Curriculum Vitae

Main areas of research

As a European ethnologist and cultural anthropologist, Katharina Eisch-Angus researches and lectures in everyday fields of memory, experience and narration.

From in 1987 to the present, with ethnographic research predominantly in Czech-German border areas, she has been following the anthropology of borders and boundaries seen as expression of difference, liminality and cultural change, and as study fields of nationalism and inter-ethnicity, war, migration and post-socialist change.

Based on extensive ethnographic and interdisciplinary research in the UK and Europe since 2006, she inquires into the everyday discourse of safety/security within contemporary processes of governmentality and securitisation in relation to present-day cultural and social transformation, the cohesion of everyday and community life, and the (self)images of the entrepreneurial subject.

A recent interest is in reflections of religiosity in everyday cultures. A consistent area of special interest is the interrelation between artistic and ethnographic methods of research, combined with studies of work cultures and leading to questions of museum scenography.

A strong methodological emphasis is on the conceptual formulation of emergent processes of a contextual and reflexive ethnography, integrating processes of fieldwork, interpretation and supervision, and textualisation, and relating them to approaches of pragmatic cultural semiotics, multi-sited ethnography and (ethno‑)psychoanalysis.

Education

1990 - 1992 PhD research in Empirical Cultural Science (University of Tübingen); PhD thesis 1992: The Language of the Border. An Ethnography of Czech-German Border Lands. Supervisor: Utz Jeggle

1989 M.A. degree in European ethnology/empirical cultural science, philosophy, ethnology (University of Tübingen)

1981 – 1989 M.A. studies of European ethnology/empirical cultural science, philosophy, ethnology, art history (Universities of Munich, Vienna and Tübingen).

Academic positions and project work

Since 2012 Professor at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology (University of Graz), head of department since 2017

2019-2022 Joint project: Glass Works. Training | Networking | Taking Roots, project leader, funded by the European Union, programme Creative Europe, cooperation partners: Bild-Werk Frauenau (D), The Royal Danish Academy of Arts (DK), University of Graz

2009-2012 Individual research project: Everyday communication and experience, and present-day security discourses, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), located at Regensburg University

2008/2009 Visiting Research Fellow (Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of the West of England, Bristol, Department of Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies, European Ethnological Research Unit)

2007/8 Lecturer for Comparative Cultural Science, coordinator of the elite degree course for Eastern European studies (University of Regensburg)

2008 Visiting Professor on Materiality of Culture and Memory, Dept. for European Ethnology (University of Vienna)

1998-2009 Freelance researcher and consultant for cultural projects, museum and community work, including: 

2007/8 Ethnographic documentary film Der letzte Hafen / The Journey of the Glass Ark, with Klaus Hernitschek

2006 Glass in Context: Art-Image-Industry: International Symposium and European Master classes, EU and nationally funded project (Frauenau, D)

1999-2005 Concept and scientific project coordination of the new Glass Museum Frauenau as an ethnographic museum for cultural history, manufacture and art in glass, EU and nationally funded project (Frauenau, D)

1998/9 Research study and film concept on collective memory of 1945 in Saxonian borderlands, Institute für Saxonian History and Folk Culture (Dresden)

Since 1987 Organiser, chair, advisor to the International Summer Art Academy Bild-Werk Frauenau for glass and art (Frauenau, D)

1994 – 1996 Main researcher in the research project: Archaeology of a Nowhereland. Memory and identities of Germans in Bohemia, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), located at Tübingen University. Project leader: Utz Jeggle.

1993/4 Assistant professor, Ludwig Uhland Institute for Empirical Cultural Science (University of Tübingen)

Since 1993 Lecturer in European ethnology and cultural science (Universities of Tübingen, Jena, Regensburg, Passau, Vienna, Graz, Bristol)

Since 1987 Ongoing research and publications on everyday culture, economic and social change, industrial work and art practice in Czech-German, British and other European (border) communities and glass manufacturing areas

Recent peer reviewing, evaluation and academic commissions, editorial boards

Since 2018 Member of the editorial board for Österreichische Zeitschrift für Volkskunde [Austrian Journal for European Ethnology]

2013 Referee for the submission of the process of glass blowing as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage to the government of North Rhine-Westfalia

Since 2012 Peer reviewer for Ethnologia Europaea. Journal of European Ethnology; Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften [Journal for Cultural Science]; Traditiones; Volkskunde in Sachsen [Folk Culture in Saxony]

Since 2012 Referee/commission member for academic appointment and habilitation procedures

Referee for the German Research Foundation (DFG)

Referee for the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

External reviewer for the European Commission, HERA Joint Research Programme

Scientific memberships and inter-university activities

Since 2012 International Doctoral Network and Doctoral Program Transformations in European Societies, Universities of Munich, Basel, Graz, Murcia, Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Tel Aviv, Zagreb, participating professor

Since 1998 Tübingen Ethno-Psychoanalytic Supervision Group for Field Researchers, Workgroup for subject-oriented ethnographic interpretation and supervision, founding member and contributor

Member of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Volkskunde (DGV, German Society for European Ethnology), Österreichischer Verein für Volkskunde (Austrian Association for European Ethnology), Regensburger Verein für Volkskunde (Regensburg Association for European Ethnology), Tübinger Vereinigung für Volkskunde (Tübingen Union for European Ethnology)

Recent scientific research achievements

2020 Invited lecture at the 40. Congress of the German Society for Sociology (DGS)/Ad-hoc group “Anxiety – cause and consequence of societal tensions?”, Oct. 15, 2020: Alltagsangst und Liminalität: Ethnografisch-kulturanalytische Zugänge zum permanenten Ausnahmezustand.

2019 Closing lecture/keynote at the 42. Congress of the German Society for European Ethnology (dgv), Oct. 10, 2020: Kontrolle und Verwundbarkeit. Zur Ethnografie des institutionellen Subjekts der Sicherheitsgesellschaft. Online: lecture2go.uni-hamburg.de/l2go/-/get/v/25316

2019 International Conference and Workshop Creating Glass Lives, 31 May/31 October 2018, co-organisation and keynote lecture

2018 Workshop of the Commission “Cultural Contexts of Eastern Europe” in the German Society for European Ethnology, 6/7 December 2018. Co-organisation and opening speech

2018 International Symposium: Curiosity and Commitment: Cultural/Social Sciences and the Transformation of European Universities, 18/19 November 2018. Co-organisation and opening speech

2017 Habilitation at the University of Regensburg, venia docendi: Comparative cultural research. Thesis: Absurde Angst. Narrationen der Sicherheitsgesellschaft. Mentors and reviewers: Regina Bendix, Ulrich Bröckling, Daniel Drascek, Christel Köhle-Hezinger

2015 Interdisciplinary Conference: Der Alltag der (Un)Sicherheit. Ethnographisch-kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf die Sicherheitsgesellschaft, 6/7 November 2015.  Co-organisation and opening speech.

1999-2005 Scientific research, concept and realisation of the Glass Museum Frauenau, Germany, as ethnographic museum for the cultural history and work life memory of European glass manufacturing

Awards  

2018 Bavarian Forest Culture Prize

2016 Glass Street Prize 2016 of the Eastern Bavarian Tourist Association for Bild-Werk Frauenau

2008 Glass Street Prize 2008 of the Eastern Bavarian Tourist Association for the Glass Museum Frauenau

2008 Prize of the Centre Bavaria Bohemia (CeBB), Schönsee: "Brückenbauer − Stavitel mostu 2008" ("Bridge Builder 2008") for border-crossing engagement

2007 Bavarian Museum Prize, second place, for the Glass Museum Frauenau (concept and realisation)