Since 2019, I have been working as a research associate in Theatre Studies at Hamburg University of Music and Theatre (HfMT Hamburg).
I hold a master’s degree in History of Art and Visual Culture from the University of Oxford and a state certificate (MA equiv.) in German Studies and Theology from the University of Hamburg, with minors in Philosophy, Scandinavian Studies, and Educational Science. My studies were funded by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
After graduating, I was a fellow of the international research training group “InterArt” at Freie Universität Berlin and a one-year visiting scholar at the Doctoral School of Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen. I was awarded a PhD scholarship from the German Research Association (DFG) to pursue my dissertation on the topic of staged intimacy in modern and contemporary theatre and performance art.
Following this, I received a Global Humanities Junior Fellowship from the network “Principles of Cultural Dynamics” at Freie Universität Berlin and spent half a year at the Research Institute for the Humanities, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Further research stays led me to Stockholm, Reykjavík, and Tórshavn in the Faroes. I speak and read German, English, Danish, Swedish, and Icelandic.
My research and teaching interests include intimacy and violence in the performing arts, immersive theatre and one-to-one performance, Nordic art and literature, and human-animal studies with a special focus on cultural entomology and parasitism. Or, simply put: intimacy, immersion, and insects.
Contact: mail [at] katharinaalsen.com