PhD Thesis
Title: Organising for Progress. Rudolf Broda and the Institut international pour l’organisation du progrès, c. 1907-1932
PhD Supervisor, Co-Supervisor and 2nd Reader: Cyrus Schayegh, John Torpey (The Graduate Center, City University of New York CUNY) and Carolyn Biltoft
Expected completion date: 2024
Profile
In my project, “Organising for Progress. Rudolf Broda and the Institut International pour l’organisation du progrès, c. 1907-1932”, I look at debates about progress and at the assemblage of reform movements and ideas at the fin-de-siècle and trace their development into the interwar period. I use Nodegoat, a research environment developed for the ‘digital humanities’, to map both the transnational network of persons and institutions involved in Broda’s project, and the clusters of ideas they discussed.
After two bachelor's degrees spread across History, Philosophy, Islamic Studies, Sociology, and Economics, I completed a Master in History and Cultural Analysis at the University of Zurich. I have spent semesters abroad in Jordan and India and over the course of years studied a number of languages. Among those I am comfortable with speaking and reading are German, English, French, Swedish, Italian, and Arabic, and I also read Portuguese, Farsi, Hindi, Urdu, and Hebrew. At present, I am studying Russian, which is a language that is relevant to my current research project. I have taught Arabic and also worked as a Middle East analyst for the Swiss State Secretariat for Migration.
Research Interests
- History of Ideas
- Cultural History
- Political Movements and Networks
- Histories of the Future
- Urban Geography
- Critical Theory and its Critiques
Relevant Publications and Works
Diem, Anna: Review of Chatterjee, Ipsita: Displacement, Revolution, and the New Urban Condition. Theories and Case Studies, New Delhi 2014, in: Social Change 46/4, p. 624-627.
Fellowships, Grants and Awards
• SNSF: Doc.CH Scholarship (2019) funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation
• Otto Herz Foundation, Lucerne: grant for studying Hebrew at Tel Aviv University (2015)
• Swiss Study Foundation: grants for studying abroad (2011/15)