Dr. Eva Marie Lehner

Postdoctoral Researcher

Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies
Room 2.016
Niebuhrstr. 5
D-53113 Bonn
elehner@uni-bonn.de

Member of

 

NEWS:

  • 20-21 June 2024: Workshop “Exploring the Atlantic and Asian Dutch Empire and its Archives: actor-centered and gender approaches (17th-19th Century),” together with Hanna te Velde (IISH)
  • 23-25 October 2024: Workshop “Dependency Theory and Intersectionality,” together with Sara Eriksson and David B. Smith (BCDSS)
Lehner, Eva 2.jpg
© Eva Lehner

Academic Profile

My field is early modern history, gender history, the history of the body, identities, and dependencies.  My research topics are record-keeping practices, the history of knowledge, and categories.

For my Ph.D. project, I examined early modern parish records from southern Germany. I analyzed entries on baptisms, marriages, and burials. What interested me the most was how the church ministers documented their communities, parishioners, and identities. The registers show how categories like gender, age, religion, and social and legal status intersected in many different ways. The priests also shaped and constructed people's descent, lineage, belonging, and family relations, making hierarchies and dependencies visible.

My research project, "Dependency, Body Politics, Resistance," investigates how dependencies shaped the bodies of those men, women, and children who had lived in and were born into strong asymmetrical dependencies for generations (like slavery and serfdom/Leibeigenschaft). Modes of inscription include physical violence, punishment, brandings, mutilations, and executions (embodied dependencies). Furthermore, I am interested in the body as a subversive element. I want to investigate practices of resistance and reluctance, like the refusal to work, eat, bear children, and (the most extreme form) live (suicide). I emphasize a body-historical perspective in dependency studies because I firmly believe it can help us read sources produced by the (colonial) authorities along and against the grain. It also allows us to identify the complex ways people experienced and resisted dependencies and overcome the simplifying binary of free versus unfree.

2021
PhD, History, University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany), summa cum laude
Thesis: "Taufe, Ehe, Tod – Verzeichnungspraktiken in frühneuzeitlichen Kirchenbüchern aus süddeutschen Gemeinden." [Baptism, marriage, and death – bureaucratic record keeping practices in early modern parish records from southern Germany.]

2014
MA, Early Modern History, Free University of Berlin (Germany)
Thesis: "'kein rechte nasen und mund gehabt.' Identitätskonstruktionen in den Tauf- und Sterberegistern der Pfarrei Sulzbach, 1543–1627." [Constructing identities in baptismal and burial registers from the parish community Sulzbach, 1543–1627.]

2013
Erasmus Scholarship, University of Vienna (Austria)

2010
BA, History and Performance Studies, Free University of Berlin (Germany)
Thesis: "Sexualität und Geschlecht. Zur Bedeutung von Körper und Kleidung bei Catharina Margaretha Linck alias Anastasius Lagrantinus Rosenstengel (hingerichtet 1721)." [Sexuality and Gender. The meaning of body and clothing in the criminal records on Catharina Margaretha Linck alias Anastasius Lagragntinus Rosenstengel (executed 1721)]

Since 2021
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS), University of Bonn (Germany)

2021
Lecturer, Department of History, Free University of Berlin (Germany)

2017–2020
Doctoral Researcher (funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG): Kirchliche Amtshandlungen und bürokratisches Ordnen. Verzeichnungspraktiken in Kirchenbüchern aus süddeutschen Gemeinden im 16. und frühen 17. Jahrhundert), Department of History, University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany)

2014–2017
Research Assistant and Lecturer, Department of History, University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany)

2015–2021
Co-editor and co-publisher for the journal "WerkstattGeschichte"

2016–2019
Junior researcher, online source project "German History Intersections – Germanness" (GHI Washington, USA), together with Winson Chu, Hannah Margaret Elmer, and Martina Kessel

2021

Dissertation Award of the Arbeitskreis Historische Frauen- und Geschlechter­forschung e.V

https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/news/news-bcdss/dissertation-award-2021

2016
Travel grant by the University of Adelaide (Australia) for participating in the conference "Religious Materiality and Emotion," ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, Europe 1100–1800

2014
Gender Studies Award, Department of History and Cultural Studies, Free University of Berlin (Germany) for my MA Thesis

2012
Funding by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) for an internship at the GHI (German Historical Institute) in London (UK)

