Dr Smilla Ebeling
Dr Smilla Ebeling
"Me and the project"
In February 2013, I joined the project "New local history museums as institutions of knowledge production". As a science researcher, I have been working for over 15 years in various fields on the question of how knowledge is constituted. For example, I have analysed the production of scientific knowledge in biology with regard to the category of gender. In this project, I am now focussing on knowledge production in new local history museums, with a particular interest in the interaction between museum actors, exhibition objects, forms of presentation and visitors (see research article). Overall, I am working on three task areas in the project:
1. research contribution on the musealisation of nature, gender and ethnicity.
2. guidelines for museum actors. The guide is intended to enable museum actors to explore the exhibitions of their own museum as new territory and to record the production of meaning and knowledge of their exhibitions with regard to gender and ethnicity in the reception situation.
3. project planning.
Research contribution "Nature - Gender - Ethnicity": The central research interest of my research contribution is aimed at the musealisation of 'nature' in new local history museums. It examines constituent meanings, narratives and bodies of knowledge about 'nature', which are fixed, preserved, interpreted and exhibited using various means of presentation. The focus is on the inscription of gender and ethnicity in the museum representation of 'nature'. What inscriptions can be found, for example, in the animals, plants, landscapes and ecosystems presented or in the depictions of 'wilderness' and 'nature'? And what knowledge about gender and ethnicity is created in the museum presentations of 'nature'? Other examined links to current social discourses are the topics of globalisation, global warming and nature conservation. The exhibitions are analysed using the method of "dense description" (Geertz 1983, Muttenthaler & Wonisch 2006).
Short biography
Academic appointments | |
March 2013 - Feb. 2014 | Lecturer at the Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria) |
Since February 2013 | Research assistant at the University of Oldenburg |
Sept. 2011 - Aug. 2012 | Managing director of the cultural café café munck in Hamburg |
March 2011 - Aug. 2011 | Visiting professor at the University of Salzburg (Austria) |
March 2011 - Aug. 2011 | Lecturer at the University of Graz (Austria) |
Jan 2010 - Aug. 2011 | Freelance researcher and cultural manager in Hamburg |
Jan. 2009 - Dec. 2009 | Associate Professor at the School III - School of Linguistics and Cultural Studies at the University of Oldenburg, Institute of Cultural Studies: KUNST - TEXTIL - MEDIEN, Seminar für Materielle und Visuelle Kultur. |
2003 - 2008 | Junior Professor for "Gender, Biotechnologies and Society: Body Discourses and Gender Constructions" at the University of Oldenburg; Institute of Sociology. |
July 2003 - Dec. 2008 | Member of the Centre Council of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Oldenburg (ZFG) (2006-2008 deputy director) |
WS 2002/03 + 2003/04 | Lecturer at the University of Art and Design Zurich; postgraduate programme Gender Studies (Switzerland) |
Aug. 2002 - Feb. 2003 | Research Assistant at the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Basel (Switzerland) |
July 2001 - July 2002 | Research assistant at the Department of History at the TU Braunschweig in the project "Mathematics of Life - Constitution and Gender Coding of a New Concept of Life through Artificial Life Research" |
Summer 2000 | Visiting researcher at the International Women's University(ifu) at the University of Hanover in the Body project area |
Winter 1998/1999
| Visiting researcher at the Center For Advanced Feminist Studies, University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, USA) |
1997 and 1998 | Lecturer at the University of Hamburg in the Departments of Biology, Chemistry and Physics |
Education | |
2002 - 2005 | Supplementary studies "Teaching qualification in science and further education" at the Interdisciplinary Centre for University Didactics, University of Hamburg |
October 2001 | Doctorate at the TU Braunschweig. Dissertation: "Parthenogenesis and gender relations in the evolutionary-biological discourse on reproduction. A metaphor analysis". |
Apr.1997 - March 2001 | Doctoral studies in science studies in the DFG Research Training Group "Genesis, Structures and Consequences of Science and Technology" at the Institute for Science and Technology Studies, University of Bielefeld |
1988 - 1995 | Studied biology at the University of Hamburg |
Awards | |
December 2006 | Prize for outstanding teaching in the 2005/06 academic year at the University of Oldenburg. |
Exhibitions | |
1991 | In the labyrinth of niches; Hamburg market hall |
