• 2005 PhD Cultural Studies (Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis)
• 1998 MA (University of Cologne)

• 2021             Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin, African Studies, University of Cologne
• 2020             Lecturer MA programme at Hoogeschool van de Kunsten Utrecht
• 2017-2020     Lise Meitner Fellow, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (paused 1.1. 2018-31.10. 2018)
• 2018             Research Fellow at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Institut für Kulturwissenschaften
• 2016             Visiting Fellow at Archive and Public Culture Research Initiative, University of Cape Town, South Africa
• 2016             Fellow at the Research Centre for Material Culture, Leiden, Netherlands
• 2015             Lecturer, History Department, University of Basel, Switzerland
• since 2015    Honorary Research Fellow, Archive and Public Culture Research Initiative, University of Cape Town
• 2011-2015     Senior Research Fellow, Archive and Public Culture Research Initiative (APC), University of Cape Town, South Africa
• 2010-2011     Postdoctoral Fellow, Research Chair in Social Change (SARCHI), University of Fort Hare, East London, South Africa
• 2007-2009     Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre For Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, South Africa
• 2001-2005     Ph.D. candidate (promotie beursal), Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA), University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

• 2021-2023     Fritz Thyssen Research Grant on the topic Artikulationen von Sprache und “Rasse“ in der frühen Afrikanistik in Bild, Ton, und Text  
• 2017-2020     Lise Meitner Fellowship, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, Austria
• 2018             Volkswagen Fellowship ‚Originalitäsverdacht’, Humboldt Universität Berlin, Institut für Kulturwissenschaften, Germany
• 2016             Visiting Fellow at the Research Centre for Material Culture, Leiden, The Netherlands
• 2016             Visiting Fellow at Archive and Public Culture Research Initiative, University of Cape Town, South Africa
• 2011-2015     Mellon Foundation Grant, University of Cape Town, Archive and Public Culture Research Initiative, South Africa
• 2011             SARCHI Chair Grant (National Research Foundation), University of Fort Hare, South Africa
• 2007-2009     Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, Centre For Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape, South Africa

My current research engages with the historical practices and collections of German linguistics in southern Africa, which have articulated concepts of language and race. Ongoing research topics are sound archives as sources of colonial and transcontinental histories.

Books

• Ins koloniale Archiv hören. Das Echo gewaltsamer Wissensproduktion in Tondokumenten aus dem südlichen Afrika. Mandelbaum, 2020. 
• With Britta Lange and Regina Sarreiter Was Wir Sehen. Bilder, Stimmen, Rauschen. Zur Kritik anthropometrischen Sammelns. Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien. 2012.
• With Margit Berner and Britta Lange Sensible Sammlungen. Aus dem anthropologischen Depot. Fundus Verlag, Ilinx Reihe. Hamburg: Philo Fine Arts. 2011.
• With Esther Peeren Representation Matters. (Re)Articulating Collective Identities in a Postcolonial World. Serie: Thamyris. Intersecting Place, Sex and “Race”. Leiden: Rodopi, Vol. 20, 2010.
• (Ed.) What We See: Reconsidering an Anthropometrical Collection: Images, Voices and Versioning. Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien. 2009.

Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals

• “Listening to Sound Archives” Introduction to Edited Section” Social Dynamics Vol. 41, Issue 1, Special Segment on Sound Archives, edited by Anette Hoffmann, 2015.
• “Hearing Voices in the Archive” with Phindezwa Mnyaka, Social Dynamics Vol. 41, Issue 1, Special Segment on Sound Archives, edited by Anette Hoffmann, 2015.
• “Echoes of the Great War: the Recordings of African Prisoners of WWI” Open Arts Journal Issue 3, 2014.
• “The Merits and Predicaments of Opacity: Poetic Strategies of Evasion and Resistance” Research in African Literatures, Vol. 38, Issue 3, Fall 2007.

