Barbara Henning

Dr. Barbara Henning is an Assistant Professor for the history of Islam in the Eastern Mediterranean at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz since 2020. Her research focuses on Ottoman-Kurdish history, identity and memory politics, and the history of knowledge in imperial contexts.

• PhD in Bamberg (2016) on the Ottoman-Kurdish Bedirhani family
• DFG priority program Transottomanica member (2018-2020)
• Worked at the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin
• Current TRACEED Project on education history in Northern Iraq

Research Interests span Ottoman imperial elites, 19th-century Arab provinces, and social demarcation processes, with a focus on prophetic descendants. Her work bridges historical analysis and contemporary memory studies.

Publications include the 2021 open-access article Knowledge on the Move in a Transottoman Perspective, which explores cross-imperial knowledge networks.

Awards & Grants:

• DFG priority program Transottomanica
• Doctoral scholarship at Graduate School for Near and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Washington (2012/13)

She teaches courses on Quellensprachen islamische Geschichte and leads international workshops like Transottoman Expertise (2023). Contact via bahennin@uni-mainz.de for office hours via MS Teams.