Prof. Dr. Christiane Schwab
Professorin
Empirische Kulturwissenschaft und Europäische Ethnologie
Sprechstunde:
nach Vereinbarung
Postanschrift:
Oettingenstr. 67
D-80538 München
Vita
- Education and degrees
- 2012
- Dr. phil.; Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Faculty of Cultural Studies, Department of European Ethnology
- 2008
- Magister Artium (MA); Ludwig Maximilian University, Faculty of Cultural Studies, Department of European Ethnology (minor: Hispanic Literatures)
- Academic experience
- Since 2016
- Ludwig Maximilian University, Department of European Ethnology: Research Group Leader
- 2013-2016
- Humboldt University, Berlin, Department of European Ethnology: Postdoctoral Research Fellow
- 2016; 2014-2015
- New York University, Remarque Institute & Center for International Research in the Humanities and the Social Sciences: Visiting Fellow
- 2008-2013
- Ludwig Maximilian University, Department of European Ethnology: Doctoral/Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Instructor (MA and BA courses)
- 2010-2013
- University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, Department of Cultural Management: Instructor in Cultural Studies (MA courses)
- 2013
- University of Tokyo, Department of Cultural Anthropology: Postdoctoral Research Fellow (06/2013-08/2013)
- 2013
- University of Seville, Department of Cultural Anthropology: Short-term stay with the ERASMUS teaching staff mobility programme (03/2013)
- 2012; 2010
- University of California, Berkeley, Department of German & Department of Spanish and Portuguese: Visiting Researcher (08-10/2012; 09-12/2010)
- Fellowships/Grants/Awards
- 2018
- European Research Council: Starting Grant
- 2016
- German Research Foundation (DFG): Emmy Noether Grant
- 2016
- New York University, Remarque Institute: Visiting Fellowship (01-05/2016)
- 2014
- New York University, Center for International Research in the Humanities and the Social Sciences: Visiting Fellowship (03/2014 & 10/2014)
- 2013
- Humboldt University: Postdoctoral Fellowship (three-year research funding)
- 2013
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science: Postdoctoral Fellowship for a two-month stay at the University of Tokyo
- 2012
- Best PhD Thesis Award, Ludwig Maximilian University, Faculty of Cultural Studies
- 2012-2013
- LMUMentoring of the Excellence Initiative to support the career of female academics: Mentee (travel grants, publication funding, continuing education)
- 2008
- German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes): Dissertation Fellowship (three-year research funding)
- 2008
- Best MA Thesis Award, Ludwig Maximilian University, Department of European Ethnology
- 2004-2005
- Conseil Général des Alpes Maritimes: Foreign students’ grant for a ten-month stay at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis
- Conferences and Events
- 2025
- 2025 Ludwig Maximilian University & Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation, Munich: Conference: Stadt in Bewegung: Aushandlungen von Mobilität und (Lebens-)Raum – 27/11
- 2025
- 2025 Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Institute of European Ethnology and Cultural Analysis: Conference: Transnational Folklore. Rethinking the Nineteenth-Century History of Folklore Studies – 22-23/05
- 2024
- 2024 Institut Français, Munich: Exhibition: Ins Bild gesetzt. Publizistische Grafik und Gesellschaftswissen, Paris 1830–1850 – 06/02-13/03
- 2022
- Ludwig Maximilian University, Institute of European Ethnology and Cultural Analysis: Conference: Ethnography, Folklore, and Nineteenth-Century Print Culture – 23-24/06
- 2019
- Ludwig Maximilian University, Institute of European Ethnology and Cultural Analysis: Conference Dissecting Society III: Sketches of Manners, Genre Paintings, Social Novels. Nineteenth-Century Popular Genres as Ethnographic Formats – 28/06
- 2016
- New York University, Remarque Institute: Conference Dissecting Society II: Social Movement, Literature, Social Analysis – 15-16/04/2016 (co-organizer with Daniel Benson, French Department)
- 2015
- New York University, Center for International Research in the Humanities and the Social Sciences: Conference Dissecting Society: Periodical Literature and Social Observation (1830-1850) – 20/03
- Additional Academic Functions and Memberships
- Academic Board Member, Doctoral Program Transformations in European Societies
- Advisory Board Member, Journal Revista Murciana de Antropología
