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Von Hügel Institute

for Critical Catholic Inquiry
 

Biography

Heidemarie Winkel was educated in sociology and economics at the University of Trier (Germany); she completed her Habilitation (professoral thesis) at the University of Potsdam (2010). Winkel worked as a research fellow in sociological theory at the Technical University of Berlin and at the University of Mainz; she continued as assistant professor with a strong research interest in the intersection of the socio-cultural framework of gender and religion as well as in the sociology of Arab societies at the Universities of Erfurt (2002-2005; 2007-2009) and Potsdam (2009-2011).

From 2005-2007 Winkel lived in Jerusalem, affiliated with the Hebrew University and the Birzeit University in Ramallah; she completed a research project on the shifting of (religiously based) gender relations in selected Arab countries taking women’s involvement in the worldwide ecumene as empirical anchor (funded by the German Research Foundation). In this context she deepened her interest in knowledge structures and basic cultural codes that shape the outlook into the community and prefigure actor's social practice. In further research, this interest has been deepened in the direction of transcultural knowledge production, intercultural and -religious communication and global religion. From 2013-2014 Winkel substituted for the professorship of macro sociology at the Technical University of Dresden; since July 2015 she is professor at the University of Bielefeld.

Currently, Winkel is a board member of the Sociology of Religion Research Section of the German Sociological Association and of the Research Network Sociology of Religion in the European Sociological Association (ESA) as well as member of the Council of the ISSR (International Society for the Sociology of Religion). She is also a member of the editorial board of the Journal for Religion, Society and Politics and a member of the advisory board of GENDER. Journal for Gender, Culture and Society.

Research

  • Multiple/Entangled Modernities and Postcolonial Sociology, with a special interest in Arab societies
  • Sociology of Religion & Gender Sociology
  • Qualitative Methods
  • Sociology of Knowledge, Culture & Intercultural Communication: Cultures of Understanding and Understanding Culture

CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECT

  • International and interdisciplinary Research Group at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research /ZiF at Bielefeld University: Global Contestations of Women’s and Gender Rights (Empirical foci: Religion, Care Work, Citizenship): https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/(en)/ZiF/FG/2020Gender/

Publications

Key publications: 
  • With Angelika Poferl (eds), Multiple Gender Cultures, Sociology and Plural Modernities. Re-reading Social Constructions of Gender Across the Globe in a Decolonial Perspective, London: Routledge, 2020.
  • With Elisabeth Arweck (eds), 'Religious Cultures and gender cultures: tracing gender differences across religious cultures', Journal of Contemporary Religion 34 (2), Special Section, 2019.
  • 'Women's Rights versus Exclusive Masculinity. Social mechanisms of gendered boundary making in Arab societies', in Mitri Raheb (ed.), Middle Eastern Women. The Intersection of Law, Culture and Religion, Bethlehem: Diyar, 2020, 53-76.
  • 'Multiple Gender Cultures. Gender as an Epistemic Test Case of Plural Modernities', in Heidemarie Winkel and Angelika Poferl (eds), Multiple Gender Cultures, Sociology and Plural Modernities. Re-reading Social Constructions of Gender Across the Globe in a Decolonial Perspective, London: Routledge, 2020.
  • 'Die Freiheit, (…) zu irritieren und sich irritieren zu lassen': Feministisches Denken, Re-Nationalisierung von Geschlecht und die koloniale Epistemik der Soziologie, in Reiner Keller, Gregor J. Betz und Maya Halatcheva-Trapp (eds), Experimentelle Soziologie, Weinheim: BeltzJuventa, 2020.
  • with Annette Schnabel and Melanie Reddig (eds), Religion in Context. Bilingual Handbook, Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2018.
  • 'Religion, Orientalism and the Colonial Body of Gender Knowledge', in heidemarie Winkel, Annette Schnabel and Melanie Reddig (eds), Religion in Context. Bilingual Handbook, Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2018.'
  • Religion and Gender", in D. Pollack, V. Krech, O.Müller and M. Hero (eds), Handbuch der Religionssoziologie, Wiesbaden: Springer, 2018, 885-909
  • 'Feminisms in Times of Anti-genderism, Racism and Austerity', special Issue of Heidemarie Winkel,, Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez and Pinar Tuzcu (eds), Women Studies International Forum, 2018. DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2018.03.008    
  • 'Postcolonialism. Gender as a colonial knowledge category and white gender studies', in: B. Kortendiek, B. Riegraf, K. Sabisch (eds), Handbuch Interdisziplinäre Geschlechterforschung. Geschlecht und Gesellschaft, Vol. 65, Wiesbaden: Springer, 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-12500-4_36-1
  • 'Tradition - Modernity. An ethnocentric dualism in Western-European gender studies', in B. Kortendiek, B. Riegraf, K. Sabisch (eds), Handbuch Interdisziplinäre Geschlechterforschung. Geschlecht und Gesellschaft, Vol. 65, Wiesbaden: Springer,  2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-12500-4_7-1.
  • 'Fremdheit und Geschlecht: Koloniale Wissensbestände und dekoloniales Denken. Beitrag zur Jahrestagung des Netzwerks Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung', NRW am 27. 10. 2017: http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/soz/personen/winkel/Winkel_2017_Fremdheit-und-Geschlecht.pdf2017
  • 'Multiple Religiosities, Entangled Modernities and Gender: what is different about gender across religious cultures?', in Journal for Religion, Society and Politics Vol. 1.(1), 2017, 89-109.
  • 'Negotiating Gender Relations - Arab Women and the Transformations of Arab Societies', in Heidemarie Winkel, Viola Raheb, Ulrike Bechmann and Sabine Schäfer (eds), Special Issue of GENDER. Journal for Gender, Culture and Society, 2017.
  • with K. Sammet (eds), Religion soziologisch denken / Thinking Religion Sociologically. Reflexionen auf aktuelle Entwicklungen in Theorie und Empirie, Wiesbaden, 2017.
  • 'Religionssoziologie jenseits des methodologischen Säkularismus/ Sociology of Religion Beyond Methodological Secularism: Multiple religiosities, entangled modernities und religiöse Wissensproduktion am Beispiel arabischer Reformideen', in H. Winkel, K. Sammet (eds), Religion soziologisch denken / Thinking Religion Sociologically. Reflexionen auf aktuelle Entwicklungen in Theorie und Empirie, Wiesbaden, 2017, 69-99.
  • 'Culture, Gender, and Traditional Authority: A Sociological Approach on Power Relations in Middle Eastern Churches', in About Gender. International Journal of Gender Studies, Vol. 5 (10), 2016, 145-165.
  • with G. Ganiel and C. Monnot (eds), Religion in Times of Crisis, Religion and the Social Order Book Series 24. Leiden, 2014.
  • 'Mobilizing Gender around the Globe. The ecumenical movement as a resource for gender equity in Arab Christianity', in A. Adogame, S. Shankar (eds), Religion on the Move! New Dynamics of Religious Expansion in a Globalizing World, Leiden, 2013, 225-242.
  • 'Gender Knowledge in the Arab-Islamic Realm. On the social situatedness of gender as an epistemic category', in S. Knauss, T. Wobbe, G. Covi (eds), Gendered Ways of Knowing in Science: scope and limitations, Trento, 2012, 155-176.
Senior Research Associate
Professor of Sociology, University of Bielefeld

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