Since 2015 Deputy chair of the Centre for Atlantic and Global Studies (CAGS), Leibniz University of Hannover
Since 2013 Member of the Scientific Commission of the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities
Since 2009 Full Member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Since 2004 Chair in African History, University of Hannover
December 2003 Post-Doctoral Lecturing Qualification, Lecturer for African History, University of Vienna, Austria
1998–2004 Research Fellow, Centre for Modern Oriental Studies (ZMO), Berlin, Germany
1996–1997 Self-employed Scientific Journalist
1994–1995 Editorial Associate and Academic Advisor, ARTE (Franco-German TV-Channel), Baden-Baden, Germany
1994– 2002 Teaching Assignments at Universities of Hamburg, Hannover (Germany), Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium)
June 1993 PhD in African History, University of Hamburg, Germany

RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS

• Economic, Social and Cultural History of Western and Eastern Africa
• Gender, Family, and Generation in French Colonial West Africa
• Franco-African Military History, Migration and Transcultural Processes
• Translocality, Memory and Historical Culture in the Indian Ocean World
• Popular Culture and Media in Urban Milieus in West and East Africa
• Africa in the Atlantic Space
• Representations of ‘Africa’ in Ethnographical Collections, Documentary and Feature Films

Publication (Selection)

Books:

• 2018 (ed.) Beyond Europe: The First World War in Global Perspective ( = Dhau. Jahrbuch für außereuropäische Geschichte 3/2018). Co-Editor: Christine Hatzky.
• 2006 (ed.) „Afrika hierzulande“. Eine Bilder-, Text- und Beziehungsgeschichte. Wien: ECCo –Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Angewandte Afrikanistik (= Stichproben. Wiener Zeitschrift für Kritische Afrikastudien 10).
• 2005 Reisen durch den Krieg. Erfahrungen und Lebensstrategien westafrikanischer Weltkriegsveteranen der französischen Kolonialarmee. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag. (Travelling through the War. Experiences and Life Strategies of West African World War Veterans of the French Colonial Army). Berlin: K. Schwarz (ZMO Studien 18).
• 2002 (ed.) Space on the Move. Transformations of the Indian Ocean Seascape in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag. Co-Editor: Jan-Georg Deutsch
• 2001 (ed.) African Networks, Exchange and Spatial Dynamics. Münster & Hamburg: LIT. Co-Editor: Laurence Marfaing
• 1995 Der Reichtum der Frauen. Leben und Arbeit der weiblichen Bevölkerung in Siin/Senegal unter dem Einfluss der französischen Kolonisation. Münster & Hamburg: LIT (Women’s Wealth. Life and Work of Women in Siin/Senegal under French Colonial Rule. (Ph D. Thesis)

Articles and Chapters:

• 2016 Die deutschen Kolonien in Afrika. In Heikles Erbe. Koloniale Spuren bis in die Gegenwart (eds.) Alexis von Poser & Bianca Baumann. Dresden: Sandstein, pp. 160-171 (catalogue to special exhibition, Landesmuseum Hannover, Oct. 2016-Feb. 2017).
• 2013 On the Challenge of De-Provincializing the University Classroom: Teaching African History from a Postcolonial Perspective. In Postcolonial Studies Across the Disciplines (eds. Jana Gohrisch & Ellen Grünkemeier). Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi, pp. 365-369.
• 2010 Transatlantische Passagen und der Preis der Freiheit. Erfahrungen und Begegnungen westafrikanischer und afroamerikanischer Soldaten in Diensten der Alliierten. In: Atlantik. Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte in der Neuzeit (eds.) Ulrike Schmieder & Hans-Heinrich Nolte. Wien: Promedia, pp. 193-208 (Edition Weltregionen 20).
• 2009 Recycling the Empire’s Unknown Soldier – Contested Memories of French West African Colonial Combatants’ War Experience. In: Memory, History, and Colonialism: Engaging with Pierre Nora in Colonial and Postcolonial Contexts (ed.) Indra Sengupta (= Bulletin German Historical Institute London, Supplement Nr. 1), pp. 37-70.
• 2007 Citadins au futur ? L’insertion des anciens combattants dans l’espace urbain de Bobo-Dioulasso. In Villes d’Afrique. Explorations en histoire urbaine (sous la direction de Jean-Luc Vellut). Tervuren: Musée royale de l’Afrique centrale & Paris : Éditions L’Harmattan, pp. 179-199 (Cahiers Africains 73).
• 2006 “Tonight at the Empire …” – Cinema and Urbanity in Zanzibar, 1920s to 1960s. In Afrique et Histoire 5, pp. 81-109.
• 2004 Espace(s) en mouvement? Quelques réflexions comparatives sur des processus translocaux. In Les relations transsahariennes à l’époque contemporaine. Un espace en constante mutation (eds.) Laurence Marfaing & Steffen Wippel. Paris: Éditions Karthala & Berlin: Zentrum Moderner Orient, pp. 443-455.
• 1997 Changing Family Strategies as a Response to Colonial Challenge. Microanalytic Observations on Siin/Senegal 1890-1960. In The History of the Family 2, no. 2, pp. 55-69.