- Advisory Board Member, Monacensia (Literature Archive of the City of Munich)
- Reviewer for the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
- Deutsche Gesellschaft für Empirische Kulturwissenschaft
- Münchner Vereinigung für Volkskunde
- Young Center des Center for Advanced Studies, LMU
- Young Center of the Center for Advanced Studies, LMU Munich
- Bosch Alumni Network
Research Interests
- History of social and anthropological thought
- Urban anthropology
- Transport systems and mobility research
- Historical anthropology
- Media anthropology
Research Projects
1. Who owns the street? Urban negotiations around mobility and space usage in the context of the "Verkehrswende" (mobility transition) as a process of social transformation (DFG/German Research Foundation, 2023-2028)
2. Actors - Narratives - Strategies. Constellations of Transnational Folklore Research, 1875-1905 (DFG/German Research Foundation, 2022-2027)
3. Dissecting Society. Nineteenth-Century Sociographic Journalism and the Formation of Ethnographic and Sociological Knowledge (ERC Starting Grant, 2020-2026)
4. Social Sketches and the Formation of Ethnographic and Sociological Knowledge, 1830-1860 (DFG/German Research Foundation, Emmy Noether Research Group, 2016-2020)
5. The Aestheticization of the "Folk" around 1800: Cultural Forms, Semantics, and Systems of Representation in Entangled Europe (Humboldt University Berlin, Postdoc Fellowship, 2013-2016)
6. Textures of a City. Anthropological, Geographical and Sociological Lectures of Seville (German National Academic Foundation/Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, Dissertation Fellowship, 2009-2012)
Publications
2025. Christiane Schwab/Frauke Ahrens/Karin Riedl (eds). Ethnography and Folklore in Print. Cross-Genre Explorations of Nineteenth-Century Social Knowledge. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.
2023 Social Types. An Ethnographic Glossary. (In German: Kulturelle Figuren. Ein empirisch-kulturwissenschaftliches Glossar) (with Daniel Habit, Moritz Ege, Laura Gozzer, Jens Wietschorke). Münster: Waxmann.
2021 Sketches, Novels, Caricatures. 19th-Century Popular Genres as Sociographic Formats of Knowledge (in German: Skizzen, Romane, Karikaturen. Populäre Genres als soziographische Wissensformate im 19. Jahrhundert). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag (Wissenskulturen/Knowledge Cultures, vol.1).
2013 Textures of a City. Sociological Lectures of Seville (in German: Texturen einer Stadt. Kulturwissenschaftliche Lektüren von Sevilla). Frankfurt am Main/New York: Campus (Interdisciplinary Urban Studies Series, vol. 16)
2009 The Discovery of Everyday Life between Enlightenment and Romanticism: Letters from Spain (1822) by José María Blanco White (in German: Die Entdeckung des Alltags zwischen Aufklärung und Romantik. Letters from Spain (1822) von José María Blanco White). Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag (Munich Ethnographic Studies, vol. 4)
WissensKulturen/Knowledge Cultures (Transcript Verlag)
Münchner Ethnographische Schriften (Munich: LMU Open Access)
Münchner Beiträge zur Volkskunde (Münster: Waxmann)
2025 Experimentation, vision, process or coercion? – Negotiating the future in the context of urban street experiments (in German: Erprobung, Vision, Prozess oder Zwang? – Zukunftsaushandlungen im Rahmen urbaner Straßenexperimente) (with Alina Becker). In: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, 128/2 [peer-reviewed]. Pp. 5‒34.
2025 Have we always been (trans-)national? The historiography of folklore studies on trial (in German: Sind wir stets (trans-)national gewesen? Die Fachgeschichtsschreibung der Volkskunde auf dem Prufstand) (with Frauke Ahrens). In: Zeitschrift für Empirische Kulturwissenschaft, 121/1 [peer-reviewed]. Pp. 73‒98.
2025 Ethnography, Folklore, and Nineteenth-Century Print Culture (with Frauke Ahrens and Karin Riedl). In: Christiane Schwab, Frauke Ahrens, and Karin Riedl (eds.): Ethnography and Folklore in Print: Cross-Genre Explorations of Nineteenth-Century Social Knowledge (Wissenskulturen/Knowledge Cultures, vol. 2), Bielefeld: Transcript. Pp. 9‒20.
2024 Actors – Narratives – Strategies: Constellations of Transnational Folklore Research, 1875‒1905 (with Frauke Ahrens). In: History of Anthropology Review 48 (2024).
2024 Reportage. In: Andreas Blödorn/Stefan Tetzlaff (eds.): Handbuch Realismus. Theorien – Medien – Kontexte. Stuttgart: Metzler. In press.
