Prof. Dr. Thomas G. Kirsch
Vita
Thomas G. Kirsch is full professor and chair of social and cultural anthropology at the University of Konstanz. He received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) in 2002 and taught at the Department of Anthropology and Philosophy in Halle (Saale) and then at the Department of Anthropology at Goldsmiths College, University of London, before coming to the University of Konstanz in 2009.
Research interests
- epistemologies of social and cultural anthropology
- dis/order and dis/integration
- process, social practice, and performativity
- human safety, security, and crime prevention
- political and legal anthropology, democracy, and public policy
- religion and the anthropology of Christianity
- media anthropology, visual anthropology, and the ethnography of reading
- technology, infrastructure, and built environment
- southern Africa, particularly South Africa and Zambia
Functions within the Center
Member of the executive board and the plenary assembly (principal investigator)
Professor for social and cultural anthropology
about the professorship
Co-director of the Ph.D. program “Europe in the Globalized World”
Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study Konstanz (October 2012–September 2013)
Research project “Fractals and Scales. Dis/integration as Discursive Practice”
Abstract
Selected Publications
2015. Religion als Prozess. Kulturwissenschaftliche Wege der Religionsforschung, edited by Thomas G. Kirsch, Rudolf Schlögl and Dorothea Weltecke, Paderborn: Schöningh.
2015. Regimes of Ignorance. Anthropological Perspectives on the Production and Reproduction of Non-Knowledge, edited by Roy Dilley and Thomas G. Kirsch, New York/Oxford: Berghahn.
2015. Verlorene und gefundene Zeit. Ethnographie und die Frage nach der Gegenwart afrikanischer Vergangenheiten. In Die Wirklichkeit der Geschichte, edited by Haas, Stefan and Clemens Wischermann. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 81-99.
2014 Die Demontage der Nation. Infrastruktur als Niemandseigentum im neoliberalen Südafrika. In: Michael Kempe, Robert Suter, editors: Res nullius. Zur Genealogie und Aktualität einer Rechtsformel. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 175-196.
2013 Spirit idioms and the politics of context. In: Meier B, Steinforth A, editors. Spirits in Politics. Uncertainties of Power and Healing in African Societies. Frankfurt am Main: Campus. pp. 91-113.
2012 Konsensualität und religiöse wahrheitspraxis. In: Hillebrandt F, Daniel A, Schäfer F, Wienold H, editors. Doing Modernity – Doing Religion. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. pp. 233-256.
2010 From the spirit's point of view : Ethnography, total truth and speakership. In: Zenker O, Kumoll K, editors. Beyond writing culture : current intersections of epistemologies and representational practices. New York: Berghahn Books. pp. 89-112.
2010 Die rebellion der techniker. elektrizität und das recht auf die stadt. In: Pinther K, Förster L, Hanussek C, editors. Afropolis: Stadt, Medien, Kunst ( (Ausstellungskatalog zur gleichnamigen Ausstellung im Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, Köln). Köln: Walter König. pp. 272-277.
2010 herausgegeben mit Thilo Grätz: Domesticating Vigilantism in Africa, Oxford: James Currey.
2010 Die Rebellion der Techniker. Elektrizität und das Recht auf die Stadt. In Afropolis: Stadt, Medien, Kunst (Ausstellungskatalog zur gleichnamigen Ausstellung im Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, Köln), herausgegeben von Pinther, Kerstin, Larissa Förster & Christian Hanussek. Köln: Walter König, 272-277.
2010 From the Spirit's Point of View. Ethnography, Total Truth and Speakership. In Beyond Writing Culture. Current Intersections of Epistemologies and Practices of Representation, edited by Kumoll, Karsten & Olaf Zenker. New York/Oxford: Berghahn, 89-112.
2009 Permutations of Order. Religion and Law as Contested Sovereignties. (edited with Bertram Turner). Aldershot: Ashgate.
With Bertram Turner: Law and Religion in Permutation of Order, Ibd., pp. 1-24.
Constitutionally Divine: Legal Hermeneutics in African Pentecostal Christianity, Ibd., pp. 165-184.
2008 Spirits and Letters. Reading, Writing and Charisma in African Christianity. Oxford und New York: Berghahn Books.
2008 Religious Logistics. African Christians, Spirituality and Transportation. In On the Margins of Religion, edited by J. de Pina-Cabral and F. Pine. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 61-80.
2007 Ways of Reading as Religious Power in Print Globalization. American Ethnologist 34 (3): 509-520.
2006 Visions and Evidences. Prophetic Scripture and a ‘Crisis of Representation’ in Zambia. Visual Anthropology 19 (2): 105-122.
2005 ‘Illegal Connections’. Conflicts over Electricity in Soweto, South Africa. Soziale Welt (Special Issue 16: ‘The Reality of Cities’; edited by H. Berking and M. Löw): 193-208.
2004 Restaging the Will to Believe. Religious Pluralism, Anti-Syncretism, and the Problem of Belief. American Anthropologist 106 (4): 699-711.
2003 Church, Bureaucracy, and the State. Bureaucratic Formalization in a Pentecostal Church of Zambia. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 128 (2): 213-231.
2002 Performance and the Negotiation of Charismatic Authority in an African Indigenous Church of Zambia. Paideuma 48: 57-76.
1998 Lieder der Macht. Religiöse Autorität und Performance in einer afrikanisch-christlichen Kirche Sambias [Songs of Empowerment. Religious Authority and Performance in an African Christian Church in Zambia]. Münster and Hamburg: Lit. (Book series: ‘Spektrum’; edited by G. Elwert, V. Lühr, U. Luig and M. Schulz).
Kontakt
Tel. 07531 88-2093
E-Mail thomas.kirsch[at]uni-konstanz.de
Raum F 518
Postadresse
Prof. Dr. Thomas Kirsch
Ethnologie und Kulturanthropologie
Universität Konstanz
Fach 38
78457 Konstanz