Isabel Eiser, M.A.

+ ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS

2018-2022: PhD candidate at research center “Hamburg’s (post-)colonial legacy”, University Hamburg, Department of History, Work Area Global History; PhD thesis working title: „Becoming an Emblem. [Wér|dung] einer Ikone. Von Kolonialer Propaganda zu dekolonialer Gegenbewegung. Eine Diskursanalyse der ‚Benin-Bronzen‘“ / “Becoming an Emblem. From Colonial Propaganda to Decolonial Movement. A Discourse Analysis on the ‘Benin Bronzes’”

Supervisor Prof. Dr. Jürgen Zimmerer

Supported by a PhD scholarship from the Gerda Henkel Stiftung

2009-2015: Magistra Artium, Historische Ethnologie & Kunstpädagogik, Goethe Universität Frankfurt, Magisterarbeit: „Die Repatriierungsforderungen australischer Aborigines und die Haltung ethnologischer Museen“, Betreuer: Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Kohl.

+ PUBLICATIONS

Eiser, Isabel (2022): Fighting Fictions – Producing ‘Truths’. Tracing the Discursive Struggles on the ‘Benin Bronzes’. [upcoming]

Eiser, Isabel (2021): Ikone einer Debatte. Eine Rezeptionsgeschichte der Benin-Bronzen. In: bpb APuZ: Nigeria, www.bpb.de/apuz/nigeria-2021/337818/eine-rezeptionsgeschichte-der-benin-bronzen.

Eiser, Isabel. (2020): Of Plans and Pandemics: Researching the ‘Benin Bronzes,’ the Control over Archival Records and Access to Digital Knowledge Stocks in Nigeria. In: Ajala, Aderemi et al. (Hg.): African Ethnography, 2nd Issue. Nigeria, Ibadan: African Ethnography Services Ltd.

Eiser, Isabel (2019): Thoughts about Europe. It’s All in the Name of Science. In: Master of none (Hg): This used to be an Art Gallery. Leimen: ColorDruck Solutions GmbH.

Schrenk, Friedemann; Kuper, Anke; Rahn, Anne Marie; Eiser, Isabel (2018): Menschen in Sammlungen. Geschichte verpflichtet, 45-61. In:  Brandstetter, Anna-Maria, Hierholzer, Vera (Hg.): Nicht nur Raubkunst! Sensible Dinge in Museen und universitären Sammlungen. Mainz: Mainz University Press.

Eiser, Isabel (2011): Zé Pelintra & Pomba Gira, 131-133. In: Jebens, Holger (Hg.): Herbarium der Kultur – Ethnographische Objekte und Bilder aus den Archiven des Frobenius-Instituts. Frankfurt am Main: Frobenius Institut.

