Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Political Theory

Personal Profile

Laura Gorriahn is a Research Associate in Political Theory at Humboldt Universität Berlin. Prior, she held positions at the Cluster of Excellence "Contestations of the Liberal Scripts" (SCRIPTS) and Freie Universität Berlin. Laura was a Visiting Scholar at the European University Institute (Fall-Winter 2022/23) and is currently visiting Princeton University (Fall 2024).

Laura holds an M.A. "Human Rights and Democratisation" from the European Inter-University Centre Venice and the Eric-Castren Institute of International Law and Human Rights Helsinki and studied Political Science, History and German Studies at the University of Freiburg and Trinity College Dublin (M.A. equivalent).

In her dissertation project, Laura addresses a central issue of democratic theory: the contradictory tension between equality and exclusion. The project’s starting point is a critique of democratic theory for its failure to adequately engage with practices of exclusion, such as the violence of borders. The project explores how exclusion operates, how it is enforced, and how it is contested through migrant protests. Against this backdrop, it argues that democratic theory should pay greater attention to modes of subjectification, particularly in their undemocratic forms. The first part of the dissertation grapples with debates in democratic theory surrounding the tension between equality and exclusion, while advancing a postcolonial critique of these frameworks. The second part interprets protest by precarious migrants, focusing on bodily practices of self-injury which reveal how exclusion is both manifested and contested on a physical-somatic level. These insights are connected back to the broader theoretical reflections in democratic theory.

Research and Teaching Interests

• Democratic theory, questions of membership
• Philosophy of migration, critical migration and border studies
• Democracy and law in the transnational sphere
• Human rights in theory and practice

Publications

Editorship

(2022): Special Issue: Protest and the Democratic Order. In: Democratic Theory 9 (2) (w/ Danniel Gobbi, Daniel Staemmler & Christian Volk).

(2022) Special Issue: Democracy and Migration. [Demokratie und Migration. Konflikte um Migration und Grenzziehungen in der Demokratie]. In: Leviathan - Berliner Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft (w/ Julia Glathe).

Journal Articles and other Publications

(2022): "Protest and the Democratic Order. A Research Perspective (Editorial Introduction)", in: Democratic Theory 10 (2), pp. 1-10 (w/ Danniel Gobbi, Daniel Staemmler & Christian Volk).

(2022): "Demokratie und Migration. Konflikte um Migration und Grenzziehungen in der Demokratie" [Democracy and Migration] in: Leviathan—Berliner Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft, Sonderband 39, pp. 9-25 (w/ Julia Glathe).

(2022): "Antirassistische Kämpfe und politischer Wandel in der postmigrantischen Gesellschaft. Eine Bestandsaufnahme mit Max Czollek, Tahir Della und Naika Foroutan" in: Leviathan—Berliner Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft, Sonderband 39, pp. 26-36 (w/ Julia Glathe).

(2019): "Frauen* in der Politischen Theorie. Eine feministische Kritik am Zustand unserer Disziplin" [Women* in Political Theory. A Feminist Critique], in: Theorieblog 11/2019 (w/ Hannah Riede).

(2019): "Gesellschaft und Demokratie nach der Migration" [Society and Democracy after Migration], in: Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen 2019-32(3): pp. 470–474.

(2018): Review of Heinrich Geiselberger (ed.): Die große Regression. Eine internationale Debatte über die geistige Situation der Zeit, Berlin: Suhrkamp 2017, in: PERIPHERIE 3-2018, pp. 490–492 (w/ Johannes Haaf and Felix Anderl).

(2018): "Soziale Bewegungen als Korrektiv und Gefahr der Demokratie?" [Social Movements as corrective and threat to democracy], Report on the conference “Frontiers of Democracy” of the German Political Science Association, Sept 2018, Goethe-University Frankfurt, in: Theorieblog 12/2018 (w/ Anton Haffner and Daniel Staemmler).

(2013): "Repräsentation und Partizipation" [Representation and Participation], in: Riescher, Gisela (ed.), Spannungsfelder der Politischen Theorie, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, pp. 68–84.

Teaching

• Certificate of higher education didactics from the Dahlem Center for Academic Teaching (Freie Universität Berlin, 2020)
• Winter Semester 2024/25 "Einführung in die Politische Theorie"
• Sommersemester 2024 "Migration und Grenzen. Politische Theorie und postkoloniale Kritik"
• Summer Semester 2020 "Politische Theorie der Migration"
• Summer Semester 2018 "Grenz- und Asylpolitik in Europa"
• Winter Semester 2017/18 "Global Constitutionalism"
• Summer Semester 2017 "Jürgen Habermas Diskurstheorie des Rechts – Faktizität und Geltung und die Konstitutionalisierung des Völkerrechts", "Theorien politischer Repräsentation"

University Service

2020/2021 Member of Committee for Gender Equality and Diversity at the Institute of Social Sciences (Humboldt-Universität Berlin)

2019-2020 Member of Committee for Gender Equality and Diversity at the Department of Political and Social Sciences (Freie Universität Berlin)

2018-2020 Member of the Examination Board at the Otto-Suhr-Institute for Political Science (Freie Universität Berlin)

2017/2018 Member of the Teaching Committee at the Otto-Suhr-Institute for Political Science (Freie Universität Berlin)