Mareile Flitsch

Mareile Flitsch (born January 7, 1960 in Münster , Westphalia) is a German ethnologist and sinologist . She is a daughter of the organic chemist Wilhelm Flitsch .

Live and act

education and study

After graduating from high school in 1978 at the Annette-von-Droste-Hülshoff-Gymnasium , Mareile Flitsch studied ethnology and sinology at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster until 1980, and from 1980 to 1982 sinology at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris and ethnology at the University of Paris X in Nanterre (qualifications: License in Sinology, Maîtrise in ethnology, Title of the thesis: " Les Li de l'île de Hainan , une société traditionnelle dans le groupe ethno-linguistique Tai-Kadai "), 1982-1985 narrative research and Chinese folklore to from Liaoning University in Shenyang ( People's Republic of China ) and from 1985 to 1990 Sinology (with Professor Erling von Mende ) and Ethnology (with Georg Pfeffer ) at the Free University in Berlin . In 1990 she did her doctorate with Erling von Mende with the thesis "The Ginseng Complex in the Han Chinese storytelling traditions of the Jilin Changbai area ". 2001 habilitation they are also in Mende, with the work " The Kang . A study on the material everyday culture of peasant farms in Manjurei ”.

activities

From 1990 to 1994 she worked as a research assistant at the East Asian Seminar of the Free University of Berlin in the VW research project "Handbook of rural culture Liaonings ". From 1995 to 2000 she carried out research on the subject of “House and Farm in Manjurei” with a habilitation grant from the German Research Foundation . From 2002 to 2005 she headed a research group as part of the project “History and Ethnology of Everyday Techniques of China” funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. This project was based at the "China-Arbeitsstelle" of the TU Berlin , whose management she took over in 2005 and held it until March 2008. In the autumn semester 2005 she was visiting professor at the Jiaotong University Shanghai , in the summer semester 2008 she was visiting professor at the Institute for Social Anthropology at the Free University of Berlin. Since August 2008 she has been a professor at the Department of Ethnology at the University of Zurich and director of the UZH Ethnological Museum (successor to Michael Oppitz ).

Main focus of work and field research

The focus of Mareile Flitsch's ethnological research and teaching is technology ethnology with a focus on culinary arts, popular architecture, practical knowledge and body techniques. In addition, there is “ material culture ” (as a more classic discipline of museum ethnology), the history of knowledge, the history of science , orality and literacy and narrative research . She undertook her numerous field research mainly in the rural areas of northeast China, particularly in the provinces of Jilin and Liaoning and in the region of Hulun Buir in Inner Mongolia . More recently, research trips to the Salar have been added to Xunhua in Qinghai and to Gulja in Xinjiang .

Fonts (selection)

