Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Institut für Europäische Ethnologie

Curriculum Vitae

Education

Ph.D. in social sciences 1996 Tübingen University
Magister in European Ethnology 1992 Tübingen University
Diploma in public administration 1984 Stuttgart (FH)
 

Positions held

2007- Professor for European Ethnology Humboldt University Berlin
2009-2010 Simon Visiting Professor University of Manchester
2003-2007 Jun. Professor for European Ethnology Humboldt University Berlin
1999-2000 Visiting Assistant Professor UC Berkeley
1998-2003 Postdoctoral researcher Humboldt U, U Darmstadt, U Tübingen
 

Research Areas

Social & medical anthropology, science and technology studies, social cognition, anthropology of knowledge and expertise
 

Academic functions and administration 

Co-Speaker Sonderforschungsbereich 640 “Representations of Social Order – Intertemporal and Intercultural Comparisons”, Humboldt University at Berlin
Speaker Integrative Graduate Centre, Sonderforschungsbereich 640, Humboldt University at Berlin
Member “Fakultätsrat”, Philosophische Fakultät I, Humboldt University at Berlin
Chair “Prüfungsausschuss”, Dept. of European Ethnology, Humboldt University at Berlin
Boardmember “Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies”, FU Berlin
Associate Member, “BIOS Centre for the Study of Bioscience, Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Society”, London School of Economics, UK
Associate Member, Cluster of Excellence “Image Knowledge Gestaltung. An Interdisciplinary Laboratory”, Humboldt University at Berlin 
 
 

Funded Research Projects

  • 2010-2013 Head of the Project “The production of Chronicity in the context of psychiatric care and research in Berlin”, (funded by the DFG)
  • 2009-2014 Principal Investigator (PI): Research Cluster “Biofuel as Social Fuel” in collaboration with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change (PIK) (funded by BMBF)
  • 2004-2013 PI Collaborative Research Centre (Sonderforschungsbereich 640) “Representations of Social Order – Intertemporal and Intercultural Comparisons”, German Research Council, with a comparative study on IVF-practices in Germany, Turkey, and Great britain.
  • 2007-2010 Head of the Research Cluster „Preventive Selves – Interdisciplinary Investigations into an Emergent Form of Life”, in collaboration with Charité (Medical School) Berlin, WZB, BIOGUM Hamburg. (funded by BMBF)
  • 2006-2009 PI: “Conceptualisations of Homo Europaeus in Medicine and Nutritional Research” in the context of the Research Cluster „Imagined Europeans. Die wissenschaftliche Konstruktion des Homo Europaeus“ (funded by BMBF, Germany)
  • 2004-2007 PI: “Challenges of Biomedicine – Socio-cultural contexts, European Governance and Bioethics” (EU-funded STREP, 6th framework)
  • 2004-2009 Head of the “Collaboratory Social Anthropology & Life Sciences” (funded by the Senatsverwaltung Wissenschaft und Kunst, Berlin, Germany) 
 

Selected recent publications

  • Beck, S. 2013. Kohärenz und Emergenz: Durkheim und die Sozialanthropologie. In: Tanja Bogusz, Heike Delitz (eds.): Émile Durkheim. Soziologie – Ethnologie – Philosophie. Frankfurt/M., New York 2013, Campus, pp. 291–318
  • Beck, S., Niewöhner, J, Sørensen, E. (eds) 2012. Science and Technology Studies. Eine sozialanthropologische Einführung. Bielefeld, transcript
  • Beck, S. 2012. Interlacing the brain, contextualizing the body. Relational understandings in social neuroscience. In: Max Liljefors, Susanne Lundin, Andréa Wiszmeg (eds.): The Atomized Body. The Cultural Life of Stem Cells, Genes and Neurons. Lund, Nordic Academic Press, pp. 113–142.
  • Beck, S. 2012. Biomedical Mobilities – Transnational Lab-Benches and Other Space-Effects. In: Michi Knecht, Maren Klotz, Stefan Beck (eds): Reproductive Technologies as Global Form. Ethnographies of Knowledge, Practices, and Transnational Encounters. Frankfurt/New York 2012: Campus, pp. 357–374
  • Beck, S. 2011. Staging bone marrow donation as a ballot. Reconfiguring the social and the political using biomedicine in Cyprus. Body & Society, 17 (2-3): 93–119.
  • Beck, S. 2011. La politisation et la moralisation d’une pratique médical : le don de moelle osseuse comme referendum. In: Joëlle Vailly, Janina Kehr, Jörg Niewöhner (dir.): De la vie biologique à la vie sociale. Paris, La Decouverte, pp. 51–77
  • Roepstorff, A, Niewöhner, J and S. Beck. 2010. Enculturing Brains through Patterned Practices. Neural Networks, 23: 1051–1059
  • Beck, S. 2011. Epistemische Dreiecksbeziehungen: Überlegungen zur Ko-Konstruktion von Krankheit, Individuum und Gesellschaft. In: Sascha Dickel, Martina Franzen, Christoph Kehl (Hg.): Herausforderung Biomedizin. Gesellschaftliche Deutung und soziale Praxis. Bielefeld, S. 157–182.
  • Beck, S. 2010. Translating Experience into Biomedical Assemblages. Observations on European Forms of (Imagined) Participatory Agency in Healthcare. In: Thomas Mathar and Yvonne J.F.M. Jansen (eds.): Health Promotion and Prevention Programmes in Practice. Münster, S. 195–222.
  • Beck, S., Amelang, K. 2010. Comparison in the wild and more disciplined usages of an epistemic practice. In: Thomas Scheffer, Jörg Niewöhner: Thick Comparison. Reviving the Ethnographic Aspiration. (= International Studies in Sociology and Social Anthropology, Vol. 114) Leiden, Boston, Brill. S. 155–179
  • Beck, S., M. Lengwiler. 2008. Historizität, Materialität und Hybridität von Wissenspraktiken: Die Entwicklung europäischer Präventionsregimes im 20. Jahrhundert. In: Geschichte und Gesellschaft H. 34, Herbst, S. 489–523
  • Niewöhner, J, Kehl, C and S. Beck. 2008. Wie geht Kultur unter die Haut? Emergente Praxen an der Schnittstelle von Medizin, Lebens- und Sozialwissenschaft. Bielefeld, transcript.
  • Beck, S. 2008. Natur | Kultur. Überlegungen zu einer relationalen Anthropologie. In: Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, 104, II: 161–199.
  • Beck, S. 2007. Medicalizing Culture(s) or Culturalizing Medicine(s)? in: Burri et al. (eds.): Medicine as Culture. London, Routledge: 17–33.
  • Beck, S. 2007. Globalisierte Reproduktionsregimes. Anmerkungen zur Emergenz biopolitischer Handlungsräume. In: Verwandtschaft machen. Soziale Formen der Reproduktionsmedizin und Adoption in Deutschland und der Türkei. Sonderheft der Berliner Blätter – Ethnographische und ethnologische Beiträge, Berlin 2007, S. 124-151.