Department of Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian Studies at
University of Cologne

 

The University of Cologne's department of Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian Studies has dedicated itself to interdisciplinary research and teaching in the field of Islam. Its main focuses are modern Arabic societies, Iran, Southeast Asian countries and Turkey. Students are introduced, among others, to a range of languages and scientific methodology regarding the study of Islam. In cooperation with the University's department of Social Anthropology, academic staff and students of Middle Eastern studies are in the process of conducting a newly developed research project centering on Cologne's Muslim communities.

 

Dr. Sabine Damir-Geilsdorf

Dr. Sabine Damir-Geilsdorf is the managing director and a professor of Middle Eastern Studies of the department of Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian Studies. The main focuses of her work are concepts of statehood and society in Islamic religious and political philosophy, the transformation of religious concepts and structures of knowledge, religous-political movements and Islamic law. She is also one of the initiators of a project that conducts interdisciplinary research in the field of modern Muslim communities in Germany.

 

Dr. Stephan Milich

Dr. Stephan Milich is a professor of Middle Eastern Studies of the department of Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian Studies. His main points of interest are Arabic language and literature, especially the literature of the exiled and displaced, discourses on the state and statehood, postcolonial theory and research on strategies of processing the past and coping with trauma, on an individual or group level, in North Africa and the Middle East.