Martina Kaller-Dietrich

Martina Kaller-Dietrich (born November 24, 1963 in Bad Aussee ) is an Austrian historian and Latin American scholar . Since 2000 she has been an associate professor for modern history at the University of Vienna . She is the President of the 54th International Congress of Americanists ( ICA ), which will take place in Vienna in July 2012.

Life

After studying philosophy in Vienna, Berlin and Mexico City, Kaller-Dietrich received his doctorate in 1988 with a thesis on “Identity in history as a problem of the current Mexican self-image at the University of Vienna . A philosophy-historical analysis ”. In 1990 she became an assistant at the chair for non-European history at the University of Vienna with a special focus on Latin America (Institute for History; chair holder Gerhard Drekonja ). In 2000 , Kaller-Dietrich completed his habilitation with a work on nutritional history entitled “Power over stomachs. Eating as the unauthorized activity of women in a Mexican village ”. Martina Kaller-Dietrich held a number of functions at the University of Vienna, in Austrian research on Latin America and in international research cooperation, especially with Latin America. This includes the development and implementation of a curriculum for global history at the University of Vienna (which later resulted in a master’s degree in global history and participation in the Erasmus Mundus Global Studies program) as well as the development and implementation of a Master of Arts in Latin American Studies University of Vienna and Austrian Latin America Institute . From 2007-2011 she was in charge of this interdisciplinary course. In addition, Kaller-Dietrich completed a number of visiting professorships, including at the University of Jaume I (Castellón / Spain), University of Sydney (Australia), Harvard University (USA), Universidad de la Tierra (Oaxaca / Mexico), University of California Santa Barbara (USA) and Université de Paris III (France). For the exhibition “Food on the go. An exhibition on mobility and change ”from May 8th to August 28th 2011, in the Schlossmuseum Linz she was responsible as curator.

After the successful candidacy of the University of Vienna as the venue for the 54th International Congress of Americanists (ICA), which is to take place in July 2012, she is now President of this major academic event.

Focus in research and teaching

Martina Kaller-Dietrich's work focuses on interdisciplinary Latin American studies , global history , food history, development research , gender history , historia intelectual as well as methods and theories of history. At the beginning of the 1990s, Kaller-Dietrich examined together with Markus Brunner and Wolfgang Dietrich in a research project the history of Austrian perception of and policies towards Central America, especially Guatemala (cf. the publication “Project Guatemala”, Vienna 1993). The topics of development , development policy and their criticism remained an important focus of her work in the years that followed. From 1995, Kaller-Dietrich turned increasingly to questions of food , gender and power relations from a historical perspective. To this end, she began intensive research work in Oaxaca (Mexico), which resulted in her habilitation thesis “Power over stomachs. Eating as the unauthorized activity of women in a Mexican village ”(approved in 2000). The central motif of this and later analyzes is the "resistance to the diagnostic power of nutrition". The cultivated plant maize was the focus here again and again . In 2008, Kaller-Dietrich published the first in-depth biography of the philosopher, author and theologian Ivan Illich . In this, Illich's critique of progress, development and modern institutions (school, medicine) in the context of the intellectual and political debates of his time are worked out.

Publications (selection)

• Food on the go. A short global history of mobility and change on the plate . Linz 2011
• Ivan Illich (1926-2002). His life, his thinking . Vienna 2007.
• Latin America 1870-2000. History and Society (Ed. Together with Walther Bernecker, Barbara Potthast and Hans Werner Tobler). Vienna 2007.
• Power over stomachs: make food instead of managing scarcity. Housekeeping in a Mexican village . Vienna 2002.
• Maize - history and use of a cultivated plant (Ed. Together with Daniela Ingruber). Vienna / Frankfurt am Main 2001.
• Project Guatemala. Backgrounds and foregrounds of the Austrian perception of a Central American country (with Markus Brunner and Wolfgang Dietrich). Frankfurt am Main / Vienna 1993.

Web links

• Homepage of Martina Kaller-Dietrich