In publica commoda

New in Göttingen in April 2018: jun.-Prof. Dr. Maria Pohn-Lauggas

On April 1, Maria Pohn-Lauggas will be start as junior professor of social science methodology with a focus on methodological research and combination of methods. Prior to coming to Göttingen, she conducted her research at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Vienna and taught at universities in Salzburg, Graz, St. Pölten and Göttingen. Her research has been supported by the Austrian Science Fund FWF. Her main research fields are memory studies, analysis of intergenerational transmission, Visual Sociology, biography and discourse research as well as methodology of social science.

Maria Pohn-Lauggas studied at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna and did her doctorate on strategies for action and processing of so-called rubble women at the University of Vienna. With the combination of biography and discourse analytic approaches, she already focused on method research and development of methods in her doctoral thesis. Her doctoral thesis is published with the title “Heroisierte Opfer. Bearbeitungs- und Handlungsstrukturen von ‚Trümmerfrauen‘ in Wien“ (2. Aufl. 2014). In her habilitation project on intergenerational transmission of resistance experiences against National Socialism, she continues this focus by investigating the significance of narration and photography in the biographical construction processes of descendants of people who have resisted, linking verbal, written and visual data. Her research will now include a country comparison between Germany and Austria and include highly stigmatized Nazi victim groups that have not been systematically considered by social science researchers. Maria Pohn-Lauggas is also part of the steering group of a mixed-method longitudinal study “Wege in die Zukunft” (“Paths to future”) on socialization processes of young people in biographical transition that is conducted at the Institute of Sociology in Vienna.

With regard to teaching, Maria Pohn-Lauggas concern is on research orientated learning. Reflection and substantive research approaches are central aspects in her teaching. At the Center of Methods in Social Science at the University of Göttingen her teaching will focus on method pluralism.

Maria Pohn-Lauggas is board member and secretary of the Research Committee “Biography and Society” of the International Sociological Association and is an expert in the international and interdisciplinary working group of the project “Research of Collective Memory in European Semi-Peripheries“ at the Charles University of Prague.