Doctoral students at our Professor

Title of the doctoral project:
"trans*normal? Stories about the boundaries of trans*gender in Germany"

„Who counts as Trangender“ is the title of an article in the Transgender Studies Quarterly Volume 2. Number 1 from 2015. Trans* or transgender are terms that not only describe people who identify as trans* or transgender, but are also linked to identifications in the field of tension of modern identities. The discourses surrounding trans* bodies are shaped by various actors. Mass media, trans* organizations, trans* people in the public sphere and many more shape images of trans* bodies and trans* narratives. Their interdependent integration is often only partially visible and the images are based on norm-validating ideas of dominance. In state authorities, Germany is often marked as trans*-inclusive and medicine and law supposedly act as providers of help. At the same time, policies are currently being made on issues of gender and sexuality, including trans* issues, that suggest the superiority of the global North and promote racist developments.

All these actors and discourses shape ideas of the trans*normal. Based on this, I ask what are the boundaries of what or who is included under the term trans*? Who are the actors involved in the delimitations and in what form? What images of trans*people are reproduced in the mass media and how trans*people and their experiences are instrumentalized for racist policies? But also how trans* organizations are involved in re_producing images of trans* people? What are the normative narratives that fill the term trans* and to which trans* people in Germany orient themselves and who is left out? Who does not count as sufficiently trans*(gender)?

And how can trans*people imagine themselves against this background? How do we tell ourselves? How do dominant narratives_images_of_the_body enable and_or_disable our trans* self-images and biographies? How are our self-perceptions and dominant trans* narratives mutually dependent? How do interdependencies become invisible in this web? Who considers themselves trans*(gender)? I interweave my following of the processes surrounding the domination of the boundaries of dominant trans* narratives with autoethnographic narratives and bring it together with self-narratives;stories of trans*people in order to take a look at the interdependent boundaries of images, stories and embodiments of trans*, to see what is possible and what is impossible in them. what is made impossible and how the views_images_narratives_images_reproduce each other in this field.

Title of the doctoral project:
"The BDSM scene from the perspective of recognition theory"

Abstract:
This dissertation is situated in cultural studies and examines the BDSM scene as a socio-political and cultural phenomenon. Viewing this scene through the lens of recognition theory represents an innovative and significant approach, as sexual political movements have a significant influence on how sexuality is understood and lived in society.

Special feature of the doctoral project:
While most previous studies on the BDSM scene focus primarily on internal dynamics and rarely establish a comprehensive social or intersectional context, this work stands out due to its recognition policy approach as the BDSM scene has so far been attributed little political relevance or formative influence in the academic literature. This is precisely where this dissertation comes in: It closes a research gap by examining the scene from the perspective of recognition theory.
The insights gained should not only contribute to a deeper understanding of the BDSM scene, but also offer an outlook on how debates about the recognition of social and sexual minorities can be negotiated in society.

Title of the doctoral thesis:
»Contested Polish and European gender orders. Struggles of feminist and LGBTQ* movements for belonging, space and representation«
Disputation: 28.07.2023