University of Heidelberg

Three Cluster Members take up New Positions

Mar 09, 2012

The careers of three members of research project B12 "Rethinking Trends" have taken new turns: Jennifer Altehenger, Lena Henningsen, and Petra Thiel were appointed to positions at different institutions in Germany and the UK.

Jennifer Altehenger was appointed Lecturer in Modern Chinese History at the China Institute and History Department at King’s College, London. Lena Henningsen was appointed to a Junior-Professorship for Sinology/Contemporary China at the University of Freiburg. Petra Thiel has accepted an offer to become Acting Director of the local Confucius Institute here in Heidelberg.

In her research, Jennifer Altehenger focuses on the social and cultural histories of law, mass legal education, and cultural production in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Lena Henningsen’s research interests include contemporary Chinese literature, (consumer) culture, and society, as well as intellectual property and the phenomena of imitation and plagiarism in China. Petra Thiel, who is currently the coordinator of research area B “Public Spheres”, researches aspects of modern Chinese literature and culture, children’s and young adult literature, as well as youth and ageing.

All three are members of research project B12 “Rethinking Trends”, which examines flows of popular transcultural trends in different public spheres or publics, and traces processes of transcultural trend making and breaking. Research project B12 is coordinated by Sebastian Gehrig and supervised by Prof. Barbara Mittler.