Dr. Petra Weschenfelder, MA
Department of African Studies, University of Vienna
Petra Weschenfelder is a postdoc researcher (Universitätsassistentin) at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Vienna. She received a Magister Artium in Cultural Anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin doing research with the Comanche People in North America on cultural revitalization and a PhD in Northeast African Archaeology and Cultural Studies at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin focussing on nomad-sedentary interaction. She worked in archaeological projects in Sudan and Qatar, directed ethno-historical and community archaeology projects in Sudan and worked as a freelance consultant in science communication. Her teaching experience include language classes in the medieval language Old Nubian, medieval history and archaeology in Northeast Africa from perspectives of the Islamic and Christian countries respectively. Among her research foci are mobility and religion in medieval Northeast Africa including the analysis of textual evidence in the Old Nubian language, the social meaning of mobile professional groups, to re-evaluate the impact of nomadic groups on historical developments, and the intergenerational transmission of cultural heritage.