Cordula Weißköppel

Academic Career

Cordula Weißköppel completed her habilitation thesis on the topic of Religion & Migration with a dissertation on transnational networks of Sudanese people in Germany (2011). She continued this line of research with her studies on Coptic Orthodox Christians in Egypt and in European diaspora communities. Building on processes of religious socialization in the transnational space between the first and second generations of migrants, her focus has shifted since 2011 to the situation of Copts in Egypt’s post-revolutionary phase. Among other topics, she researches current mourning practices for Coptic martyrs and legal-ethnological issues in the context of religious pluralism in Egypt.

Her doctoral dissertation, “Foreigners and Potato Germans” (Juventa 2001), addressed the situation of multicultural school classes in mainstream German schools. Based on ethnographic research, Cordula Weißköppel examined interactive identity performances among students of diverse ethno-national origins in Germany as a country of immigration.

In her master’s thesis (1995), she specialized in the theoretical development of ethnological gender studies, which is now part of intersectional gender studies. 

Professional Career

After completing her doctorate, Cordula Weißköppel was employed as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bayreuth in the SFB-FK 560 “Local Action in Africa in the Context of Global Influences” (2000–2003). This was followed by a position as a research assistant to Prof. Dr. Maya Nadig at the Institute for Ethnology and Cultural Studies at the University of Bremen (2003–2010). In addition to teaching in the BA program in Cultural Studies, she was involved in the launch of Bremen’s Master’s program in “Transcultural Studies” (MATS) (accredited since 2008). She led various teaching and research projects featuring high-profile public events (including the exhibition “under construction” in 2005 at the Bremen Port Museum). Since 2010, she has served as an academic advisor at the Bremen Institute for Ethnology and Cultural Studies, where she is responsible for the administration of the MA TS program and oversees, among other things, Erasmus and international relations for student study abroad programs.

In addition to her regional focus on North Africa and the Middle East in relation to Europe, Cordula Weißköppel represents the field of PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY, including through commissioned research for German institutions on intercultural openness, diversity, and the integration of migrant communities.

Von 2008-2009 übernahm sie die Vertretung von Prof. Dr. Helene Basu am Ethnologischen Institut der Universität Münster. Im Sommersemester 2013 hat sie Prof. Dr. Thomas Kirsch am Lehrstuhl für Ethnologie und Kulturanthropologie am Institut für Soziologie der Universität Konstanz vertreten. Von April 2016 bis März 2017 lehrt sie am Seminar für Ethnologie der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg in Vakanz der Professur von Thomas Hauschild.