2023 Discourse-Analytical Approaches to Urban Negotiation Processes Around Mobility and the Use of Space (in German: "Münchner Straßenkampf". Diskursanalytische Annäherungen an urbane Aushandlungsprozesse um Mobilität und Raumnutzung) (with Alina Becker). In: Bayerisches Jahrbuch für Volkskunde [peer-reviewed]. Pp. 57‒71.
2023 Between Natural History, Statistics and the Social Novel: the Production of Ethnographic and Sociological Knowledge in the Context of Nineteenth-Century Sociographic Journalism. In: Journal for European Ethnology and Cultural Analysis, 6/2 [peer-reviewed]. Pp. 95-112. (Originally published in German in Zeitschrift für Volkskunde 2021, 117/2. Pp. 141‒162.).
2023 Lifestyle Migrant (in German: Lebensstilmigrant/in). In: Daniel Habit et al. (eds.): Kulturelle Figuren. Ein empirisch-kulturwissenschaftliches Glossar. Münster: Waxmann. Pp. 179‒183.
2023 Variations of Folkloristic Discourse in European Periodical Literature: Joseph Mainzer (1801-1851), Cecilia Böhl de Faber (1796-1877) and Adolf Glaßbrenner (1810-1867). In: Estudis de Literatura Oral Popular / Studies in Oral Folk Literature, 12/23 [peer-reviewed]. Pp. 139‒154.
2022 Between Literary Entertainment, Public Engagement, and Social Research: Nineteenth-Century Investigative Reporting and the Case of 'London Horrors' (1861) by John Hollingshead. In: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture, 69/1 [peer-reviewed ]. Pp. 1–18.
2022 Classes, Manners, Transformations. Popular Sociology in Periodical Literature (1830–1850). In: Nineteenth-Century Contexts: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 44/2 [peer-reviewed]. Pp. 175–192.
2022 Book Hawkers and Bricklayer’s Labourers. Social Types and the Production of Social Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Periodical Literature. In: Nineteenth-Century Literature, 76/4 [peer-reviewed]. Pp. 403–426.
2021 Popular Genres as Sociographic Formats of Knowledge (in German: Populäre Genres als soziographische Wissensformate im 19. Jahrhundert). In: Christiane Schwab (Hg.): Skizzen, Romane, Karikaturen. Populäre Genres als soziographische Wissensformate im 19. Jahrhundert. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. Pp. 9‒26.
2021 Between Natural History, Statistics and the Social Novel: Nineteenth-Century Journalism and Sociographic Knowledge in European Context (in German: Zwischen Naturgeschichte, Statistik und Gesellschaftsroman: Soziographische Wissensordnungen im Kontext einer europäischen Publizistik im 19. Jahrhundert). In: Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, 117/2 [peer-reviewed]. Pp. 141‒162.
2021 On the Influence of Diverse Historical Configurations of Knowledge on Nineteenth-Century Sociographic Journalism (in German: Zum Einfluss heterogener Wissenskonfigurationen auf journalistische Gesellschaftsbilder im 19. Jahrhundert). In: Hamburger Journal für Kulturanthropologie, 13. Pp. 99‒114.
2021 Local Publishing, Local Knowledge, Local Communication: The case of "La Floresta Andaluza" (Seville, 1843-1844). In: Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 27/2 [peer-reviewed]. Pp. 197‒212.
2021 La romántica Sevilla del siglo XIX. In: blogURBS. Estudios urbanos y ciencias sociales. March 4, 2021.
2020 Climate - Knowledge - Governance. Anthropological Perspectives on the Edible Cities movement (in German: Klima – Wissen – Governance. Kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf die Nachhaltigkeitsinitiative Essbare Stadt) (with Catharina Lüder). In: Kuckuck – Notizen zur Alltagskultur, 20/2. Pp. 32–35.
2020 Voices of Observation and Styles of Representation in Nineteenth-Century Sociographic Journalism. In: History and Anthropology, 31/4 [peer-reviewed]. Pp. 417‒439.
2020 The World in a Journal. The Pfennig-Magazin as a Popular Knowledge Format (1833-1855) (in German: Die Welt im Journal. Das Pfennig-Magazin für Verbreitung gemeinnütziger Kenntnisse [1833–1855] als populäres Wissensformat). In: Historische Anthropologie, 28/2 [peer-reviewed]. Pp. 185‒206.
2020 Urban Imaginaries and Socio-Spatial Arrangements: The Making of Romantic Seville. In: URBS: Journal of Urban Studies and Social Sciences/ Revista de estudios urbanos y ciencias sociales, 10/1 [peer-reviewed]. Pp. 9–21.
