Sinah Theres Kloß
I'm a social anthropologist and research group leader at the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS), University of Bonn, Germany. My main research areas are the anthropology of religion; body politics and embodiment; material culture studies; tattooing, clothing and dress; transnational migration; and Postcolonial and Southern theory. My regional focus is on the Caribbean, especially Guyana and Suriname, but I also specialize in the transcultural flows between India and the Caribbean.
News
Talk @ Ev. Erwachsenenbildungswerk Westfalen und Lippe e.V.
"Wenn der Glaube unter die Haut geht: Religiöse Symbolik in Tattoos"
Ev. Gemeindezentrum EGZ Uffeln, Vlotho
November 4, 2022, 7:30 pm
Talk @ ZERG Lecture Series
"Marks of Dependency: Religious Tattooing among Caribbean Hindu Women"
University of Bonn, Germany
June 28, 2022; 6:15 pm
Discussant @ Workshop
"Materialities, Relationalities, Porosities: Anthropological Perspectives on Skin Beyond the Social"
Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, FU Berlin
February 18, 2022
Publication
"Tattoo," 2021. In: The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Wiley Online Library.
Book Chapter
“Touching Deities: Offerings, Energies, and the Notion of Touch in Guyanese Hinduism”, In: Religion and Touch (eds. C. Welch and A. Whitehead), Sheffield: Equinox Publishing (Religion of the Senses), pp. 51-66.
Discussant @ Round Table
"'Picture a Scientist' - Frauen der Wissenschaft"
Podiumsdiskussion & Streaming-Event
Equal Opportunity Office, University of Bonn
July 20, 2021; 12-2pm
Talk @ Workshop "Narratives of Dependency", University of Bonn
"Tattooed Dependency: Embodied Narratives of Suffering and Endurance"
July 16, 2021; 12:15pm
Talk @ DGSKA (German Anthropological Association) Working Group "Gender & Sexualities | Queer Anthropology"
"The Gatekeeper’s Touch: Sexualized Harassment and Power Dynamics during Ethnographic Fieldwork"
July 7, 2021; 5pm
Book Chapter
"Ritualtransfer und Transnationalismus: Zur Konstruktion von Kontexten vor dem Hintergrund transnationaler Migration." 2021. In: Kontextwechsel und Bedeutung (ed. T. Greub, S. Kloß, T. Schröder), Paderborn/Leiden: Fink/Brill, pp. 193-211, Fig. p. 8-10 (Tafeln).
Talk @ Department of Asian and Islamic Art History, University of Bonn
"Sartorial Contestations of Indianness: Guyanese ‘Indian Wear’ and the Creation of the Indian Other"
June 14, 2021; 6pm
Talk @ Institutskolloquium, Institute of Anthropology, University of Heidelberg
"Fieldwork as Embodied Practice: Sexualized Harassment, Gender and Power Dynamics in the Field"
May 25, 2021; 5pm
Latest BookS
Edited Volume
New York: Routledge (Routledge Studies in Cultural History).
Edited Volume.
Paderborn: Brill | Fink.
Edited volume
Munich: oekom.
Upcoming Events
Conference @ BCDSS, University of Bonn, Germany
Transforming Spirit Bodies: Changing Materialities and Embodied Dependencies
September 29-30, 2022
The interdisciplinary conference focuses on the bodies and embodiments of spirits, their (im-)materialities, and the bodily transformations, which they may be subject to in different socio-cultural contexts. Contributions analyze the embodied experiences of asymmetrical dependencies among humans and spirits and how the sensory experiences of interdependence are negotiated in their interactions. They examine and compare the particular (historical) moments and conditions under which these bodily transformations occur and how they can influence understandings of human–nonhuman interdependence.
Conference @ BCDSS, University of Bonn, Germany
Competing Memories: The Politics of Remembering Slavery, Emancipation and Indentureship in the Caribbean
Socare e.V.'s bi-annual conference, organized by Sinah Kloß (Bonn), Andrea Gremels (Frankfurt) and Ulrike Schmieder (Hannover)
March 29-31, 2023