Laura Popa | Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen (original) (raw)
I am an international researcher and PhD candidate in History and Cultural Studies at the University of Giessen (JLU) and a recipient of the Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst scholarship in Germany. Since December 2023 I have been appointed research associate at the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide in the UK. Earlier that year, I was a visiting scholar at Sidney Sussex College of the University of Cambridge. Before that, I benefited from a fellowship granted by the German Historical Institute in Rome.
During my master's and bachelor's years, I gained a historian formation but with an interdisciplinary outlook. I studied History, History of Religions, and Philosophy at the University of Turin & Perugia in Italy, initially enrolled as an Erasmus student, then as a full-time student, and at the University of Iaşi in Romania, where I had a merit-based scholarship.
This highly international profile is due to my Christian perspective on life, which is to learn about the world, people, and cultures as much as possible. As a result, I consider myself a global citizen.
The dissertation project I am working on is called "Nation-State Building at the Crossroads of Gender, Culture, and Religion: Protestant Women Teachers in Nineteenth-Century Italy, 1860-1915". By studying the unpublished letters of a group of 36 Protestant women in Post-Unification Italy, the goal of my project is to explore how the experience of mobility and teaching shaped, and reshaped the gender, religious and cultural identities of minority religious women in the context of the nineteenth-century Italian nation-building process.
Supervisors: Proof. Philipp David (Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen), Eugenio F. Biagini (University of Cambridge), Lothar Vogel (Facoltà Valdese di Teologia)
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Papers by Laura Popa
H-Soz-Kult, 15.01.2021, 2021
Call for Papers for the conference “Cultural Identities in a Global World: Reframing Cultural Hyb... more Call for Papers for the conference “Cultural Identities in a Global World: Reframing Cultural Hybridity” held online at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) of the Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Germany, 23–25 June 2021
Book Reviews by Laura Popa
Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 2023
Book review of Susanna Peyronel Rambald, "Giulia Gonzaga. A Gentlewoman in the Italian Reformatio... more Book review of Susanna Peyronel Rambald, "Giulia Gonzaga. A Gentlewoman in the Italian Reformation", Viella 2021
KULT_online. Review Journal for the Study of Culture, 2021
Book review of Martin Baumeister, Philipp Lenhard, Ruth Nattermann (ed.), "Rethinking the Age of ... more Book review of Martin Baumeister, Philipp Lenhard, Ruth Nattermann (ed.), "Rethinking the Age of Emancipation. Comparative and Transnational Perspectives on Gender, Family, and Religion in Italy and Germany, 1800-1918", Berghahn Books 2020
KULT_online. Review Journal for the Study of Culture, 2019
Book review of Luisa Muraro, "The Symbolic Order of the Mother", Sunny Press 2019
Conference Presentations by Laura Popa
The minority question is often discussed nowadays, and more particularly as new religious minorit... more The minority question is often discussed nowadays, and more particularly as new religious minorities raise concerns about integration, assimilation, and domination. This event aims at offering space for comparison of multiple approaches and territories where Protestantism – broadly defined – contributed to a paradigm shift in community relations and the perception of other religious minorities, whether former Christian minorities or Jews. The event has been organised by the research group "Protestantism as a Minority Religion” (https://minorityprotestants.wordpress.com/?)
H-Soz-Kult, 01.09.2023
The conference "Bible Revolution: Empowering People, Subverting Identities. New Study Directions ... more The conference "Bible Revolution: Empowering People, Subverting Identities. New Study Directions in 21st–Century Academic Research" occurred at the Faculty of History of the University of Cambridge. The event was funded by the Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst in Germany and organized by Laura Popa in collaboration with Prof. Eugenio Biagini (Faculty of History, University of Cambridge) and Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide.
The symposium gathered scholars from various fields to discuss contemporary approaches to Bible research, exploring key topics, theories, and methodologies prioritized in 21st-century academia. This event also served as a first step in building a global network of scholars working on Protestantism as a minority religion.
