2021 – 2023
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Peking University

2020 – 2021
GIS Specialist Consultant, SOAS, University of London

2020
Visiting Research Fellow, Research Center for History and Culture, BNU-HKBU United International College

2019
Dr. phil., Free University of Berlin

2016 – 2017
ERASMUS Visiting Research Student, University College London

2011
MA, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mayence

Memory and Cultscapes of Conflict: Obelisks of China

The project zooms in on the role of ancient aesthetics in the commemoration of modern conflicts. One can trace a line from ancient Egyptian obelisks to modern counterparts as a representative and product of conflict. Many Chinese obelisks are so-called martyrs’ monuments commemorating collective violence, going back to the earliest days of the Chinese Republic. The ancient became a glocal symbol of the modern. Today, obelisks and associated cultscapes are sites of regular performative rituals. Chinese adaptations inhabit a central ideological position in the political China. They mediate the memory of conflicts since the mid-19th century and serve as domestic education base, especially related to Chinese-foreign relations and perceptions. As such, their role in Chinese society deserves greater scholarly attention; from an ancient studies perspective especially as a product of East-West and North-South cultural exchange over time that may allow for (diachronic) comparative studies.

Fields of research

ancient Egyptian political economy; cultural reception of ancient Egypt; history of Egyptology; international relations of Egyptology

2023
‘Postcolonial theory in Egyptology: Key concepts and agendas’ (co-authored with Uroš Matić), Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress 19.1 (2023), pp. 1–27. DOI: 10.1007/s11759-023-09470-9.

‘Chinese archaeology in Egypt: between eurocentrism, de-westernization and decolonization’, in V. Chan, Y.-F. Hui, D. Hui, K. Vafadari (eds.), Heritage Conservation and China's Belt and Road Initiative, London and New York: Routledge, 2023 (in press).

2022
‘The political economy of foreign labour in pharaonic Egypt, 2700–1069 BCE: An assessment of impacts on Northeast African and Southwest Asian societies’, in D.A. Warburton (ed.), The Earliest Economic Growth in World History: Proceedings of the Berlin Workshop, PIHANS 133, Leuven: Peeters, 2022, pp. 131–158.

2021
Egyptian Deportations of the Late Bronze Age: A Study in Political Economy, Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde – Beihefte 13, Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2021.

2019
‘Von Assuan nach Yangon: Obelisken in transkultureller Perspektive’, in K. Gabler, A. Verbovsek, S. Bickel and E. Hemauer (eds.), Formen kultureller Dynamik: Impuls – Progression – Transformation: Beiträge des zehnten Basler und Berliner Arbeitskreises Junge Aegyptologie (BAJA 10) 29.11.–1.12.2019, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2021, pp. 115–131.