Lunch Seminars 2015-2016

TRANSGENDER IN IRAN: MOVIE AND DISCUSSION
27 JUNE 2016

The documentary ‘Be Like Others’ (also known as Transsexual in Iran) is a 2008 documentary film written and directed by Tanaz Eshaghian about transsexuals in Iran. It explores issues of gender and sexual identity while following the personal stories of some of the patients at a Teheran gender reassignment clinic. The film played at the Sundance Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival, winning three international awards. The documentary is about an hour long and is in English.

A discussion session (in English) will follow the viewing of the movie. Invited discussants include Dr. Joz Motmans, coordinator of the Transgender Infopunt and Dr. Ladan Rahbari.

FOOD AS MEDICINE IN EDO-PERIOD JAPAN
21 JUNE 2016: ANDREAS NIEHAUS

Andreas Niehaus, Japanese Studies; Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University

Andreas Niehaus studied Japanese Language and Culture, German Literature and English Literature at the University of Cologne, where he also defended his PhD. In 2004 he was appointed professor at Ghent University.In 2010 he became head of the Department of South and East Asian Languages and Cultures and in 2012 head of the Department of the new Department of Languages and Cultures. Since 2015 he is also head of the International Office of the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy.
His main research interests are body cultures of Japan including Japanese sport history during the Meiji and early Shôwa-period, Olympic history, national and cultural memories in Japan and lately ideas of the body and ideology during the Edo-period.

ETHNOGRAPHIC OBSERVATIONS OF OBJECTS, THINGS, COMMODITIES, DESIGNS,…
29 FEBRUARY 2016: ROZITA DIMOVA

Prof. Dr.Rozita Dimova is Associate Professor in Slavonic and East-European Studies (2013-pres), Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University. Before she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle (2003-2006), Free University Berlin (2006-2009) and Humboldt University Berlin (2010-2013). Her work has engaged a broad range of theoretical and ethnographic issues. Her research interests include ethnic and national identities, class, gender, consumption/commodities, refugees, the state and the neo-liberal forms of governance in South-eastern Europe and in the West.

‘WOMEN’S DANCES IN POST-GENOCIDE RWANDA: GENDER EQUALITY, FEMALE IDENTITY AND THE WANING OF THE SACRED’
2 FEBRUARY 2016: CARINE PLANCKE

Dr. Carine Plancke is a Marie Curie research fellow at the Centre for Dance Research of the University of Roehampton (UK) where she does research on dance, gender and reconstruction in post-genocide Rwanda. After completing her MA studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Leuven, she enrolled for an Advanced Program in Women’s Studies at the University of Antwerp. She gained her PhD in Ethnology and Social Anthropology from the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences in Paris (EHESS) and the University of Leuven and was a Teaching and Research Fellow at the Universities of Nice and Clermont-Ferrand.  Her doctoral research deals with the mainly female song and dance performances and rituals of rural Punu communities in Congo-Brazzaville. As a result of this research, a monograph has been published (2014, Presses Universitaires du Mirail) as well as numerous articles in international, peer-reviewed journals such as Africa, Journal of Religion in Africa, Social Analysis, Journal for Ritual Studies and Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

‘RELIGION AND GENDER’
16 NOVEMBER 2015: UTE HÜSKEN

Prof. Dr. Ute Hüsken (University of Oslo) is Professor in the South Asia section of IKOS. She was educated as an Indian and Tibetan studies scholar and as a cultural anthropologist in Göttingen (Germany). She lectured at Göttingen University and later at the South Asia Institute at Heidelberg University (South Asia Institute). She teaches courses on religion in South Asia, Sanskrit, Pali, ancient and contemporary Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. Hüsken was member of the executive committee of the Dynamics of Ritual collaborative research center at the University of Heidelberg, and was co-chair of the steering committee of the Ritual Studies Group (American Academy of Religion). Together with Ronald L. Grimes and Barry Stephenson (Canada) she is co-editor of the Oxford Ritual Studies Series (Oxford University Press).

 ‘THE CULTURE OF DOING A PHD, A PHD IN CULTURAL RESEARCH’
28 OCTOBER 2015: LISA DIKOMITIS

Dr. Lisa Dikomitis is a social anthropologist who has conducted fieldwork in Belgium, Cyprus and the United Kingdom. She is Lecturer in Social Research in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Hull (UK) where she teaches courses on qualitative research and etnographic practice. She is also the Programme Director of the MSC in Applied Social Research and has led several seminars for beginning PhD students. She currently supervises 6 students who are involved in social research ranging from Bangladeshi women in London, ageing in Yorkshire and perceptions on speedpedelecs. Dikomitis is the author of Cypris and its Places of Desire. Cultures of Displacement among Greek and Turkish Cypriot Refugees (IB Tauris, 2012) and the co-editor of When God Comes to Town: Religious Traditions in UrbaContexts (Berghahn Books, 2009, paperback 2012). In 2010 she ventured into health focusing especially on the experiences of health professionals and the ways they try to incorporate and engage with knowledge outside their medical competencies. She conducted fieldwork in a psychiatric hospital in Belgium before moving to the UK in 2012. In the north of England she continued working on the social aspects of health and has conducted fieldwork among patients, clinicians and medical students. The research includes studies on the recent NHS reforms, health inequalities and the perceptions of cluster headache. Before joining the University of Hull in March 2014 she worked at Ghent University (2004-2012) and at the Hull York Medical School (2012-2014).

‘HOW TALKING ABOUT ONE’S MEANING OF LIFE MAKES SENSE: A DISCOURSE ANALYTIC APPROACH TO RELATED QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWS’
24 SEPTEMBER 2015: SABINE GRENZ

PD Dr. Sabine Grenz (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)

After completing her studies in Educational Science, Sociology and Psychology at the University of Cologne she enrolled for an MSc Gender at the Gender Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) where she was situated between 2001 und 2003 as a research student and in the academic year 2010-11 worked as a guest-lecturer.

2004 she completed her PhD in Gender Studies at Humboldt-University in Berlin where in 2005 she became postdoc in the research training group “Gender as a Category of Knowledge” and a researcher in 2007. 2008 and 2009 Sabine Grenz worked as post-doc at the University of Gothenburg. In 2010 she continued working on her research project about the constructions of femininity in women’s diaries of the Second World War with a gender equality scholarship from Humboldt-University in Berlin where in 2014 she qualified as a professor for Gender Studies.

2012 she began a new research project about gendered discourses of meanings of life at the Comenius-Institute in Muenster and 2013 started teaching as an assistant professor/researcher at the Georg-August-University of Goettingen. Since 2014 she is board member of the German Gender Studies association (Fachgesellschaft Geschlechterstudien). In 2015 she is visiting professor at Ghent University and is appointed acting professor at the Goettingen Institute for Diversity Research.

Her main research and teaching interests are: Gender epistemology and qualitative empirical methodology, Gender, diversity and intersectionality, Gender and religion(s), Gender and sexualities, Historical perspectives on gender constructions, Institutionalisation and academic history of Gender Studies