Eva Marie Lehner

Eva Marie Lehner is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS), University of Bonn. Her research focuses on early modern European history and colonial South Africa, with a specialization in gender studies, body history, and archival documentation practices. She holds a PhD from the University of Duisburg-Essen (summa cum laude, 2021) and an MA from the Free University of Berlin (2014).

Research Interests: Her work examines how categories like gender, social status, and religion were documented in early modern parish records, and how these practices shaped modern conceptions of identity. Her current habilitation project analyzes resistant practices in 18th-century Cape Colony slavery through a body-centered lens. She co-leads the interdisciplinary Body History Working Group within BCDSS’s Research Area E on Gender and Intersectionality.

Awards & Funding: Lehner received the 2021 Dissertation Award from the Arbeitskreis Historische Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung and the 2024 Argelander Mobility Grant. She leads a subproject in the Gerda Henkel Foundation-funded Economies of Trust initiative (2026–2028), exploring support networks for unmarried women in colonial Cape Town.

Academic Contributions: She has organized numerous conferences and workshops, including the Historikertag 2025 Sektion on forced mobility and the Interdisciplinary Workshop on Embodied Experiences (2025). Her publications span German History, Blätter für fränkische Familienkunde, and edited volumes on slavery, gender, and colonial history.

Additional Roles: Lehner serves on BCDSS’s Antidiscrimination Team and previously mentored female students at the University of Bielefeld. She co-edited the journal WerkstattGeschichte and contributed to the online sourcebook Germanness (GHI Washington).