• The ginseng complex in the Han Chinese storytelling traditions of the Jilin Changbai area. Recording, presentation and analysis of the Jilin ginseng counts using self-collected material and with special consideration of the folk literature and folklore research of Jilin 1949-1988 . European university publications 19, 23. Frankfurt / M .: Lang 1994. ISBN 978-3-631-46958-3 .
• The Suobo Staff in Custom and Tale. Ginseng Seekers' Material Culture in Jilin Han Folk Literature . In: Techniques et culture No. 29, pp. 41-65. Paris 1997.
• Yi shi zhu xing and qiyong, five basic human needs. The fengsu sections of the local chronicles of Northeast China and their representation of material culture . In: Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ostasienforschung 22, 1998. S. 193–214.
• Before the "eye of the mother-in-law". On the material everyday culture of women in rural North and Northeast China . In: Monika Übelhör (ed.): Women's life in traditional China. Limits and possibilities of a reconstruction. Contribution to a symposium of the Sinology department at the Philipps University of Marburg. Writings from the University Library of Marburg, Vol. 94, pp. 182–209. Marburg 1999.
• Papercut Stories of the Manchu Woman Artist Hou Yumei . In: Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 58, pp. 353-375. Nagoya 1999.
• Balance and small steps. The deformity of the feet and the everyday life of Chinese women in China at the turn of the century . In: Monika Übelhör (ed.): Between tradition and revolution. Life plans and ways of life of Chinese women on the threshold of modernity. Writings of the University Library of Marburg Vol. 107, pp. 227-252. Marburg 2001.
• Oral traditions and the problem of their recording in the PRC . In: Oriens Extremus, No. 43, pp. 221–236. Hamburg 2002.
• The kang. A study on the material everyday culture of rural homesteads in Manjurei . Series: Opera Sinologica. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2004. ISBN 978-3-447-05000-5 .
• Foot and Shoe - Technological and Ethnological Considerations for the Presentation of Material Culture in Museum Exhibitions . In: Graf, Bernhard u. Müller, Astrid B. (ed.): Exhibiting art and cultures of the world. Conference proceedings. Messages and reports from the Institute for Museum Studies SMB, No. 30, pp. 26–41. Berlin 2005.
• On the Representation of Peasant Agricultural Technology in Liaoning Gazetteers of the 1930s: The Section on Agriculture in the Fengtian tongzhi . In: Vogel, Hans Ulrich and Moll-Murata, Christine and Gao Xuan (Eds.): Studies on Ancient Chinese Scientific and Technical Texts. Proceedings of the 3rd ISACBRST, March 31 - April 3, 2003, Tübingen, Germany. Zhengzhou: Elephant Press 2006, pp. 286-300.
• “Western kitchen with chopsticks” - reflections on the socio-technical perception of the world in modern Chinese everyday life . In: Siebert, Martina and Kolb, Raimund (ed.): About heaven and earth. Festschrift for Erling von Mende. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2006, pp. 127–151.
• (Co-author) Traditional building and living of the Salar in Northwest China . In: Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan, 39, pp. 128–234. Berlin: Reimer 2008.
• From kick shuttlecock to women's sport: China's women at the end of the foot-tying era . In: Bockrath, Franz u. Boschert, Bernhard u. Franke, Elk (ed.): Physical knowledge: forms of reflexive experience, pp. 229–246. Bielefeld 2008. ISBN 978-3-89942-227-6 .
• Technological ethnology of China: a position assessment . In: Technikgeschichte, 75 (2), pp. 83–99. Berlin: edition sigma 2008.
• Body posture tool: anthropological reflections on the depiction of body artefact relationships in Chinese folk art . In: Zielinski, Siegfried u. Fürlus, Eckhard (ed.): Variantology 3: on deep time relations of arts, sciences and technologies in China and elsewhere. Cologne 2008, pp. 191-210. ISBN 978-3-86560-366-1 .
• Knowledge, embodiment, skill and risk: anthropological perspectives on women's everyday technologies in rural northern China . In: East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal, 2 (2), pp. 265-288. Durham, Dordrecht: Springer 2008.
• 中国 的 技术 民族 学: 一种 所在地 规定. Zhongguo de jishu minzu xue: yi zhong suozai de guiding (Chinese Anthropology of Technology: An Introduction). In: Zhang, Baichun u. Li, Chenzhi: 技术 的 人类学 ， 民俗学 与 工业 考古学 研究Jishu de renleixue, minsuxue yu gongye kaogu xue yanjiu (Studies in the History of Technology: New Perspectives from Anthropology, Folklore and Industrial Archeology), pp. 15-26. Beijing 2009.
• Hesitant hands on changing tables: Negotiating dining patterns in diaspora food culture transfer . In: Asiatische Studien / Études Asiatiques, 65 (4), pp. 969-984. Frankfurt / M., Bern 2011.

In the series “Everyday Cultures of China” published by Mareile Flitsch at Harrassowitz-Verlag , five volumes have been published so far, four of which are final theses by own students:

• Altner, Diana: The Downsizing of the Yak Skin Boats. Fisheries Cultures in Central and Southern Tibet in the Socio-Economic Change of Modern China. 2009. ISBN 978-3-447-05903-9 .
• Wu, Xiujie: A Century of Light. A technological and ethnological study of lighting in everyday Chinese rural life. 2009. ISBN 978-3-447-05999-2 .
• Grothmann, Kerstin: The Arshe. Work songs from the traditional Tibetan building trade. 2011. ISBN 978-3-447-06453-8 .
• Hopf, Iris: Uniform in the Cultural Revolution ? About the connection between cutting technique and ideology in China in the 1960s and 1970s. 2011. ISBN 978-3-447-06545-0 .
• Kaufmann, Lena: Mala tang. Everyday strategies of rural migrants in Shanghai . 2011. ISBN 978-3-447-06522-1 .

In the series opera sinologica (Harrassowitz-Verlag), in which her habilitation had already appeared, in 2008 she published the translation of a work by the Soviet sinologist Vladimir Sergeevič Starikov made by Rainer Schwarz : The material culture of the Chinese in the north-eastern provinces of the PR China ( ISBN 978-3-447-05639-7 ; original edition: Moscow 1967).

Web links

• Publications by and about Mareile Flitsch in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library
• on the website of the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich
• casca-halle-zurich.org
• china.tu-berlin.de