Personal details

• Research Areas

  ? ? ?African and African-American intellectual history
  ? ? ?Global and transnational history
  ? ? ?Pan-Africanism
  ? ? ?Decolonisation
  ? ? ?Liberation movements
  ? ? ?Transregional solidarity networks

• Curriculum Vitae

  Academic Work and Current Position

  Since February 2026
  Scientific Coordinator, Research School, Cluster of Excellence “Imaginamics: Practices and Dynamics of Social Imagining”, Friedrich Schiller University Jena (FSU)

  October 2025–January 2026?
  Audit Advisor, Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (IfL), Leipzig

  10/2016–09/2025?
  Coordinator, Leibniz Science Campus “Eastern Europe – Global Area” (EEGA), Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (IfL), Leipzig

  07/2024–12/2024?
  Associate Research Fellow, Department of Cartography and Visual Communication, Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (IfL), Leipzig (preparation of DFG grant application)?

  07/2015–09/2015?
  Visiting Researcher at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, Department of Visual Arts?

  05/2012–05/2015?
  Project Coordinator for the “Africa Network Tanzania – Ethiopia – Cameroon – South Africa (ATAKS)”, DAAD “Welcome to Africa” programme, University of Leipzig

  05/2011–09/2016?
  Coordinator, DFG Priority Programme (SPP) 1448 “Adaptation and Creativity in Africa – Technologies and Significations in the Production of Order and Disorder”

  04/2011–09/2016?
  Research Programme Coordinator at the Global and European Studies Institute (GESI) and the Centre for Area Studies (CAS), University of Leipzig

  11/2008–03/2011?
  Student assistant at the University of Leipzig (Centre for Advanced Studies, Global and European Studies Institute, Centre for the History and Culture of East-Central Europe, Centre for Area Studies)

  Work Experience

  2004–2005?
  Administrative Assistant, Corporate Communications – Media and Public Relations Department, Robert Bosch GmbH, Stuttgart

  2002–2004
  Training as an ‘Administrative Assistant (VWA)’: specialised training programme run by Robert Bosch GmbH and the Stuttgart Academy of Administration and Economics?

  Study

  04/2024?
  PhD at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Leipzig, Department of Global Studies

  04/2013–05/2023
  PhD studies, Graduate School “Global and Area Studies” (GSGAS), Research Academy Leipzig

  03/2011?
  Master of Arts in Communication and Media Studies and Cultural Studies, University of Leipzig

  02/2008–07/2008?
  Studied at The Hague University of Professional Education, Department for European Studies (specialisation: Communication)

  10/2005–03/2011
  Studied Communication and Media Studies and Cultural Studies at the University of Leipzig

• Publications

  Monographs

  Dallywater, Lena (2025): Pan-African Aesthetics – Colonial to Postcolonial Struggles for Definitions (1956-2016), Berlin: De Gruyter Brill.

  Edited Volumes

  Dierks, Dennis / Castryck-Naumann, Katja / Dallywater, Lena / Rohdewald, Stefan (eds.) (2026, forthcoming): Russia's War on Ukraine and the Crisis of World Order: A Global Reader, Budapest: Central European University Press.

  Fonseca, Helder Adegar / Dallywater, Lena / Saunders, Christopher C. (eds.) (2025): Communist Actors in African Decolonial Transitions – Comparative Perspectives, Berlin: De Gruyter Brill.

  Ben-Nun, Gilad / Castryck-Naumann, Katja / Dallywater, Lena (eds.) (2025): Globalizing Eastern Europe. Politics, Culture and Economics from the 18th to the 21st Century, London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

  Saunders, Christopher C. / Fonseca, Helder Adegar / Dallywater, Lena (eds.) (2023): Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Africa: New Perspectives on the Era of Decolonization, 1950s to 1990s, Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg.

  Dallywater, Lena / Saunders, Christopher C. / Fonseca, Helder Adegar (eds.) (2019): Southern African Liberation Movements and the Global Cold War ‘East’. Transnational Activism 1960–1990, Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg.

