Dr. Grit Wesser

DAAD guest lecturer

Research focus

  • Kinship and the ‘state’
  • History and memory
  • Ritual and personhood
  • Intergenerational kin relations, especially in the context of major social change
  • Dynamics of trust and intimacy, especially in relation to surveillance
  • Secrecy and knowledge
  • Anthropology of food
  1. MA HS. Semantiken und Gegennarrative kulturanthropologischer Forschung: Made in the G.D.R.? East Germany beyond Spreewald-Gherkins, Stasi, and Skinheads
    Instructor: Dr. Grit Wesser
  2. MA S. FTMK interdisziplinär I: Made in the G.D.R.? East Germany beyond Spreewald-Gherkins, Stasi, and Skinheads
    Instructor: Dr. Grit Wesser
  3. MA S. FTMK interdisziplinär II: Made in the G.D.R.? East Germany beyond Spreewald-Gherkins, Stasi, and Skinheads
    Instructor: Dr. Grit Wesser
  4. MA Ü. Ethnographische Repräsentation und Forschungsethik: Memory, History, and the Archive: Methods of Historical Anthropology
    Instructor: Dr. Grit Wesser
  5. MA VL. Alltagskulturelle Forschungsperspektiven I: The Anthropology of Surveillance: “Does Suspicion Breed Confidence?”
    Instructor: Dr. Grit Wesser
  6. S. Zur kulturellen Ordnung von Raum und Zeit (Sommer): Made in the G.D.R.? East Germany beyond Spreewald-Gherkins, Stasi, and Skinheads
    Instructor: Dr. Grit Wesser
  7. VL. Kulturwissenschaftliche Ordnungssysteme: The Anthropology of Surveillance: “Does Suspicion Breed Confidence?”
    Instructor: Dr. Grit Wesser
  8. VL. Lectures Summer School: The Anthropology of Surveillance: “Does Suspicion Breed Confidence?”
    Instructor: Dr. Grit Wesser

SoSe 2024

Biography

Grit Wesser is joining the Institute of Film, Theatre, Media and Cultural Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz on a DAAD guest lectureship for the summer semester 2024.

She is a social anthropologist, working on the relationship between kinship and ‘the state.’ Grit explored this connection through ethnographic and historical fieldwork on the life cycle ritual Jugendweihe (doctoral research in eastern Germany) and on people’s knowledge attainment about the practices of the state security apparatus in the former GDR/East Germany (collaborative research project ‘Knowing the Secret Police’).

Grit earned her MA (Hons) in Social Anthropology and Politics (2011) and her PhD in Social Anthropology (2016) from the University of Edinburgh. She held postdoctoral positions at the University of Edinburgh and Newcastle University. Grit gained over 15 years of work experience in administration and finance both in the private and public sector in Germany, Ireland, and Scotland prior to her academic career.