2012
ERASMUS scholarship for studying abroad, University of Vienna (Austria)

07/2023

Workshop SLAVERY, SERVITUDE, SERVICE: DIFFERENCE AND SOCIAL RELATIONS ACROSS SOUTH ASIA AND ITS GLOBAL CONNECTIONS, 1400–1800, A workshop organized by Emma Kalb, Eva Lehner, Nabhojeet Sen

11/2021
Conference "Kirchenbücher als historische Quellen. Perspektiven der Landes-, Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte," co-organized with Michael Hecht, founded by the Exzellenzcluster "Religion und Politik" and the Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung, Münster (Germany)

11/2018
Workshop "Verzeichnungspraktiken – frühneuzeitliche Listen und Register," funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany)

11/2015
Workshop "Herrschaft und Identität," Free University of Berlin (Germany)

  • Verband der Historiker und Historikerinnen Deutschlands (VHD)
  • Verein für kritische Geschichtsschreibung e.V.
  • Netzwerk Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung NRW
  • Arbeitskreis Historische Frauen- und Geschlechter­forschung e.V.
  • Religion, Slavery, and Resistance in Cape Town during the Dutch Colonial Period (1652-1795), in: Christoph Haar (ed.): Slavery, Law and Religion in the Early Modern Period, Paderborn: Brill (forthcoming 2024).
  • Die Anfänge der Kirchenbuchführung im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert in Franken: Ehe- und Taufbücher aus Nürnberg, Kulmbach und Altdorf, in: Blätter für fränkische Familienkunde (forthcoming 2024).
  • 2023. "Geschlecht, Gewalt und Sexualität in der Vormoderne. Das (Nicht-)Dokumentieren von Sexualität und Gewalt in frühneuzeitlichen Quellen." In Geschlecht, Gewalt und Gesellschaft. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf Geschichte und Gegenwart, edited by Eva Labouvie, 105–120. Bielefeld: transcript. Open access
  • 2023. 'Taufe – Ehe – Tod.' Praktiken des Verzeichnens in frühneuzeitlichen Kirchenbüchern. Historische Wissensforschung 22. Wallstein Verlag.
  • 2022. "'schön zusammen gewachsen, und eine andere gestalt (andern kindern gleich) erlanget' – Praktiken des Vergleichens von Kindern und ihren Körpern in frühneuzeitlichen Kirchenbüchern." In Entrechtete Körper – Vergleichen, Normieren, Urteilen, Leben, 1450–1850, edited by Cornelia Aust, Antje Flüchter, and Claudia Jarzebowski, 115–135. Stuttgart.
  • 2021. "Seelen verzeichnen, Menschen erfassen: Frühneuzeitliche Kirchenbücher aus der Pfarrei Sulzbach in der Oberpfalz." In Verhandlungen des Historischen Vereins für Oberpfalz und Regensburg 161.
  • 2021. "'Catharina Schlegelin had hidden her pregnancy viciously from everybody': extramarital pregnancies in three different sources on infanticide from the 18th century." In History | Sexuality | Law. Open access
  • 2021. As editor. With Winson Chu, Hannah Margaret Elmer, and Martina Kessel. Germanness (online sourcebook on German History Intersections). Open access
  • 2020. "Geschlechterwissen in frühneuzeitlichen Kirchenbüchern." In Popularisierungen und Essentialisierungen von Geschlechterwissen. (Vor-)Moderne Wissenstransfers, edited by Muriel González Athenas and Falko Schnicke, 69–92. Beiheft Historische Zeitschrift 79. Berlin/Boston/München.
  • 2020. As editor. With Teresa Schröder-Stapper. WerkstattGeschichte 2 (82) (differenzen einschreiben). Open access
  • 2019. "'einschreiben und vleißßig auffbehalten, auff daß man sich inn mancherlei fällen zeugnuß zu gebrauchen habe.' Dokumentieren als Praxisform in frühneuzeitlichen Kirchenbüchern." In Praxisformen. Zur kulturellen Logik von Zukunftshandeln, edited by Jan-Hendryk de Boer, 147–163. Kontingenzgeschichten 6. Frankfurt/New York.
  • 2018. "'Nach der Hochzeit hätten Sie zusammen als vermeinte Eheleute gelebt, wären zusammen zu Tisch und Bett gegangen' – Sexuelle Diversität in der Frühen Neuzeit?" In Diversität historisch. Repräsentationen und Praktiken gesellschaftlicher Differenzierung im Wandel, edited by Natalie Krentz, Victoria Gutsche, and Moritz Florin, 55–78. Bielefeld.
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