Short Biography

Christoph Lange studied Social Anthropology and Middle East Studies (Master’s degree, two majors) at the University of Leipzig from 2004–2011. With his first travels to Syria, Lebanon and Jordan he set his research focus on the Levant region within the Arab Middle East. From 2008–2012 he worked for the German state-funded Collaborative Research Center 586 „Difference and Integration“ at the Universities of Leipzig and Halle/Lutherstadt Wittenberg where he conducted his first ethnographic research about Bedouin representations in Syrian television dramas and Arab media discourses about authenticity.

From 2014 - 2018 he was a research assistant of Martin Zillinger in the Research Lab "Transformations of Life" of the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne. Since 2018 he has been working at Martin Zillinger's chair at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology.

In 2020 he successfully completed his doctoral thesis on "Decolonizing the Arabian Horse - The Breeding, Circulation and Certification of the Straight Egyptian Arabian in the 21st Century". Currently, Christoph Lange is developing a postdoctoral project on Liminal Infrastructures and Mediterranean Crises from a world ecological perspective.

Christoph Lange is currently spokesperson of the GAA Mediterranean Regional Group and since 2021 contributing editor of the CASTAC Platypus Blog

Thematic Interests and Regional Focus

Social Anthropology of the Mediterranean & Middle East

multispecies-ethnography/more-than-human anthropology, STS, mobility and nomadic studies, translocal entanglements, critical orientalism, media anthropology, kinship and social reproduction theories.

Research Projects

Genealogies and Tribal Histories of Arabian horses – A Comparative Network Analysis of the Transcultural Milieu of Arab and Western breeders, traders and enthusiasts of the Arabian Horse. | Or: Breeding Arabian Horses. Circulation, Certification and Standardization

Courses and Seminars

winter term 20/21: Der Mittelmeerraum als anthropologisches Labor - Ethnologische Perspektiven auf das Mittelmeer & darüberhinaus (BA & MA)

summer term 20: Staat und Stamm, Stadt und Dorf - Relationalität und sozialer Wandel im südlichen Mittelmeer 

winter term 19/20: Decentering the Human. Post- und transhumanistische Perspektiven einer Ethnologie "nach" dem Menschen

summer term 19: Future-Making und Ländlicher Raum – Der Mittelmeerraum als anthropologisches Labor

summer term 19: CSIA IV Reading Group “Beyond Humanism” (a.r.t.e.s. Research Lab)

winter term 18/19: Neue Felder der Ethnologie: Labore, Netzwerke und Technologien – Zum Verhältnis von ethnologischer Forschung und STS (Science & Technologie Studies)

summer term 18: Der ‚animal turn’ und die Ethnologie

winter term 17/18: Ethnologische Theorie und Ethnografische Praxis des Nahen und Mittleren Osten

Publications

Lange, Christoph [in preparation]: Decolonising the Arabian Horse - The Breeding, Circulation and Certification of the Straight Egyptian Arabian in the 21st Century. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis.

Lange, Christoph 2021 [forthcoming]: "How to Win Elections in the Eastern Delta of Egypt: Towards the Idea of a Strategic Tribalism." Special Issue: Rethinking the Mediterranean. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie: n.a.

Holdermann, Simon, Christoph  Lange, Michaela Schäuble, and Martin Zillinger 2021 [forthcoming]: Rethinking Mediterranean Connectivities through Rural Futures, New Publics and Media. Special Issue: Rethinking the Mediterranean. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie: n.a.

Lange, Christoph. 2021. Data Swarms Revisited – New Modes of Being. Platypus - CASTAC Blog. March 2, 2021.

Lange, Christoph. 2020. "The Making and Remaking of the Arabian Horse - From the Arab Bedouin Horse to the Modern Straight Egyptian." In Horse Breeds and Human Society: Purity, Identity and the Making of the Modern Horse, edited by K. Guest and M. Mattfeld, 234-250. London: Routledge.

Lange, Christoph et. al. 2019. "Das Flurgespräch als ethnographisches Feld." boasblogs papers 1: 64-76.

Lange, Christoph. 2018. "Interspecies Performance. The Composition of the Arabian Show Horse as Living Sculpture." In The Situationality of Human-Animal Relations - Perspectives from Anthropology and Philosophy, edited by Thiemo Breyer and Thomas Widlok, 143-166. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.

Lange, Christoph (2018): conference report: Infrastructures of Publics and Publics of Infrastructures, 08.12.2016 – 10.12.2016 Siegen, in: H-Soz-Kult, 07.06.2018.

