Dr. Mara Albrecht was deputy director at the Orient-Institute Beirut (OIB) between April 2019 and March 2020. Before joining the OIB, she worked as research associate (Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin) at the Chair of History of West Asia at the University of Erfurt, Germany. She received her doctorate from the University of Erfurt in 2014. Her thesis “War of symbols. Political parties and political culture in Lebanon (1975-2013)” (in German) is concerned with political narratives as well as symbolic forms and practices relevant for the creation of political culture in contemporary Lebanon. She holds a MA in history and political science from University of Hamburg, Germany.

Currently, she works on her habilitation project with the working title “Spatio-temporal practices of violence during the riots in Belfast and Jerusalem and their assessment by the British Empire”. This project is concerned with the interconnectedness of urban space, urban rhythms and practices of violence as well as practices of policing employed by the representatives of the British Empire in Belfast during the late 19th and early 20th century and in Jerusalem during the mandate era. It also argues that a transfer of knowledge about urban violence took place from Ireland to Palestine in the context of relocating officers, troops, and administrative personnel.

Her research interests include urban violence, spatial history, contested histories and memories, political cultures in the Middle East, the modern history of Lebanon, transregional/translocal/entangled history,the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, symbolic representations and cultures of violence, nationalisms in the Middle East and the history of the Middle East mandates.

Since 2011, she is academic coordinator of “Middle Eastern Sociology and History” (MESH), a German-Lebanese MA program conducted by University of Erfurt/Germany, Université Saint-Joseph/Lebanon and Université Saint-Esprit des Kaslik/Lebanon.