Wilhelm Möhlig

Wilhelm Johann Georg Möhlig (born September 2, 1934 in Essen ) is a German lawyer and Africanist . From 1980 until his retirement in 2000 he was Full Professor of African Studies at the University of Cologne . During this time he was also managing director of the Institute for African Studies several times. His research and teaching focuses on comparative Bantu studies , dialectology , oral literature , African law and the pre- and early-colonial history of Africa .

education

In 1954, Wilhelm Möhlig passed the Abitur at the State Gymnasium (today's Heinrich-Heine-Gymnasium) in Oberhausen. He then completed commercial training in iron and steel exports at Ferrostaal AG , Essen, which he successfully completed in 1956. From 1956 to 1958 he was a commercial clerk at the training company. After starting his studies, he continued to work for Famex SA, Antwerp, and Eisen und Metall AG , Gelsenkirchen, in the job he had learned.

Scientific career

After working for two years in his learned profession, Wilhelm Möhlig began studying law at the Universities of Cologne and Geneva in 1958 , which he completed with the first state examination at the Cologne Higher Regional Court in 1963. After he was accepted into the German National Academic Foundation in 1962 , he began a second degree in African studies , phonetics , ethnology and general linguistics at the University of Cologne in 1963 , which he completed with a doctorate to become a Dr. phil. graduated from the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Cologne in 1967.

Professional development

In 1967 he became a research assistant at the Institute for African Studies at the University of Cologne. After completing his habilitation there in 1972 in African Studies , he was appointed Associate Professor in 1973. From 1973 to 1975 Wilhelm Möhlig was visiting professor for Swahili at the University of Nairobi in Kenya. In 1980 he was appointed full professor for African studies at the University of Cologne. In 1989, he translated the novel Children of the rainmaker of Aniceti Kitereza into German. The German edition was first published in 1990. From 1995 to 2000 he was also the spokesman for the interdisciplinary collaborative research center ACACIA (cultural and landscape change in arid Africa), which is funded by the German Research Foundation .

Research stays in Africa

• 1964: Tanzania (informal law)
• 1965: Namibia (linguistic, oral-literary, socio-anthropological)
• 1969–1988: Kenya (dialectologically) several months a year
• 1989, 1990: Tanzania (basic rights and informal law)
• since 1995: ongoing (linguistic, socio-anthropological, historical)

Web links

• Literature by and about Wilhelm Möhlig in the catalog of the German National Library
• Wilhelm Möhlig as author and editor at Rüdiger Köppe Verlag
• SFB ACACIA site