Lange, Christoph. 2016. "Die Erforschung translokaler Netzwerke, die Zucht arabischer Pferde und globale Standardisierungs- und Zertifizierungsdiskurse." In a.r.t.e.s. jahrbuch 2015/2016, edited by a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne, 42-55. Köln: a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne. (or online at L.I.S.A. Wissenschaftportal Gerda Henkel Stiftung)

Lange, Christoph. 2016. "Purity, Nobility, Beauty and Performance. Past and Present Construction of Meaning for the Arabian Horse." In The Meaning of Horses : Biosocial Encounters, edited by Dona Lee Davis and Anita Maurstad, 39-53. New York, NY: Routledge.

Lange, Christoph. 2012. Beduinität und Authentizität im syrischen Fernsehdrama: Eine medienethnologische Analyse am Beispiel der Serie Finğān ad-Dam. Vol. 31/2012. Halle Saale: ZIRS.

Workshops and Conferences

11/2019 Cologne, Germany: "Genetic Resistance: The Arabian Horse and the Anthropologist as Unruly Companions" Sixty Minutes in Ethnography, Theory & Anthropology, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Cologne.

09/2019 Konstanz, Germany: "What’s (in) that name debate? Reconsidered. ‘Nicht-verhandelbare Grundfeste’ der Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie auf dem Prüfstand," Roundtable-Discussion at GAA Annual Meeting "Das Ende der Aushandlungen" (29.09 - 02.10.2019), University of Konstanz.

09/2019 Cologne, Germany: "Introduction: Towards An Emancipatory Epistemology," Cologne Summer School of Interdisciplinary Anthropology (IV) Beyond Humanism: Cyborgs – Animals – Data Swarms (September 23 - 27  2019), a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne, University of Cologne.

05/2019, Cologne, Germany: "Village and Tribal Virtuality: The Rural Hinterland as Strategic Resource for Future-Making in the Eastern Nile Delta of Egypt,"GAA Conference: Rurality and Future-Making: Comparative Perspectives from Europe, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean (May 22 - 24 2019), Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Cologne.

12/2018 Siegen, Germany: "Village and Virtuality — Digital Media(ted) Practices in the Ethnographic Field: A 21^st century Community Study with the Tahawiya Bedouins in Egypt’s Eastern Delta (Sharqiya)," CRC 1187 Conference Media, Technologies, Cooperation – Rethinking Publics and Publicness in the MENA Region, University of Siegen.

09/2018 Cambridge, UK: "The Performative Constitution of the Arabian horse as Living Sculpture – An Ethnographic Dislocation of Space and Surface," Cambridge AHRC DTP Conference 2018: Space and Surface, Peterhouse, Cambridge.

07/2018 Seville, Spain: "Visiting the Turfs of the Modern Arabian Horse – Hegemonies and Politics of Arabian Horseracing in the Arab Middle East," World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies 2018, Panel: Intersection of Equine Culture and History in Europe, Middle East and North Africa, University of Seville.

07/2017 Cologne, Germany: “The Art of Breeding Arabian Horses – Between Localized Practices and Global Breeding Standards,” GSSC Annual Conference The Global South on The Move – Transforming Capitalism, Knowledge and Ecologies, Global South Studies Centers, University of Cologne.

12/2016 Beirut, Libanon: „From the Arab Bedouin Horse to the Modern Straight Egyptian^TM – Discourses of Ancestry, Genealogical Purity and Bloodlines in the Global Breeding Industry of the Arabian Horse.“ Workshop: Nasab: Lineage and Genealogy in the Arab East, Orientinstitut Beirut, Libanon.

11/2016 Cologne, Germany: „The Contemporary Breeding of Arabian Horses. Or:  A Transnational Gambling with Life?“ Workshop Monetary Games, Big Data and Mereological Magic Gambling, Speculation and Numerology in an Age of Uncertainty, a.r.t.e.s. Research Lab Transformations of Life, University of Cologne (organized with Dr. Mario Schmidt; conference report).

07/2016 Leipzig, Germany: ›Tribalism‹ versus ›Nation building‹ - An Account on the Applicability of Anthropological Theory in the Eastern Nile Delta Province of Sharqiya during the Parliamentary Elections in 2015.“ Symposium: Intervention als Politik und Magie - Motive und Konsequenzen, Institut für Ethnologie, University of Leipzig.

11/2014 Siegen, Germany: „Züchtung, Zirkulation & Zertifizierung arabischer Pferde. Zur Lokalität translokaler Netzwerke.“ Workshop „Medien|Praktiken der Bewegung“ des DFG-Graduiertenkollegs „Locating Media“, University of Siegen.

08/2014 Tallinn, Estland: „Straight Egyptians, Desert-bred and Asil Arabians: Purity, Nobility, Beauty and Performance.“ Konferenz „EASA 2014: Intimacy, Collaboration and Revolution“, University of Tallinn.

12/2012 Cairo, Egypt: „A Cup of Blood – The Representation of Bedouins in Syrian Television drama,“ Conference „The Arab East and the Bedouin Component“, Orient-Institut Beirut & CRC 586, American University Cairo.