Prof. Dr. Claudia Derichs, professor for Transregional Southeast Asian Studies at Humboldt University (HU) in Berlin
DAAD Regional Office Cairo, 11 El-Saleh Ayoub St. off 26th July, Zamalek
Wednesday, 22. October 2025, 17:15-20:30
Abstract
Histories and stories are written, told, performed, depicted in images, or conveyed through material objects. The representation always contains a certain perspective, because histories and stories are always a reflection of gender relations and spatial connections: “His-tory” is not the same as “Her-story.” The lecture illustrates this by using the example of female political activists who operated out of Japan and Lebanon from the 1970s to the 1990s. They embodied their own unique history—or story—of political violence. Some of the female fighters from that time are still alive; they present a retrospective on their lives through their own lens—and derive political goals for the present from it.
Bio
Prof. Dr. Claudia Derichs is professor for Transregional Southeast Asian Studies at Humboldt University (HU) in Berlin. She has studied Japanese and Arabic in Bonn, Tokyo and Cairo and holds a PhD in Japanology (1994). She held professorships in Political Science at the universities of Hildesheim and Marburg before fully committing to the field of Area Studies at Humboldt University.