+ RECENT CONFERENCE AND WORKSHOP PRESENTATIONS

•   “With Digital Discourses to Decolonial Analyses? Critical Reflections on a Discourse Analysis of the ‚Benin Bronzes‘ in Newspapers from Nigeria, Great Britain and Germany.”
  Online-Conference by SMUS Botswana | September 2021                                      
  1st International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Spatial Methods | Session 03:
  Decolonizing Methodologies and Epistemologies: Discourse Analysis and Sociology of Knowledge | by Reiner Keller, Saša Bosančić, Florian Elliker, Annette Knaut
•   “Control and Accessibility of Knowledge Stocks. Newspaper Archives as Material Sources for a Digital Analysis. On the Discourses on the ‘Benin Bronzes’ in Nigeria, Great Britan and Germany.”
  Online-Conference „Africa Challenges“ by VAD | June 2021
  Panel 51: Critical Reflections on Knowledge Production And Representation In African Studies | by Alzbeta Sváblová, Diana B. Kisakye, Serawit B. Debele
•   „Becoming an Emblem. Von kolonialer Propaganda zu dekolonialer Gegenbewegung. Eine Diskursanalyse der ‚Benin-Bronzen‘“
  Online-Colloquium by German Historical Institute London (GHIL) | November 2020
•   „Die Rolle des Pressewesens in Prozessen von Globalisierung und Nationalismus im kolonialen und postkolonialen Großbritannien und Nigeria“
  Online-Oberseminar by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Zimmerer | June 2020
  University Hamburg, Department of History, Work Area Global History, Research center „Hamburg‘s (post-)colonial legacy“
•   [Postponed/Canceled]: “Becoming an Emblem. A Critical Discourse Analysis on the ‚Benin Bronzes‘”
  Seminar by Prof. Dr. Olutayo Adesina | April 2020
  University Ibadan, Nigeria, Department of History
•  [Postponed/Canceled]: “Becoming an Emblem. From Colonial Propaganda to Decolonial Movement. A Discourse Analysis on the ‚Benin Bronzes‘.”
  Seminar by Prof. Dr. Suleiman Aderemi Ajala | April 2020
  University Ibadan, Nigeria, Department of Archaeology & Anthropology
•   “Doing a Discourse Analysis on the ‘Benin Bronzes’”
  International Summer School SKAD by Prof. Dr. Reiner Keller | Juli 2019
  University Augsburg, Department of Sociology
•   „The ‘Benin Bronzes’. Globalizing the Colonial Looting of Art.”
  International Workshop by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Zimmerer | April 2019
  University Hamburg, Department of History, Work Area Global History, Research center „Hamburg‘s (post-)colonial legacy“
•   „Die Rezeptionsgeschichte der ‚Benin-Bronzen‘. Die Globalisierung des kolonialen Kunstraubs.“
  Oberseminar by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Zimmerer | Januar 2019
  University Hamburg, Department of History, Work Area Global History, Research center „Hamburg‘s (post-)colonial legacy“

+ PHD RESEARCH PROJECT

•   Working Title: „Becoming an Emblem. [Wér|dung] einer Ikone. Von Kolonialer Propaganda zu dekolonialer Gegenbewegung. Eine Diskursanalytische Untersuchung der ‚Benin-Bronzen‘.“ / „Becoming an Emblem. From Colonial Propaganda to Decolonial Movement. A Discourse Analysis on the ‚Benin Bronzes‘.“; part of the German-Nigerian research project „The ‘Benin Bronzes’. Globalizing the Colonial looting of Art“ at the research center „Hamburg’s (post-)colonial legacy,” Department of History, Work Area Global History, supported by a PhD scholarship from the Gerda Henkel Stiftung.
•   Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Jürgen Zimmerer

ABSTRACT

The ‘Benin bronzes’ are emblematic of the contemporary disputes over the restitution of art looted in colonial times. As spoils of war, the thousands of objects plundered by British troops in a so-called 'punitive expedition' against Benin City in 1897 have thus become an icon of post- and decolonial narratives and movements. While the reception history of the ‘Benin bronzes’ is mainly studied with focus on early European ethnological perception, it therefore continues to limit historical investigation to questions of western acquisition, dislocation, and appropriation. As a result, discourses surrounding these objects are merely considered in passing, if acknowledged at all. This PhD thesis seeks to expand the traditional scope of reception history by examining transnational public discourses that made the Benin objects as discursive entities an iconic symbol for post- and decolonial narratives and movements. By exploring a postcolonial provenance of “absence,” newspaper discourses over the enduring dislocation of the ‘Benin bronzes’ from Nigeria, Great Britain, the United States and German-speaking countries are analyzed in relation to questions of the production of assertive discourses and alleged ‘truths’, of colonial propaganda as well as of counter narrations and movements. Integrating decolonizing theories and methods from digital humanities, this thesis explores the methodological possibilities of a ‘multi-axial discourse analysis’ on a global scale and over an extended period. By bringing together different methodological foci, an extensive data set of public discourses around the 'Benin bronzes' can be analyzed and will be made available to the public in open access as a digital web presentation with interactive visualizations of interim results.