Dr. Eva Marie Lehner

My field is early modern history, gender history, the history of the body, identities, and dependencies.  My research topics are record-keeping practices, the history of knowledge, and categories.

For my Ph.D. project, I examined early modern parish records from southern Germany. I analyzed entries on baptisms, marriages, and burials. What interested me the most was how the church ministers documented their communities, parishioners, and identities. The registers show how categories like gender, age, religion, and social and legal status intersected in many different ways. The priests also shaped and constructed people's descent, lineage, belonging, and family relations, making hierarchies and dependencies visible.

My research project, "Dependency, Body Politics, Resistance," investigates how dependencies shaped the bodies of those men, women, and children who had lived in and were born into strong asymmetrical dependencies for generations (like slavery and serfdom/Leibeigenschaft). Modes of inscription include physical violence, punishment, brandings, mutilations, and executions (embodied dependencies). Furthermore, I am interested in the body as a subversive element. I want to investigate practices of resistance and reluctance, like the refusal to work, eat, bear children, and (the most extreme form) live (suicide). I emphasize a body-historical perspective in dependency studies because I firmly believe it can help us read sources produced by the (colonial) authorities along and against the grain. It also allows us to identify the complex ways people experienced and resisted dependencies and overcome the simplifying binary of free versus unfree.

2021
PhD, History, University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany), summa cum laude
Thesis: "Taufe, Ehe, Tod – Verzeichnungspraktiken in frühneuzeitlichen Kirchenbüchern aus süddeutschen Gemeinden." [Baptism, marriage, and death – bureaucratic record keeping practices in early modern parish records from southern Germany.]

2014
MA, Early Modern History, Free University of Berlin (Germany)
Thesis: "'kein rechte nasen und mund gehabt.' Identitätskonstruktionen in den Tauf- und Sterberegistern der Pfarrei Sulzbach, 1543–1627." [Constructing identities in baptismal and burial registers from the parish community Sulzbach, 1543–1627.]

2013
Erasmus Scholarship, University of Vienna (Austria)

2010
BA, History and Performance Studies, Free University of Berlin (Germany)
Thesis: "Sexualität und Geschlecht. Zur Bedeutung von Körper und Kleidung bei Catharina Margaretha Linck alias Anastasius Lagrantinus Rosenstengel (hingerichtet 1721)." [Sexuality and Gender. The meaning of body and clothing in the criminal records on Catharina Margaretha Linck alias Anastasius Lagragntinus Rosenstengel (executed 1721)]

Since 2021
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS), University of Bonn (Germany)

2021
Lecturer, Department of History, Free University of Berlin (Germany)

2017–2020
Doctoral Researcher (funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG): Kirchliche Amtshandlungen und bürokratisches Ordnen. Verzeichnungspraktiken in Kirchenbüchern aus süddeutschen Gemeinden im 16. und frühen 17. Jahrhundert), Department of History, University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany)

2014–2017
Research Assistant and Lecturer, Department of History, University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany)

2015–2021
Co-editor and co-publisher for the journal "WerkstattGeschichte"

2016–2019
Junior researcher, online source project "German History Intersections – Germanness" (GHI Washington, USA), together with Winson Chu, Hannah Margaret Elmer, and Martina Kessel

2021

Dissertation Award of the Arbeitskreis Historische Frauen- und Geschlechter­forschung e.V

https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/news/news-bcdss/dissertation-award-2021

2016
Travel grant by the University of Adelaide (Australia) for participating in the conference "Religious Materiality and Emotion," ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, Europe 1100–1800

2014
Gender Studies Award, Department of History and Cultural Studies, Free University of Berlin (Germany) for my MA Thesis

2012
Funding by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) for an internship at the GHI (German Historical Institute) in London (UK)

2012
ERASMUS scholarship for studying abroad, University of Vienna (Austria)

07/2023

Workshop SLAVERY, SERVITUDE, SERVICE: DIFFERENCE AND SOCIAL RELATIONS ACROSS SOUTH ASIA AND ITS GLOBAL CONNECTIONS, 1400–1800, A workshop organized by Emma Kalb, Eva Lehner, Nabhojeet Sen

11/2021
Conference "Kirchenbücher als historische Quellen. Perspektiven der Landes-, Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte," co-organized with Michael Hecht, founded by the Exzellenzcluster "Religion und Politik" and the Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung, Münster (Germany)

11/2018
Workshop "Verzeichnungspraktiken – frühneuzeitliche Listen und Register," funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany)

11/2015
Workshop "Herrschaft und Identität," Free University of Berlin (Germany)