Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Diversity and Social Conflict

Research interests

Postcolonial and feminist theories, science and technology studies, reproductive technologies, medical anthropology, sociology of the body

Curriculum Vitae

Education

08/2020 - 12/2020: Visiting Scholar Department of Anthropology, The New School for Social Research (host: Prof. Ann Stoler)

Since 03/2017: PhD candidate in sociology, dissertation project entitled "Bodies and Borders: The Politics of Reproductive Technology in Palestine/Israel", supervisor: Prof. Dr. Gökce Yurdakul

2014-2016: Master of Arts Social Sciences, Humboldt University

10/2015 - 03/2016: Middle Eastern Studies, Tel Aviv University, Israel 

2009-2013: Bachelor of Arts Social Sciences, Humboldt University

Academic Employment  

2018 - 2019: Academic curator of three-part experimental symposium on the intersections of gender, sexuality & technologies <Interrupted = "Cyfem and Queer">, in cooperation with Creamcake, funded by Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Berlin

2016 - 2019 : Research project coordinator in project on "Contesting Authorities over Body Politics: The Religious/Secular Tension in Germany, Israel, and Turkey" funded by German-Israeli Foundation (2016-2018)

09/2014 - 12/2015: Student assistant at Department of Diversity and Social Conflict, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

04/2011 - 03/2013: Student assistant at German Institute of Urban Affairs (Difu), Berlin

Teaching

WS 2017/18: MA Lektüreseminar "Body Politics and the Margins of Life: The Secular/Religious Tensions"

WS 2016/17: MA Lektüreseminar "Body Politics and the Margins of Life: The Secular/Religious Tensions"

Conference Presentations

Sexuality and Borders Symposium, 4-5 July 2019, New York University, Department of Media, Culture, and Communication. Paper "Topographies of Bodies, Borders, and Reproduction: Repro-Politics in Palestine/Israel"

39. Kongress DGS, Ad-hoc Gruppe soziologische Perspektiven auf transnationale Reproduktionsökonomien: Reproduktive Praktiken und ihre globalen Verflechtungen, 24.-28. September 2018, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. Presentation "<Politics doesn't count, because we are people, and people want kids, everywhere!> Biopolitical, ethnic-religious, and cultural dimenstions of assisted reproduction in Israel"

2018 Postgraduate Bioethics Conference (PGBC), 23-24 July 2018, Department of Global Health & Social Medicine, King's College London. Presentation "Clinical Encounters: The Construction of Israeli Fertility Clinics as Utopian Non-Places"

3hd Festival, Panel “Body, Technology, Politics“, 25 November 2017, HAU Berlin. Panel "Biopolitics of Assisted Reproductive Technologies"

International workshop “Contested Authorities over the Body: The State, the Secular, and the Religious“, 16-17 October 2017, Humboldt University. Presentation: “(Fragmented) Bearers of the Nation? The Role of Reproductive Technologies and the Body in Israel and Palestine”

International Summer School “Critical Approaches to the Study of Religion and Gender: Postcolonial, Post-secular and Queer Perspectives”, 17-21 May 2017, Maastricht University. Presentation of PhD project 

Conference “Talking Bodies 2017”, 19-22 April 2017, University of Chester. Presentation: “Body Politics from Below? Assisted Reproductive Technologies in the Context of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”

Guest Lectures

"Borderlands of Reproduction", session "Sexing National Culture: Reproductive Technologies, Homonationalism and Sexual Citizenship" as part of MA seminar "Citizenship, Borders, and Sexuality" by Prof. Gökce Yurdakul and Tunay Altay, 9 January 2020, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Sozialwissenschaften.

"Imagining the Future: (Re)producing Queer Techno-Bodies?" workshop/lecture in Q-Tutorium "Cyberpunk - Identities and Space in the Sphere of Postmodernism and Capitalist Realism", 12 December 2019, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin organized by Carmen Schmöl.

"From Cyborgs to Xenofeminism: Bodies, Gender, and Technology" lecture in MA class "Gender, Nation, Racism" by Prof. Gökce Yurdakul, November 2018, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Workshop/lecture on the histories and contemporary relevance of feminism(s) as part of Feminist Food Club Meeting #19: Why Feminism?, 24 September 2018, Berlin.

Interview about Phd project and 3hd festival contribution at Berlin Community Radio's "No Fear of Pop" show, 20 November 2017, Berlin.

Awards and Scholarships

Since 07/2019: Doctoral fellow of Heinrich Böll Foundation

01/2019 - 06/2019: Caroline von Humboldt Programme, International Research Award (InRA)

10/2015 - 02/2016: Awarded by German Academic Exchange Foundation (DAAD), PROMOS Programme

Peer-reviewed Publications

(2021) Borderlands of reproduction: bodies, borders, and assisted reproductive technologies in Israel/Palestine, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 44:9, 1549-1568, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2021.1887502

(2019): "Contested Authorities over Life Politics: Religious-Secular Tensions in Abortion Debates in Germany, Turkey, and Israel" Comparative Sociology, (18): 706-734. (with G. Yurdakul, S. Eilat and N. Mutluer)

Other Publications

Rexer, Gala (im Erscheinen): Religion und Körperpolitik im internationalen Vergleich. In: Aktuelle Probleme im Verhältnis von Staat und Religion (Dossier "Staat und Religion" der Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung)

Hannah Wallenfels und Gala Rexer (2019): Lieber Cyborg als Göttin. Warum ist erfolgreiche feministische Science-Fiction im Moment so dystopisch – und wo ist die Aufbruchsstimmung des Cyberfeminismus hin? In: Missy Magazin, Print und Online

Memberships

diffrakt.centre for theoretical periphery 

Member of International Association for the study of Religion and Gender