Stefanie Samida

Stefanie Samida is Privatdozentin (Associate Professor) for Popular Cultures at Heidelberg University, where she has led the Fritz-Thyssen-funded project “The National Socialist Thingstätten: Invisible Heritage in the Discourse of Memory Culture” since 2020. Previously she headed a junior research group on cultural heritage in the Heidelberg School of Education (2015-2019) and coordinated the Volkswagen-funded network “Living History: Reenacted Prehistory between Research and Popular Performance” at the Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam.

Education:

• 2017 – Habilitation & Venia Legendi in Popular Cultures, University of Zurich
• 2005 – Dr. phil. in Media Studies, University of Tübingen (state doctoral scholarship)
• 2001 – Diploma in Media Practice, University of Tübingen
• 1999 – Magister Artium (Pre-/Early History, Classical Archaeology, Medieval History), Universities of Tübingen & Kiel

Research Interests: Her work integrates cultural heritage studies, material-culture theory, public history, and the popularisation of archaeology. She analyses how societies perform, consume, and mediate the past—from 19th-century press coverage of Schliemann’s excavations to present-day First-World-War re-enactments.

Publications & Trends: Samida has (co-)authored seven monographs, including Living History as a Subject of Historical Learning (2015) and Archaeology as a Natural Science? A Polemic (2013), and co-edits the UTB series “Public History – Geschichte in der Praxis”. Her recent articles interrogate the “material turn”, interdisciplinary cooperation between archaeologists and geneticists, and the memory-political functions of popular re-enactment.

Teaching & Grants: Since 2000 she has designed and taught courses at Tübingen, Freiburg, Berlin (FU & HU), Lüneburg, Zurich and Heidelberg, consistently linking academic reflection with practical formats such as Living-History workshops and science-media labs. External funding has come from the Gerda Henkel Foundation, Volkswagen Foundation, and Fritz Thyssen Foundation.

Labs & Networks: She built and led the junior research group “Cultural Heritage” within the Heidelberg School of Education and is an alumna of the TOPOI and IFK Vienna research clusters, maintaining active collaboration with archaeologists, historians, media scholars and educators across Europe.