Martin Bauer
Fellow, March–September 2025
martin.t.bauer[at]t-online.de

After studying philosophy, comparative literature, and religious studies, I spent most of my professional life as a nonfiction editor in different publishing houses. Most recently, I was the editor of Mittelweg 36, the bimonthly magazine of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research, and Soziopolis, a website covering social sciences.

On Prophecy: Perceiving the Present

Different Eastern and Western cultures have developed different modes of prophecy, as powerful means to forecast future events. At the same time, these prophetic, often apocalyptic speech acts are political interventions. The impressive variety of prophetic discourses offers a useful paradigm for the practice of social criticism. Following this genealogical observation, Michel Foucault remarked in the mid-1960s that post-Nietzschean philosophy is commited to the diagnostic ambition of “predicting the present.” My project will uncover possible readings of Foucault’s point: What are the historical, sociological, and epistemological implications of prophecy as a literary genre devoted to coming to terms with a present era?

Dr. Onur Erdur
Fellow, September–December 2025
onur.erdur[at]hu-berlin.de

I am a historian specializing in global intellectual history, the history of knowledge, and contemporary history. I was an assistant professor at HU Berlin from 2017 to 2024 and then held guest professorships in Berlin and Flensburg. My publications include Die epistemologischen Jahre (2018) and Schule des Südens (2024).

What Happened in the Nineties?
Situating the Humanities

In contemporary history and popular culture, the long 1990s—beginning 1989 and ending 2001—are widely regarded as a transitional decade marked by globalization, technological transformation, and shifting cultural paradigms. This project asks whether such characterizations (and assumptions) also apply to the humanities and how a history of the humanities in the 1990s could be written. Through a series of case studies, it examines how universities and funding structures adapted to post–Cold War realities and embraced interdisciplinarity; how the rise of “identity politics” reframed scholarly discourse; and how emerging digital infrastructures reshaped the intellectual self-conception of the disciplines.

Julia Tieke
Fellow, September 2025–January 2026
julia.tieke[at]posteo.de

Trained in cultural and Islamic studies, I am a freelance producer of radio arts, drama, and features. My articles, audio pieces, and workshops often deal with listening practices, the migration of sounds, and acoustic urban explorations. Much of my work relates to Arab culture and societies.

Fursa Saida: An Audio Project

The research and audio piece Fursa Saida—meaning both “nice to meet you” and “good opportunity” in Arabic—is inspired by the proposal of French musicologist Mady Humbert-Lavergne at the 1932 Congress of Arabic Music in Cairo to use the ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument, in Arabic music. I have been working on Humbert-Lavergne’s overlooked idea since 2018; this project adds a focus on Brigitte Schiffer, a German-Jewish composer and musicologist who studied the music of the Siwa Oasis, Egypt, before fleeing Nazi Germany in 1935. I combine work on the history of musicology and musical speculation in collaboration with the Egyptian multi-instrumentalist Nancy Mounir and the French ondist Julie Normal—imagining an alternative to the Cairo congress’s aim of standardizing Arabic music.