Nadja-Christina Schneider

Prof. Dr. Nadja-Christina Schneider is Professor of South Asian Societies and Cultures at the Humboldt University of Berlin, where she is affiliated with the Institute of Asian and African Studies within the Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education. She previously served as Professor of Gender and Media Studies for the South Asian Region at HU Berlin from 2017 to 2024, and before that as Professor of Media and Society at the IAAW with a focus on Global South Asian Studies from 2009 to 2016. She also held an interim professorship in Visual and Media Anthropology at Heidelberg University during the winter term 2016/17.

Her research focuses on media culture, gender, urban transformation and intersectional im/mobility in South Asia. She is particularly interested in media developments in South Asia, mediatization processes and social change, and debates on Islam, media and gender. Her interdisciplinary approach draws from South Asian Studies, Modern and Contemporary History, and Islamic Studies.

Prof. Schneider's recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on transcultural media and communication, critical regionalism in architecture, and visual representations of social cohesion and identity politics in South Asia. Her work often explores how media forms shape and are shaped by social transformations, with particular attention to gender dynamics and religious identities.

Her significant research projects include 'Beyond Social Cohesion - Global Repertoires of Living Together (RePLITO)' from October 2021 to December 2024, where she served as co-spokesperson and HU project leader.

Prof. Schneider has supervised several doctoral projects including:

• Mobility and Witnessing: Independent Documentary Film Practices in the Kashmir Conflict (Max Kramer)
• Cinema, Cultures and Marker of Muslim Identity (Saima Haq)
• Mobility Differentiated: Navigating Religion, Activism and Everyday Life among LGBT Indonesians (Wikke Jansen)
• Unveiling Images. Regimes of Visibility in the Visual Politics of Contemporary Far Right Parties in Europe (Anna Kathrin Oswald)

She has held prestigious research fellowships such as the Alexander von Humboldt research fellowship (Feodor Lynen Fellowship), a senior research fellowship at the Humanities Center for Advanced Studies 'Multiple Secularities' at Leipzig University, and a research fellowship at the Heidelberg Center for Transcultural Studies.