  Book Chapters

  Ben-Nun, Gilad / Castryck-Naumann, Katja / Dallywater, Lena (2025): “Introduction”, in: Ben-Nun, Gilad / Castryck-Naumann, Katja / Dallywater, Lena (eds.), Globalizing Eastern Europe. Politics, Culture and Economics from the 18th to the 21st Century, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 1-22.

  Fonseca, Helder Adegar / Dallywater, Lena / Saunders, Christopher C. (2025): “Introduction”, in: Fonseca, Helder Adegar / Dallywater, Lena / Saunders, Christopher C. (eds.): Communist Actors in African Decolonial Transitions – Comparative Perspectives, Berlin: De Gruyter Brill, pp. 1-9.

  Dallywater, Lena / Saunders, Christopher C. / Fonseca, Helder Adegar (2023): “Introduction”, in: Chris Saunders / Helder Adegar Fonseca / Lena Dallywater (eds.): Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Africa: New Perspectives on the Era of Decolonization, 1950s to 1990s, Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, pp. 1-9.

  Dallywater, Lena (2021): “African Intellectuals in Processes of Intercultural Transfer”, in: Middell, Matthias / Espagne, Michel (eds.): Intercultural Transfers and Processes of Spatialization, Leipzig: Leipziger Universit?tsverlag, pp. 131-158.

  Saunders, Christopher C. / Fonseca, Helder Adegar / Dallywater, Lena (2019): “Southern African Liberation Movements and the Global Cold War ‘East’: Transnational Activism 1960–1990. Introduction”, in: Lena Dallywater / Chris Saunders / Helder Adegar Fonseca (eds.): Southern African Liberation Movements and the Global Cold War ‘East’. Transnational Activism 1960–1990, Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, pp. 5-24.

  Dallywater, Lena (2015): “In Search of ‘African Aesthetics’. Academic Perspectives on Art, Culture and the African Way of Appreciating”, in: Arno Sonderegger (eds.): African Thoughts on Colonial and Neo-Colonial Worlds. Facets of an Intellectual History of Africa, Berlin: Neofelis Verlag, pp. 45-65.

  Heinze [Dallywater], Lena (2015): “The Transnationality of Aesthetics - Philosophical Conceptualizations in the Tension Field of Universalism and Culturalism”, in: Steffi Marung / Matthias Middell (eds.): Transnational Actors – Crossing Borders, Transnational History Studies, vol. 8, Leipzig: Leipziger Universit?tsverlag, pp. 143-154.

  Heinze [Dallywater], Lena (2012): ?Tradition und Transformation – Das Leipziger Verlagswesen nach Ende der Gutenberg-Galaxie“, in: Isabella L?hr / Matthias Middell / Hannes Siegrist (eds.): Kultur und Beruf in Europa. Europ?ische Geschichte in Quellen und Essays, Volume 2, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, pp. 297-307.

  Academics Papers

  Dallywater, Lena (2020): “’Black Fire’ – Conceptualizations of Black liberation and engaged views of African and Black aesthetics in the USA and South Africa”, in: Carlos Garrido (eds.): Decentring the Genealogies of Art Activism, Third Text – Critical Perspectives on Art and Culture, Vol. 24, Issue 4 (October 2020), pp. 551-567.
  http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2020.1831804External link

  Other Publications

  Interviews
  Dallywater, Lena (2024): “South Africa – Quo Vadis?”, in: Global Dynamics. Blog of the Leipzig Research Centre Global Dynamics. Published 17.12.2024. https://doi.org/10.58079/12y46.

  Dallywater, Lena (2018): “The Brotherwise Dispatch vs. Lena Dallywater”, in: The Brotherwise Dispatch, Vol. 3, Issue #3, June-August/2018. http://brotherwiseinterviewsexclusives.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-brotherwise-dispatch-vs-lena.html.?

  Blog Posts
  Dallywater, Lena / Moledo, Ana (2022): “Actors and Archives on the Move – Studying Mid-20th Century Black Radicalism and Anticolonial Activism”, in: Global Dynamics. Blog of the Leipzig Research Centre Global Dynamics. 29.03.2022. Updated 30.03.2022. https://webacc.leibniz-ifl.de/PT/https://recentglobe.hypotheses.org/2009.?

