Petra Ahrens takes up Guest Professorship at the Free University Berlin

Our senior researcher, Dr. Petra Ahrens, has been invited by the well-known Otto-Suhr-Institute of Political Science (OSI) at the Free University Berlin, Germany, as guest professor in political sciences during the summer semester 2021. Accepting this exciting invitation, she takes leave of absence from our EUGenDem ERC-project for the time period April to September 2021.

The OSI is the largest German institute of political science in Germany covering a broad spectrum of research and teaching activities, including the Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG) “The Transformative Power of Europe”, the collaborative research center “Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood”, and the “Environmental Policy Research Centre”.

Petra Ahrens will teach four (German) seminars with a focus on EU integration, democracy, civil society, political representation and qualitative methods at the OSI:

  • Gender and Intersectionality in EU multilevel governance: The new European Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025 from the perspective of transnational civil society
  • Gender+ and Diversity in Politics – do gender-diversity sensitive parliaments in Germany exist?
  • Corona and social inequalities. Intersectional perspectives on pandemic biopolitics (co-teaching with Friederike Beier)
  • Politics and Gender research – theoretical and methodological foundations

Furthermore, she will collaborate closely with Gülay Çağlar, Professor of Political Science with specialization in gender and diversity, an expert in political economy, intersectionality, postcolonialism and international relations. Çağlar is also responsible for the Master Gender, Intersectionality and Politics, a new interdisciplinary study program established in 2019.

Through the guest professorship, Ahrens and Çağlar also aim to establish closer links between Çağlar’s research and our EUGenDem project. To this end, Ahrens will organize a periodic joint virtual writing meeting to foster exchange and networking and explore potential future collaborative research.

Petra Ahrens will return as Senior Researcher to our EUGenDem project in October 2021.