang, Yue, Dr. (postdoc Architectural History at the URPP)
Project title: Matteo Ripa’s “Views of Jehol”: Entangled Histories of 18th Century European and Chinese Landscape Representations
Funded by: Marie Curie Fellowship (2011–2013)

Dejung, Christoph, Dr. (History)
Project title: Networks of Trust: Social and Cultural Historical Foundations of World Trade: The Case of the Swiss Merchant House Volkart Brothers, 1851–1999

Elmer, Sara, Dr. (History)
Project title: The Making of a “Development Caste”: A Social History of Development Initiatives in Nepal (c. 1935–1990)

Fröhlich, Judith, Dr. (Japanese Studies)
Project title: National Identity and the Perception of the West in Nineteenth-Century Japan

Isler, Andreas, Dr. (Social and Cultural Anthropology)
Project title: Vorstellung und Augenschein: Derwische in westlicher Wahrnehmung in der frühen Neuzeit

Schiel, Juliane, Dr. (History)
Project title: Godly Creature or Human Ware?: Christian Slaves in Venice (14th–16th centuries)

Tan, Daniela, Dr. (Japanese Studies)
Project title: Intermediate Zones: The Processes of Localization in Ōba Minako’s Work

Tolino, Serena, JP Dr. (History)
Project title: The Masculinities of Ruling Eunuchs in the Middle East