Book Chapters

• “Close Listening”. M. Bull &M. Cobussen. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Sonic Methodologies. 2020.
• “War and Grammar. Acoustic Recordings with African Prisoners of the First World War (1915-1918)” A. Deumert, N. Sheperd & A. Storch (eds.) Colonial Linguistics and Decolonial Linguistics. Oxford University Press, 2020.
• “Wachswalze mit akustischen Aufnahmen, Sammlung Hans Lichtenecker, Phonogrammarchiv Berlin” I. Edenheiser & L. Förster (eds.) Einführung in die Museumsethnologie. Reimer Verlag, 2019. 
• “Kolonialität” D. Morat & H. Ziemer (eds.) Metzler Handbuch Sound. Geschichte – Begriffe – Ansätze. Metzler Verlag. 2018.
• “Verbale Riposte: Wilfred Tjiuezas Performances von omitandu als Entgegnungen zum Rassenmodell Hans Lichteneckers” Iris Dressler/Hans D. Christ (eds.) Acts of Voicing: On the Poetics and Politics of Voice. Stuttgart: Hatje Cantz. 2015.
• “Of Storying and Storing: ‘Reading’ Lichtenecker’s Voice Recordings” Jeremy Silvester (ed.) Re-viewing Resistance in Namibian History. Windhoek: University of Namibia Press. 2015.
• „Sensible Sammlungen” mit Margit Berner/Britta Lange, ARGE Schittpunkt (ed.) Handbuch Ausstellungstheorie und –praxis. Wien, Köln, Weimar: Böhlau Verlag. 2013.
• “Chronotopes of the (Post-) Colonial Condition in Otjiherero Praise Poetry“ J.K.S. Makokha/ J.K.S., Obiero Ogone /Ochieng Orwenjo (eds.) Patterns of Style in Contemporary African Literature and Orature: Emerging Perspectives. Leiden: Rodopi. 2012.
• “Comparing to Make Explicit: Diasporic Articulations of the Herero in Namibia.” Marie-Aude Baronian/Stephan Besser/Yolande Jansen (eds.) Diaspora and Memory. Figures of Displacement in Contemporary Literature, Arts and Politics. Series: Thamyris. Intersecting Place, Sex and “Race”. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2006.

Other Articles

• Jungle World 52, 2020. “Das schafft nur schizophrene Museen”. Ein Gespräch mit der Afrikanistin Anette Hoffmann über das Humboldt Forum.
• Mail and Guardian, 24. 2. 2017. Voices of African POWs speak in Poetry of their misery

Curatorial Work/Sound Work

• Exhibition: Der Krieg und die Grammatik MARKK Museum Hamburg, 2019/20
• Sound/Text Installation: Foreign Subjects, Bergen Assembly (Norway) 2019
• Sound/Text Installation: Omuhanga [The Necklace] Lindenmuseum Stuttgart, permanent exhibition, since April 2019
• Short Film: Ein Otjihererosprecher kritisiert koloniale Gewalt und Wissensproduktion (1931)
  in the exhibition: Rassismus. Die Erfindung der Menschenrassen, curated by Susanne Wernsing. Deutsches Hygiene Museum (May 2018-January 2019).
• Sound/Text Installation: Unerhörter Bericht über die deutschen Verbrechen in den kolonisierten Gebieten und über das fortwährende Wirken der Gewalt bis in die Gegenwart with Mattei Bellu/Andrea Bellu/Regina Sarreiter
  In: Acts of Voicing Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, 2012/ 2013
  In: His Master’s Voice: On Voice and Language, HartWare Kunstverein Dortmund 2013
  La Panacée, Montpellier 2015
• Exhibition What We See. Images, Voices, and Versioning / Was Wir Sehen. Bilder, Stimmen, Repräsentation
  IZIKO Slave Lodge Museum, Cape Town, 2009
  Basler Afrika Bibliographien, Basel, 2009
  Museum für Völkerkunde, Wien, 2011
  Felix Nussbaum Museum, Osnabrück, 2012
  Pergamon-Palais of the Humboldt University, Berlin, 2012
  Franco-Namibian Cultural Centre in Windhoek, Namibia, 2013