Vera-Simone Schulz

Vera-Simone Schulz is a Junior Professor at Leuphana University Lüneburg's Institute of Philosophy and Art History, specializing in transcultural art history that bridges African, Islamic, and European art histories with critical museology. She is also an associate researcher at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut.

• Education: Studied art history, philosophy, and Russian literature in Berlin, Moscow, and Damascus

Her research interrogates traditional art historical canons by exploring Mediterranean and global entanglements through African, Islamic, and European material cultures. Current projects focus on material migrations, planetary heritage entanglements, and decolonizing epistemologies in art history.

She leads the international research projects Material Migrations: Mamluk Metalwork across Afro-Eurasia (Gerda Henkel Foundation) and Epistemologies of Conviviality (Volkswagen Foundation), which include cross-continental workshops, summer schools, and lecture series.

Her scientific awards include prestigious fellowships from German Academic Scholarship Foundation, DAAD, DFG, IFK Vienna, Warburg Institute, and MuseumsLab programs. She has organized international symposia at the University of Cambridge and co-founded collaborative research initiatives like Planetary Patchwork and Black Archive Alliance.