Sub.-Prof. Dr. Jonas Bens

Photo: Jonas Bens
Substitute Professor
Address
Office hours
Every Monday, 16.00 PM - 17.00 PM
Please send requests for an appointment via e-mail.
Contact
Curriculum Vitae
Academic Positions
since 2023 Visiting Associate Professor, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Universität Hamburg.
2015-2023 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Collaborative Research Center „Affective Societies“, Freie Universität Berlin.
2012-2015 PhD scholarship, Rosa Luxemburg Foandation, Institute of Archaeology and Cultural Anthropology, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.
Education
2021 Habilitation in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin.
2015 PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.
2013 State Examination in Law, Cologne State District Court.
2012 Magister Artium in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.
2004-2013 Study Programmes in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Theology, and Law, Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.
Visiting Appointments
2022 Visiting Lecturer, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Dodoma, Tanzania.
2016-2017 Guest Researcher, Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Development, Universität Leiden, The Netherlands.
2014-2015 Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.
2014 Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Law and Anthropology, Max Planck Institute of Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale.
Awards
2022 Acceptance into the Heisenberg Programme of the German Research Foundation (DFG)
2021 International Ideas Competition Marketing Award, German Research Foundation (DFG) and German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
2012 Bonn Americanist Studies Award, Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.
Research Interests
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political and legal anthropology
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coloniality, indigeneity, and modern statehood
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justice and property
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affect and emotion
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East Africa (Uganda, Tanzania), Indigenous Americas (USA)
Publications
Recent books and special issue
2022 The Sentimental Court: The Affective Life of International Criminal Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2020 The Indigenous Paradox: Rights, Sovereignty, and Culture in the Americas. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
2019 The Politics of Affective Societies: An Interdisciplinary Essay. Bielefeld: Transcript. (with 13 co-authors)
2018 Who is Afraid of Official Law? Reconnecting Anthropological and Sociological Traditions in Ethnographic Legal Studies. Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unoffical Law 50 (3). (edited with Larissa Vetters)
Recent articles
2021 Affective Text Trajectories: Toward a Linguistic Anthropology of Critique. Journal of Pragmatics 186 (2021): 142-150.
2021 Toward a Comparative Anthropology of Activism: Activist Identity Formations in Germany and Uganda. Dialectial Anthropology 45(3): 297–314. (with Žiga Podgornik-Jakil)
2021 Koloniale Diversität: Die affektiven Regierungsmodi des Liberalismus am Beispiel des Humboldt Forums, in: Umkämpfte Vielfalt: Affektive Dynamiken institutioneller Diversifizierung, Hansjörg Dilger and Matthias Warstatt (Hg.): 164-185. Berlin: Campus. (with Paola Ivanov)
2020 Affective Witnessing in the Courtroom. Parallax. 26 (3): 271-285.
2019 Political Affect. In: Affective Societies: Key Concepts, Jan Slaby und Christian von Scheve (Hg.): 340-351. London: Routledge. (with Jan Slaby)
2019 Sentiment. In: Affective Societies: Key Concepts, Jan Slaby und Christian von Scheve (Hg.): 96-106. London: Routledge. (with Olaf Zenker)
2018 Ethnographic Legal Studies: Reconnecting Anthropological and Sociological Traditions. Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law. 50 (3): 239-254. (with Larissa Vetters)
2018 The Courtroom as an Affective Arrangement: Analysing Atmospheres in Courtroom Ethnography. Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 50 (3): 336-355.
2018 Sentimentalizing Persons and Things: Creating Normative Arrangements of Bodies Through Courtroom Talk. Journal of Legal Anthropology 2(1): 72-91.
Projects
2024-2029 DFG Heisenberg-Programme
The Material Culture of Empire: Colonialism, Capitalism, and the Law
2023-2027 CRC Research Project
Contested Property II: Affective Dissonance and Relational Ethics in Museum Collaborations
2023-2026 DFG Scientific Network
Pluralizing the Value of Things
2021-2022 DFG/BMBF
Affect and Colonialism Web Lab