H-Soz-Kult, 31.05.2021
The international and interdisciplinary laboratory conference “Cultural Identities in a Global Wo... more The international and interdisciplinary laboratory conference “Cultural Identities in a Global World: Reframing Cultural Hybridity” occurred online on June 23-25, 2021 at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) of the Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Germany.
KULT_online 64 , 2021
The concept of cultural hybridity seems ordinary now due to the daily usages of the term in a glo... more The concept of cultural hybridity seems ordinary now due to the daily usages of the term in a global context, but it covers a lengthy scholarly discourse. In the Winter Semester 2020/21, the discussion of Pnina Werbner's article on the dialectics of hybridity during a Research Area 6 meeting captivated the members' interest. What novel ideas does hybridity bring to different cultural environments, and how? Possible answers were that cultural shifts between the local and the global are involved, as well as encounters and reformulation of identities. The concept helps reflect on the interaction processes between identities and cultures by considering the emergence of new realities.
The interdisciplinary and international conference "Cultural Identities in a Global World: Reframing Cultural Hybridity," from 23 to 25 June, aimed to shed light on the dynamics and social practices engaging hybridity as a tool of cultural analysis and formation. The experimental format of the laboratory conference aimed to inspire a reformulation of this concept and to bind everyday reality with academic knowledge during the keynote lecture, the two workshops, the eight panels, and the final laboratory debate.
Books by Laura Popa
The history of the hybridity concept and the literature about hybridity show the continuous trans... more The history of the hybridity concept and the literature about hybridity show the continuous transformation of its meaning(s). It ranges from biological racist connotations in 19th-century colonialism to a powerful subversive tool for analysing asymmetric colonial encounters in 20th-century postcolonial studies. In the 20th century, hybridity and adjacent notions, such as transculturation, denoted this asymmetry. Bringing them into dialogue again in the 21st century, these and other related concepts may guide analyses of planetary cultural, economic, and political entanglements that avoid the false objectivism that the notion of ‘globalisation’ implies. As a result, the book critically reconsiders cultural hybridity as a concept for a world globally interconnected without losing the local articulations. So, this book argues that hybridity should be reframed with a view to the connections and entanglements it enables and complicates. As the world has become increasingly interconnected in the last few decades, this book investigates connectivity, relationships, and entanglements through new meanings and adjacent concepts, methods, and social expressions of hybridity. Methodologically, it examines hybridity within the framework of an increasingly interconnected global world, while analysing identities that intersect in cultural, socio-political, religious, and virtual spaces. The purpose of these multifaceted critical explorations is to reframe the potential and limits of hybridity in shedding light on the intersections between cultures on a global scale.
ISBN 978-3-98940-042-9, 288 S., 36 Abb., kt., € 38,50 (2004)
ISBN 978-3-98940-046-7, 288 S., 36 Abb., € 34,50 (E-Book/pdf, 2024)
(GCSC - Giessen Contributions to the Study of Culture, Bd. 18)
https://www.wvttrier.de/.../cultural-identities-in-a...
H-Soz-Kult, 15.01.2021, 2021
Call for Papers for the conference “Cultural Identities in a Global World: Reframing Cultural Hyb... more Call for Papers for the conference “Cultural Identities in a Global World: Reframing Cultural Hybridity” held online at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) of the Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Germany, 23–25 June 2021
Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 2023
Book review of Susanna Peyronel Rambald, "Giulia Gonzaga. A Gentlewoman in the Italian Reformatio... more Book review of Susanna Peyronel Rambald, "Giulia Gonzaga. A Gentlewoman in the Italian Reformation", Viella 2021
KULT_online. Review Journal for the Study of Culture, 2021
Book review of Martin Baumeister, Philipp Lenhard, Ruth Nattermann (ed.), "Rethinking the Age of ... more Book review of Martin Baumeister, Philipp Lenhard, Ruth Nattermann (ed.), "Rethinking the Age of Emancipation. Comparative and Transnational Perspectives on Gender, Family, and Religion in Italy and Germany, 1800-1918", Berghahn Books 2020
KULT_online. Review Journal for the Study of Culture, 2019
Book review of Luisa Muraro, "The Symbolic Order of the Mother", Sunny Press 2019
The minority question is often discussed nowadays, and more particularly as new religious minorit... more The minority question is often discussed nowadays, and more particularly as new religious minorities raise concerns about integration, assimilation, and domination. This event aims at offering space for comparison of multiple approaches and territories where Protestantism – broadly defined – contributed to a paradigm shift in community relations and the perception of other religious minorities, whether former Christian minorities or Jews. The event has been organised by the research group "Protestantism as a Minority Religion” (https://minorityprotestants.wordpress.com/?)
