David Leupold

Dr. David Leupold is a prominent researcher at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) in Berlin, where he has served as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow since 2020 and as Principal Investigator of the DFG-funded project 'Relicts of (Another) Future? – The Afterlife of the Socialist City in Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus' since 2022. His academic journey includes a Ph.D. in Social Sciences from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (2014-2018), an M.A. in German-Turkish Social Sciences from Middle Eastern Technical University Ankara and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (2011-2014), and a B.A. in Contemporary Middle Eastern Studies from Otto-Friedrich Universität Bamberg (2008-2011), with a year abroad at Ege University in Izmir.

Leupold's research focuses on the complex interplay between urban space, memory politics, and competing historical narratives in post-Soviet contexts, particularly examining how Soviet-era 'materialized memory' continues to shape social life in contemporary Central Asian and Caucasian cities. His work investigates how the 'unfinished futures' of socialist urban planning may mobilize alternative historical imaginaries that challenge rising ethno-centric discourses. He approaches the Southern Soviet Urban not as a closed system but as a polyphonic account of fragmented experiential strands that collectively narrate the pathway to urbanity in the Southern republics.

His scholarly output reveals a consistent exploration of contested urban landscapes, with particular attention to how material remnants of socialist planning in cities like Bishkek and Yerevan serve as sites of memory contestation. Leupold's publications demonstrate how Soviet urbanity functioned as an 'embattled geography' where competing visions of past and future are inscribed, with particular focus on alternative urban visions such as Esperanto-speaking internationalists building cities in Central Asia, Armenian Futurists rooting architecture in Persianate heritage, and Jewish-Kyrgyz philosophers envisioning ecopolises.

• CESS Book Award (2021) for 'Embattled Dreamlands: The Politics of Contesting Armenian, Turkish and Kurdish Memory'
• Manoogian Postdoctoral Fellowship at University of Michigan (2018-2019)
• Hansen Foundation Doctoral Fellowship (2015-2017)
• Erasmus Mundus Predoctoral Field Mobility (2014-2015)
• Humboldt Excellence Fellowship (2011-2013)

Leupold has developed and implemented numerous educational initiatives, including scientific training programs on memory studies for Yerevan State University staff, historical-didactical walking tours in Armenia, urban memory workshops like 'Visualizing Yerevan,' and EUSTORY HISTORY CAMPUS workshops examining post-Soviet memory. His research methodology combines archival work with ethnographic fieldwork across multiple languages (including German, English, Turkish, Russian, Persian, Armenian, and Kurdish), allowing him to access diverse perspectives on contested urban histories.