| Carola Lentz | |
| Birth Date: | 21 April 1954 |
| Birth Place: | Braunschweig, Germany |
| Alma Mater: | University of Göttingen (first state exam) University of Hamburg (second state exam) University of Göttingen (Master of Science) Leibniz University Hannover (PhD) |
| Workplaces: | Free University of Berlin Northwestern University, Illinois Goethe University, Frankfurt Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study University of Mainz Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle Harvard University, Cambridge |
Carola Lentz (*April 21, 1954, in Braunschweig) is a German social anthropologist and, since November 2020, president of the Goethe-Institut.[1] [2] She is senior research professor at the Department of Anthropology and African Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz.[3]
From 1972 to 1979 Lentz studied sociology, political science, German studies, and education at University of Göttingen and Free University of Berlin. After passing her first state exam in secondary school education at University of Göttingen in 1979, she there continued her studies in sociology while also working as a teacher at "Arbeit und Leben" ('work and life') (an association supported by the German trade union federation) in Göttingen and Braunschweig. Following two years of teacher training in Hamburg from 1981 until 1982, she sat the second state exam, completing her qualification to work as a secondary school teacher.[1] [4] See also:[3]
She continued her education at the University of Göttingen, undertaking her postgraduate studies in agricultural sciences in the tropics and subtropics at the 'Department of Rural Development' (now called 'Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development'), with social anthropology and agricultural sociology as her subsidiary subjects. In 1985, she completed her Master of Science in Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture; two years later, Lentz received her PhD in sociology from the University of Hannover.[5] See also:[3] In the years that followed, she worked as research assistant of the regional group 'Africa and Europe' at the Institute of Anthropology, Free University of Berlin.[6] Between 1992 and 1995, Lentz conducted her habilitation research, supported by a scholarship by the German Research Foundation.[6] In May 1993, she held a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study and Research in the African Humanities, Northwestern University (Illinois, USA). In 1995–96, Lentz deputized for a chair of social anthropology at the Department of Historical Ethnology at Goethe University, Frankfurt.[6] After completing her habilitation at the Free University of Berlin in October 1996, she worked as university professor for social anthropology with a focus on the social anthropology of Africa at Goethe University Frankfurt/Main, a position she held until 2002. In 2000–01, Lentz was a fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences,[7] Wassenaar.[6] During her time at the University of Frankfurt, she participated in the SFB special research unit 268 'West-African savannah' working in particular to promote and organize academic exchange with the partner university in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.[8]
From April 2002 to September 2019, Lentz was professor for social anthropology at the Department of Anthropology and African Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz. During that time, she was awarded various fellowships, amongst others at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle (October – December 2002) and at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, Cambridge,[7] financed by a Fulbright scholarship (2008–09). From 2011 until 2015, she was president of the Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte. Between October 2012 and July 2013, she was fellow at the international research centre 'Work and Human Life Cycle in Global History' at Humboldt University, Berlin.[6] In 2014, she was elected member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW), serving as secretary of the BBAW's Social Science Class (2016–18).[5] In autumn 2014, she was the first German researcher to be awarded the Melville J. Herskovits Prize, the most important international book prize in African studies,[7] for her book Land, Mobility and Belonging in West Africa, a project on which she worked for more than fifteen years.[9] From April to July 2015, she held a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Delmenhorst. From September 2017 to July 2018, she was a fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin), leading the focus group 'Family History and Social Change in Africa'.[10] From 2018 to 2020, she was vice-president of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. In spring 2019, she held a two-month fellowship at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, participating in a research group on the new middle class in Africa.[11] Since October 2019, she has held the position of senior research professor at the Department of Anthropology and African Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz.[12] [13]
On November 13, 2020, Lentz became president of the Goethe-Institut, following her predecessor Klaus-Dieter Lehmann.[1] [14] [15] In autumn 2020, she has been elected member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.[16]
Thematically, Lentz' research focuses on ethnicity, nationalism, the politics of memory, land rights, land disputes, colonial history, the anthropology of the state, elite biographies, the emergence of African middle class, qualitative research methods and anthropological theories of culture.[17] Her regional focus is West Africa, in particular Ghana and Burkina Faso.[17] After conducting fieldwork in Bolivia and Ecuador (1980), and again in Ecuador on Indian labour migration and changing indigenous identities (1983–1985), Lentz began her research in West Africa.[5] Between 1987 and 1996, she regularly conducted fieldwork in North-Western Ghana (altogether eighteen months) on topics such as ethnicity, the emergence of elite(s) and middle class, labour migration (gold mines), colonial history, and the history of chieftaincy.[5] In December 1996, she monitored the parliamentary and presidential elections in Ghana as a member of an election observer team sent by the Federal Foreign Office.[6] Lentz also has a special interest in Burkina Faso. Between 1997 and 2005, she regularly conducted fieldwork in Southern Burkina Faso, exploring topics including settlement history, land rights, ethnicity and the politics of belonging with the aim to do comparative research with North-Western Ghana.[6] From 2005 onward, Lentz conducted further fieldwork in Ghana in the context of the research project 'States at Work', funded by Volkswagen Foundation.[18] In 2006, she supervised the fieldwork of a group of Master's students on work at police stations, courts and schools in Upper West Region, Ghana. In that context she also conducted her own research on the history and the contemporary situation of educational elite(s) and the newly emerging middle class in Northern Ghana.[19] Between 2009 and 2013, Lentz coordinated a doctoral research group that explored the politics of memory and national-day celebrations in Africa as part of the programme 'PRO Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften 2015' at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz.[6] In addition, Lentz supervised the fieldwork of a group of Master's students on African national-day celebrations, initiated in 2010. Between 2013 and 2019, she continued research on the politics of memory, national-day celebrations, nation-building and the performance of the nation and subnational differences in Africa in the context of a follow-up project that was part of the research unit Un/Doing Differences, funded by the German Research Foundation.[20]
Moreover, Lentz has served as editor and reviewer. She was a member of the academic advisory councils of, among others, the journals Food and Foodways, Africa, Ethnos, African Affairs, Africa Spectrum, ,[21] and .[22] She was co-editor of the series Mainzer Beiträge zur Afrikaforschung.[23] as well as of the series African Social Studies issued by Brill, Leiden.[24] She was also a member of the board of trustees of the Heckmann Wentzel Foundation and a member of the academic advisory council of the Einstein Chronoi Center.[6] In 2020, Lentz has been elected member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, serving as expert in the section cultural sciences.[16] As president of the Goethe-Institut, she currently holds membership in several partner organisations. She is, for example, member of the advisory committee of the German Federal Cultural Foundation, permanent guest of the DAAD's executive committee and member of the board of trustees of the foundation Stiftung Lesen (i. e. the 'Reading Foundation').[25]