H-Soz-Kult, 01.09.2023
The conference "Bible Revolution: Empowering People, Subverting Identities. New Study Directions ... more The conference "Bible Revolution: Empowering People, Subverting Identities. New Study Directions in 21st–Century Academic Research" occurred at the Faculty of History of the University of Cambridge. The event was funded by the Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst in Germany and organized by Laura Popa in collaboration with Prof. Eugenio Biagini (Faculty of History, University of Cambridge) and Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide.
The symposium gathered scholars from various fields to discuss contemporary approaches to Bible research, exploring key topics, theories, and methodologies prioritized in 21st-century academia. This event also served as a first step in building a global network of scholars working on Protestantism as a minority religion.
H-Soz-Kult, 31.05.2021
The international and interdisciplinary laboratory conference “Cultural Identities in a Global Wo... more The international and interdisciplinary laboratory conference “Cultural Identities in a Global World: Reframing Cultural Hybridity” occurred online on June 23-25, 2021 at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) of the Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Germany.
KULT_online 64 , 2021
The concept of cultural hybridity seems ordinary now due to the daily usages of the term in a glo... more The concept of cultural hybridity seems ordinary now due to the daily usages of the term in a global context, but it covers a lengthy scholarly discourse. In the Winter Semester 2020/21, the discussion of Pnina Werbner's article on the dialectics of hybridity during a Research Area 6 meeting captivated the members' interest. What novel ideas does hybridity bring to different cultural environments, and how? Possible answers were that cultural shifts between the local and the global are involved, as well as encounters and reformulation of identities. The concept helps reflect on the interaction processes between identities and cultures by considering the emergence of new realities.
The interdisciplinary and international conference "Cultural Identities in a Global World: Reframing Cultural Hybridity," from 23 to 25 June, aimed to shed light on the dynamics and social practices engaging hybridity as a tool of cultural analysis and formation. The experimental format of the laboratory conference aimed to inspire a reformulation of this concept and to bind everyday reality with academic knowledge during the keynote lecture, the two workshops, the eight panels, and the final laboratory debate.
The history of the hybridity concept and the literature about hybridity show the continuous trans... more The history of the hybridity concept and the literature about hybridity show the continuous transformation of its meaning(s). It ranges from biological racist connotations in 19th-century colonialism to a powerful subversive tool for analysing asymmetric colonial encounters in 20th-century postcolonial studies. In the 20th century, hybridity and adjacent notions, such as transculturation, denoted this asymmetry. Bringing them into dialogue again in the 21st century, these and other related concepts may guide analyses of planetary cultural, economic, and political entanglements that avoid the false objectivism that the notion of ‘globalisation’ implies. As a result, the book critically reconsiders cultural hybridity as a concept for a world globally interconnected without losing the local articulations. So, this book argues that hybridity should be reframed with a view to the connections and entanglements it enables and complicates. As the world has become increasingly interconnected in the last few decades, this book investigates connectivity, relationships, and entanglements through new meanings and adjacent concepts, methods, and social expressions of hybridity. Methodologically, it examines hybridity within the framework of an increasingly interconnected global world, while analysing identities that intersect in cultural, socio-political, religious, and virtual spaces. The purpose of these multifaceted critical explorations is to reframe the potential and limits of hybridity in shedding light on the intersections between cultures on a global scale.
ISBN 978-3-98940-042-9, 288 S., 36 Abb., kt., € 38,50 (2004)
ISBN 978-3-98940-046-7, 288 S., 36 Abb., € 34,50 (E-Book/pdf, 2024)
(GCSC - Giessen Contributions to the Study of Culture, Bd. 18)