Mieke RoscherView profile
Senior Lecturer
Mieke Roscher is a Senior Lecturer in Social and Cultural History specializing in Human-Animal Studies at the University of Kassel. She has headed the Department of Social and Cultural History with a special focus on human-animal relationships since October 2020. Previously, she was a junior professor at the University of Kassel from 2014 to 2020 and integrated into the LOEWE research group 'Animal-Human-Society,' which she chaired as spokesperson from 2017. In 2020, she completed her habilitation on animal historiography. For the academic year 2023/2024, she was appointed Senior Fellow at the Historisches Kolleg München. Her educational background includes studies at Georg August University of Göttingen, London School of Economics, Middlesex University, and University of Bremen, where she completed her doctorate on the history of the British animal rights movement in 2008. She subsequently worked as a postdoc at the German Historical Institute in London and completed a library traineeship at the Oldenburg State Library from 2011 to 2013. Dr. Roscher's research focuses on animal history and human-animal studies, gender history, British history, colonial history (particularly British India), Nazi history, and the history of social movements. Her work demonstrates how human-animal relationships have shaped historical developments across various contexts. She is particularly interested in how animals function as political symbols, cultural markers, and historical actors. Her extensive publication record shows consistent engagement with the 'Animal Turn' in historical scholarship, examining topics ranging from Nazi animal policies to zoo history during wartime, from animal rights movements to colonial wildlife conservation. Her work increasingly focuses on methodological approaches to studying human-animal relations historically while exploring specific case studies across different historical periods. Senior Fellow at the Historisches Kolleg München (2023/2024) Spokesperson for LOEWE research group 'Animal-Human-Society' (2017-2020) Editor of 'Animals in History' book series (Böhlau Verlag) Associate researcher at New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies Founding member of Forum Animals and History Member of Animal Theory Research Initiative Dr. Roscher actively supervises doctoral students working on diverse topics in animal history, from agricultural animal shows to zoo history and vegetarian movements. Her international collaborations include co-editing volumes with scholars from Germany, New Zealand, and the United States. She maintains strong connections with research institutions across Europe and participates in interdisciplinary research projects that bridge historical scholarship with contemporary animal studies.
