Junior Professorship of Transcultural Art History

Organisational unit: Professoship

Organisation profile

Research and teaching in Transcultural Art History at Leuphana University encompass the realms of artistic exchanges, transcultural dynamics, and processes of artistic transfer. Both are characterized by a critique of Eurocentric canons and approaches, while striving towards “new relational ethics” (Sarr/Savoy 2018) within the fields of art history, critical museology,  and critical heritage studies. We study present pasts and the historical depths of the modern and contemporary world, intersections between the precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial, as well as decolonial perspectives.

Main research areas

In both research and teaching, we investigate visual and material culture and the built environment as well as artistic dynamics across media and materials with a particular focus on transcultural interactions. What kind of stories do images (from panel painting to photography and video art), objects (of the most diverse materials, from metalwork to textiles), and buildings (both permanent and ephemeral) tell us about past and present transcultural entanglements? In which ways have elements of visual and material culture been shaped by complex intersections between connectivity and resistance? And how can transcultural dynamics in the arts be put on display in museums and other exhibition formats for a wider public?

Seeking to overcome traditional notions of periphery and center in the discipline of art history, we analyze the images and objects themselves, but also engage with theories of transculturation and postcolonial frameworks. We pay special attention to issues around contested heritage, epistemologies of connectivity, resistance, and resilience, historiographic, archival and counter-archival practices, and social and epistemic justice. Equally of relevance are notions of materiality, restitution, reparation, and repair.

Transcultural Art History at Leuphana University is in close dialogue with the environmental humanities and the digital humanities. We discuss issues related to (un-)natural history; ecologies, collections, and intersections between cultural and natural heritage in a transcultural perspective; relationships between the human and more-than-human and posthumanism; we engage critically with the concept of the Anthropocene (Yusoff 2018); drawing on concepts of the planetary (Mbembe 2021) and the patchwork (Tsing 2005). Collaborations with contemporary artists who critically intervene in museum spaces or negotiate issues related to transcultural dynamics in their work are a central part of teaching and research projects.

  1. 2025
  2. Published

    Ecologies of Recovery: Mónica de Miranda’s As If the World Had No West

    Schulz, V.-S., 15.06.2025, In: Art Review Oxford. 12, 2025, p. 31–37

    Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearch

  3. 2024
  4. Published

    From the Global Renaissance to ‘New Relational Ethics’: Early Modern African Artifacts in European Museums and Matters of Restitution

    Schulz, V.-S., 2024, In: Africa e Mediterraneo. 100, p. 50–57

    Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

  5. 2023
  6. Published
  7. 2022
  8. Published

    A Carpet between K(C)ongo and the Moon: Planetary Notions of Ornament

    Schulz, V.-S., 2022, Sammy Baloji: K(C)ongo, Fragments of Interlaced Dialogues, Subversive Classifications: exhibition catalogue, Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, Palazzo Pitti. Cippitelli, L., Toti , C. & BHMF, C. C. (eds.). Milan: Giunti , p. 40–49

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksContributions to collected editions/anthologiesResearch

  9. Published

    Coral Stone Mosques in Coastal East Africa

    Schulz, V.-S., 2022, The Religious Architecture of Islam II: Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Khan , H.-U. & Blair Moore, K. (eds.). Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, p. 212–227

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksContributions to collected editions/anthologiesResearch

  10. Published

    Transkulturelle Objektgeschichten: Islamische Artefakte in europäischen Kirchenschätzen und über diese hinaus

    Schulz, V.-S., 2022, Islam in Europa, 1000-1250 : exhibition catalogue Dommuseum Hildesheim. Höhl, C., Prinz , F. & Ralcheva, P. (eds.). Hildesheim, p. 47–54

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksContributions to collected editions/anthologiesTransfer

  11. 2020
  12. Published

    Entangled Identities: Textiles and the Art and Architecture of the Apennine Peninsula in a Trans-Mediterranean Perspective

    Schulz, V.-S., 2020, The Hidden Life of Textiles in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean. Vryzidis, N. (ed.). Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, p. 119–154

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksArticle in conference proceedingsResearchpeer-review

  13. 2019
  14. Published

    ’Cangiante Fabrics’, Marble Cloths, and the Textility of Stone: Transmaterial Aesthetics in Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Presentation at the Temple and 13th- and 14th-Century Tuscan Painting

    Schulz, V.-S., 2019, Steinformen: Materialität, Qualität, Imitation. Augart, I., Saß , M. & Wenderholm, I. (eds.). Berlin, p. 279–301

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksArticle in conference proceedingsResearch

  15. 2018
  16. Published

    Along the Path of the Pine, the Parrot, and the Tortoise: Warburg’s Image Vehicles, Fourteenth-Century Italian Painting, and the Textile Arts

    Schulz, V.-S., 2018, Liminal Spaces of Art between Europe and the Middle East. Prijatelj Pavičić, I. (ed.). Cambridge, p. 142–160

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksArticle in conference proceedingsResearch

  17. Published

    Das Parlament der Dinge: Transmateriale und transmediale Dynamiken, Bild-Ding-Relationen und - ‘Meta-Artefakt-Malerei’

    Schulz, V.-S., 2018, In: Artium Quaestiones. 29, p. 25–62

    Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

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