Voluntariness and Friends – Our Mercator-Fellow

For spring 2022, we welcome Professor Alexandra Oeser as Mercator-Fellow to the Research Unit on Voluntariness! As a sociologist trained in Germany and France, Alexandra currently works and teaches at the University of Paris Nanterre and will visit Erfurt from March to August 2022.

Alexandra studied in England and France and her numerous international research trips leading to her habilitation in Social Sciences at the Université Paris 1 Sorbonne have already brought her to Erfurt several times. We are very pleased to welcome her here again in the upcoming summer semester. Alexandra’s research focuses on political sociology and the sociology of work. Also trained as a historian, her research moves closely along the boundaries of sociology and historiography.

Among her many other research interests, she is also concerned with the concept of Eigen-Sinn – a term largely coined by the history of everyday life and the Erfurt historian Alf Lüdtke. She has also published on issues of gender and class in globalized economies and in the context of the history of factory work.

Having that expertise, Alexandra will support the conceptual work on voluntariness as Mercator-Fellow to our group. Concepts of Eigen-Sinn and agency are crucial to many of our projects and we look forward to lively discussions in workshops and our lecture series “The Politics of Voluntariness.”

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What Else Is New?

“Treppenhaus-Lecture” by Jürgen Martschukat in Erfurt

Under the heading “Ambivalences of Voluntariness”, Jürgen Martschukat, spokesperson of the DFG Research Unit Voluntariness, will give a brief overview of the research of our group on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, from 12:00 to 12:30 in the foyer of the research building “Weltbeziehungen” in Erfurt, as part of the series “Treppenhaus Lectures”. Feel free to drop by!

Special Issue on Voluntariness at Rethinking History

Members of our research group have compiled a special issue for the journal Rethinking History on the topic of “The Politics of Voluntariness in Modern History.” The issue is edited by Jürgen Martschukat and Alexandra Oeser and all pieces are available for download as open access articles on the journal’s website. Get the links right here.