Sinah Theres Kloß
I'm a social and cultural anthropologist, acting as a visiting professor of Anthropology of the Americas at the University of Bonn, Germany. My main research areas are the anthropology of reproduction, medical anthropology, anthropology of religion; sensory anthropology; body politics and embodiment; New Materialism and material feminist theory; transnational migration; and Postcolonial and Southern theory. My regional focus is on the Caribbean, especially Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad.
News
New Article @ Body & Society
"Pregnant Bodies – Embodied Pregnancy: An Introduction" (with Antonia Villinger)
Body & Society 31(1-2)
https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X251322120
New Article @ Body & Society
Body & Society 31(1-2)
https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X251322073
Talk @ DGSKA Working Group "Family in the Field"
"Pregnant with Ideas: Reflections on Pregnancy and Birth in Ethnographic Knowledge Production"
April 25, 2025; 10:00-11:30am
Special Issue @ Journal of Indentureship and Its Legacies
"Indentured Bodies / Embodiments of Indenture" (with Jennifer Leetsch), Journal of Indentureship and Its Legacies 4(2) (open access at Pluto Journals)
New Article @ Material Religion
Tattoos and Sonic Imitation: Mantras, Body Tuning and Tattooing as Sounding
Material Religion 21(2), published online in December 2024. DOI 10.1080/17432200.2024.2418221
Visiting Professorship @ Uni Bonn
Winter Term 2024/25
During the winter term, you can find me at the Department of Anthropology of the Americas as Visiting Professor (Vertretungsprofessorin) of Anthropology
of the Americas, University of Bonn
October 1, 2024 - March 31, 2025
Book Series Editor @ Brill
"The Early Americas: History and Culture"
Series Editors: Mariana Françozo, Sinah Kloß, Nicholas Laluk, Genner Llanes-Ortiz
and Karoline Noack
Talk @ ifeas, Uni Mainz
"Marks of Devotion: Tattoos as Means of Subordination and Emancipation among Caribbean Hindu Women"
Institutskolloquium ifeas (Institut für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien)
University of Mainz
January 14, 2025, 6-8pm
Book Chapter
Kloß, Sinah T. (2025): "Beyond Subordination versus Emancipation: Caribbean Godna (Tattoos) as Means of Recreating Social Relations and Affective Bonds", In: Control, Coercion, and Constraint: The Role of Religion in Overcoming and Creating Structures of Dependency, edited by Wolfram Kinzig and Barbara Loose, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 205-224. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111380575-011
Talk @ Lecture Series
"Othered Ethnography: The Influence of Intersectional Identities, Gendered Challenges and ‘Tropes of Hardship’ on Ethnographic Research",
Lecture Series Engaged Anthropology: Reimagining Social Transformation in Collaborative Anthropological Research
December 3, 2024; 12-2pm
Global Heritage Lab, University of Bonn
Latest BookS
Edited Volume "Transforming Spirit Bodies: Materialization and Embodied Dependencies in South America" (with L. Muders and T. Tagliati), March 2025
Edited Volume
New York: Routledge (Routledge Studies in Cultural History).
Edited Volume.
Paderborn: Brill | Fink.
Book Series
The Early Americas: History and Culture
Series Editors: Mariana Françozo, Sinah Kloß, Nicholas Laluk, Genner Llanes-Ortiz
and Karoline Noack
"The indigenous cultures of North, Middle and South America, including the Caribbean, have a diverse and fascinating history, reaching from the early pre-colonial past until the present. Modern multidisciplinary research investigates many social, political, economic and religious aspects, such as the population movements, the original development of agriculture, sedentary communities, chiefdoms and early states, the effects of mobility and exchange, the forms, functions and meanings of writing systems and visual art, the indigenous knowledge, technology and organisation as well as cosmovision, rituals, biology and medicine, but also the process of European colonization, which caused major destruction as well as complex intercultural dynamics and synergies. Given the importance of cultural continuity in the present, this series pays further attention to living traditions and oral literature, as well as to the present-day issues of cultural values and indigenous rights."
Podcast
Podcast Episode @ Exzellent erklärt - Spitzenforschung für alle
"Tätowierungen: Tattoos als Instrumente der Macht"
Feb. 1, 2024