  Dallywater, Lena / Saunders, Christopher C. / Fonseca, Helder Adegar (2020): “Southern African Liberation Movements and the Global Cold War ‘East’ – Transnational Activism 1960–1990”, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 05.11.2020. https://trafo.hypotheses.org/25329.?

  Book Reviews
  Lena Dallywater (2025): “Rezension zu: Widener, Daniel: Third Worlds Within. Multiethnic Movements and Transnational Solidarity. Durham 2024, ISBN 978-1478030164”, in: Connections. A Journal for Historians and Area Specialists, 30.05.2025, https://www.connections.clio-online.net/publicationreview/id/reb-150902.

  Dallywater, Lena (2023): “Rezension zu: García Pe?a, Lorgia: Translating Blackness. Latinx Colonialities in Global Perspective. Durham 2022: ISBN 978-1-4780-1866-7”, in: Connections. A Journal for Historians and Area Specialists, 15.09.2023, www.connections.clio-online.net/publicationreview/id/reb-133445.

  Dallywater, Lena (2022): “Rezension zu: Chandler, Nahum Dimitri: “Beyond This Narrow Now" Or, Delimitations, of W. E. B. Du Bois. Durham 2022: ISBN 978-1-4780-1480-5”, in: Connections. A Journal for Historians and Area Specialists, 04.11.2022. www.connections.clio-online.net/publicationreview/id/reb-116306 ?

  Dallywater, Lena (2022): “Rezension zu: Byrd, Brandon R.: The Black Republic. African Americans and the Fate of Haiti. Philadelphia 2020: ISBN 9780812251708”, in: Connections. A Journal for Historians and Area Specialists, 05.03.2022. www.connections.clio-online.net/publicationreview/id/reb-50562.?

  Dallywater, Lena (2020): “Fumi Okiji. Jazz as Critique: Adorno and Black Expression Revisited. 2018. COVID-19, Black Social Life, and a Global Crisis Unfolding”, in: The Brotherwise Dispatch, Vol. 4, Issue 11, September-November/2020. http://brotherwisedispatch.blogspot.com/2020/09/jazz-critique-and-global-crisis-by-lena.html. ?

  Podcast
  Dallywater, Lena (2022): ?Was soll denn bitte ?der Osten“ Europas sein?“, Lena Dallywater im Gespr?ch mit Bj?rn Braunschweig, in: SpacEconomics, Geographie-Podcast, Episode 36, 24.10.2022, https://mehrblogs.uni-jena.de/spaceconomics/easterneurope_globalarea/.?

  Other Publications
  Sieveking, Nadine / Dallywater, Lena (eds.) (2016): Vital Conjunctures Revisited – Gender in Times of Uncertainty. DFG SPP 1448 Working Paper Series, No. 18. Leipzig and Halle.

  Heinze [Dallywater], Lena (2011): Potentialanalyse für ein Verlagsmuseum in Leipzig, Leipzig. XI, 213 pages.

• Further Activities

  Awards and Scholarships

  2018
  DAAD “IPID4all” PhD travel grant for a conference presentation, New York, USA

  2017
  DAAD “IPID4all” PhD travel grant for research in the USA

  2016
  DAAD “IPID4all” PhD research grant for four weeks of fieldwork in South Africa

  2015
  DAAD “Welcome to Africa” PhD research grant for eight weeks of fieldwork in South Africa

  2008
  EU “Erasmus Mundus” grant for a semester abroad at The Hague University of Professional Education

  Memberships
  
  Since 07/2017
  Editorial board member, book reviews section, Connections. A Journal for Historians and Area Specialists (Leipzig); Comparativ. Zeitschrift für Globalgeschichte und vergleichende Gesellschaftsforschung (Leipzig)

  Field Research and Conference Organisation
  
  Cameroon, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Croatia, Mozambique, USA, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania