Academic Profile

Veruschka Wagner works on agency and mobility of slaves from the Black Sea Region in Istanbul in the 17th century. In her studies she focuses on the legal status of slaves, their integration into a particular community, and their role in that community.

2010–2015
PhD Studies in Islamic Studies, Bonn University, Bonn International Graduate Schools – Oriental and Asian Studies (BIGS-OAS)    

2000–2008
Studies in Islamic Studies, Communications Studies and Phonetics Studies and Translation Studies (German, Turkish, Persian, Arabic) and German as a Foreign Language, University of Bonn

since 2023
Scholarship holder of the Argelander Mobility Grant, University of Bonn

2018–2023
Pincipal investigator of the German Research Foundation (DFG) - to be continued after the ending of the scholarship in 2024

2016–2018
Lecturer at the Turkish-German University in Istanbul

2008–2016
Research Assistant, University of Bonn

2006–2008 
Student Assistant, University of Bonn

  • Member and Organizer of the Ottoman Slavery Working Group (BCDSS) and the lecture series of the Ottoman Slavery Working Group
  • Member and Organizer of the Manumission Working Group (BCDSS)
  • Member and Organizer of the Caricature Working Group and the lecture series "Caricatures and Satire in a Global Perspective"
  • Member of the Bonner Forum Osmanistik
  • Member of the Bonner Zentrum für Transkulturelle Narratologie/Bonn Center of Transcultural Narratology
  • 2023. "Fascinating, Astonishing, and Indescribable – A Late Nineteenth Century Ottoman Travelogue on India." In Narrative Strategies for India in Transition, edited by Anna Kollatz und Tillmann Kulke, 155–191. Berlin. 
  • 2023. "Lives in Pieces: Female Slaves and Mobility in Early Modern Istanbul." In Transottoman Biographies, 16th–20th Centuries, edited by Denise Klein und Anna Vlachopoulous, 77–104, Göttingen: VR-Verlag. 
  • 2022. "'Free Like Other Freeborn People' or Just Another Form of Dependency? Questioning the Situation of Manumitted Slaves in Early Modern Istanbul.” BCDSS Working Paper 6. Open access
  • 2022. "Modes of Manumission: What Terms Used for Emancipation Tell Us about Dependencies in Ottoman Society." In Slavery and Other Forms of Asymmetrical Dependencies. Semantics and Lexical Fields, edited by Jeannine Bischoff and Stephan Conermann,  205–224. Dependency and Slavery Studies BCDSS. De Gruyter. 
  • 2021. "Mobile Actors, Mobile Slaves: Female Slaves from the Black Sea Region in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul." Special Issue Diyar, Transottomanica: Eastern European-Ottoman-Persian Mobility Dynamics 2(1): 83–104.
  • 2020. "Slaves, Philanthropy and Pious Endowments in Early Modern Istanbul." In Endowment Studies 4: 125–152.
  • 2020. "'Speaking Property’ with the Capacity to Act – Slave Interagency in the 16th and 17th Century Istanbul Court Registers:" In Slaves and Slave Agency in the Ottoman Empire, edited by Stephan Conermann and Gül Şen, 213–236. Ottoman Studies. Göttingen.
  • 2017. "Şirmerd, Mosiye und Payidār - Sklaven im frühmodernen Istanbul, dokumentiert in den lokalen Gerichtsregistern." [Şirmerd, Mosiye and Payidār - Slaves in premodern Istanbul as documented in the local court registers]. In Sklaverei in der Vormoderne. Beispiele aus außereuropäischen Gesellschaften, edited by Stephan Conermann, 83–98. Dhau. Jahrbuch für außereuropäische Geschichte 2. St. Ingbert. 
  • 2016. Imagologie der Fremde. Das Londonbild eines osmanischen Reisenden Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts. [Imagology of the foreign land - The image of London of a mid-nineteenth century Ottoman traveler]. Göttingen.
  • 2008. Türkische Erinnerungsorte anhand von fünf ausgewählten Beispielen. [Turkish places of memory on the basis of five examples]. Berlin.