2019 The Transforming City in Nineteenth-Century Literary Journalism: Ramón de Mesonero Romanos' "Madrid Scenes" and Charles Dickens’ "Street Sketches". In: Urban History 46/2 [peer-reviewed]. Pp. 225‒245.
2019 Beobachtungskunst zwischen Kommerz und Sozialforschung: Paris, ou le Livre des Cent-et-un (1831-1843). In: Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde 115/2 [peer-reviewed]. Pp. 7‒24.
2018 Social Observation in Early Commercial Print Media. Towards a Genealogy of the Social Sketch (ca. 1820-1860). In: History and Anthropology 29/2 [peer-reviewed]. Pp. 204‒232. (21.09.2017).
2017 Sketches of Manners, Esquisses des Moeurs. The Journalistic Sketch (1830-1860) as an Ethnographical Format of Knowledge. In: Journal of European Ethnology and Cultural Analysis 1/1 [peer-reviewed]. Pp. 40‒57. (Originally published in German in Zeitschrift für Volkskunde 2016, 112/1. Pp. 37‒56.)
2016 Sketches of Manners, Esquisses des Moeurs. The Journalistic Sketch as an Ethnographic Form of Knowledge (in German: Sketches of Manners, Esquisses des Moeurs. Die journalistische Gesellschaftsskizze [1830-1860] als ethnographisches Wissensformat). In: Zeitschrift für Volkskunde 112/1. Pp. 37‒56.
2015 "Identity" or "Modernity"? Semantics of Place, Social Positions and Collective Sensitivities in a Contested City (in German: "Identität" oder "Modernität"? Ortssemantiken, soziale Positionen und Befindlichkeiten einer Stadt im Widerspruch). In: Wolfgang Kaschuba et al. (eds.): Urbane Aushandlungen. Die Stadt als Interaktionsraum. Berlin: Panama Verlag. Pp. 54‒69.
2015 The City as an Object of Knowledge. The Example of Seville (in German: Die Stadt als Erkenntnisform. Das Beispiel von Sevilla). In: Johannes Moser et al. (eds.): Europäische Ethnologie in München. Aktuelle Perspektiven. Münster: Waxmann. Pp. 167‒191.
2015 Conference Report: Dissecting Society. Periodical Literature and Social Observation, 1830-1850 (with Ana Peñas Ruiz). In: H-NET: Humanities and Social Sciences Online, 19.05.2015.
2014 Spanish Costumbrismo (1820‒1860) and the Emergence of Folklore Studies in European Context (in German: Der spanische costumbrismo [ca. 1820‒1860] und die Konsolidierung volkskundlich-soziologischer Interessen im europäischen Kontext). In: Jahrbuch für Europäische Ethnologie. Dritte Folge. Pp. 28‒49.
2014 Consultants, Mines Auctioneers, and Parisian Mademoiselles. Representations of Social Orders and the Social Figure as a Descriptive Device (in German: Berater, Minenaktionäre und Pariser Damen. Die Repräsentation sozialer Ordnungen und der Kunstgriff der Sozialfigur). In: Kuckuck, Notizen zur Alltagskultur. Pp. 38‒41.
2013 Cumulative Arrangements. Time, Space, and Local Identity in Seville (in German: Kumulative Ordnungen: Zeit, Raum und lokale Identitätskonstruktionen in Sevilla). In: Zentrum für Mittelmeerstudien (eds.): Bericht des 3. Bochumer Nachwuchsworkshops für MediterranistInnen 2012. Bochum 2013.
2013 Social Criticism and Romantic Travel Writing: Letters from Spain (1822) by José María Blanco White. In: Castilla, Estudios de Literatura 2013/4. Pp. 350–367.
2012 Anthropological Perspectives on the European Urban Landscape. In: Mairead Nic Craith et al. (eds.): New Blackwell Companion to the Anthropology of Europe. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Pp. 440‒456.
2011 The Discovery of Everyday Life in Europe. Letters from Spain (1822) by José María Blanco White (in German: Die Entdeckung des Alltags in Europa. Letters from Spain von José María Blanco White). In: Reinhard Johler/Max Matter (eds.): Mobilitäten. Kulturanalytische Perspektiven auf Europa in Bewegung. Münster: Waxmann. Pp. 565‒575.
2011 Seville. Exploring the Memory of a City (in German: Sevilla erinnert sich. Annäherungen an das Gedächtnis einer Stadt). In: Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde 107. Pp. 89‒108.