30.10.2024 Dr. Mariel Reiss Vetretungsprofessorin

Dr. Mariel Reiss is taking over the Chair of Peace and Conflict Studies from Prof. Dr. Susanne Buckley-Zistel at the Center for Conflict Studies for the winter term 2024-2025. During this time, Dr. Reiss will continue her research in the Research Center “Transformations of Political Violence” (TraCe), where she investigates the complex relationship between changing patterns of interpretation and justification of political violence with a specific focus on LGBTIQ+ persons in Eastern and Southern Africa. Her further research interests include human rights, regional integration, norms and rights discourses and diffusion. 

 Since January 2024, Dr. Reiss has been leading the DFG-funded scientific network “Re-centering African Subjects and Subjectivities”. The network is hosted at the University of Marburg and brings together 14 internationally renowned scholars from different disciplines, united in shaping a new research agenda on African regionalism over the next three years. Since April 2023, she is the co-speaker of the DVPW thematic  group “Queer-feminist political science and LGBTIQ+ studies”. 

 In the winter term, Dr. Reiss holds the introductory lecture to peace and conflict studies where students acquire basic knowledge of peace and conflict research. This includes knowledge of the history of the research field, conflict theory approaches and relevant theoretical, conceptual and normative debates on the basic concepts of conflict, violence, war and peace as well as the causes of war and peace. She also teaches one BA seminar on “Human Rights in a Globalized World” which offers a general introduction to human rights as well as an overview of some specific topics in this field. She teaches an MA seminar on “Human Rights in Crises”, which focuses on human rights from theoretical and empirical angles, their development and contestations in human rights discourses and practices. Beyond getting to know conceptualizations, multifaceted contestations and whether human rights are in crises, how they are affected by crises and some possible responses are discussed. In this seminar a mock conference is carried out. Reiss also teaches one MA seminar which centers “Worldwide Contestations of LGBTIQ+ Rights”. Here, Global North – Global South divides, development cooperation and the fractions it can lead to, as well as human rights discourses, institutions and organizations are discussed. 

 Mariel Reiss obtained her PhD at the University of Marburg in the Department of Political Science in the field of international relations in 2020; thereafter she joined the Center for Conflict Studies as a postdoctoral researcher. Her initial postdoc position was funded by the Professorinnen-Programm des Bundes und der Länder; and from 2021-2022 she carried out a project on “LGBTIQ+ Rights in Multilevel Governance Systems”, funded by the Hessian Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and the Arts.