My research agenda is grounded in two inter-related fields of expertise: 1) the transnational politics of reparations for colonialism and slavery and its intersection with 2) Jewish international politics, especially how figurations of Jewish suffering appear in contexts beyond Israel.

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My book manuscript, "Redress for German Colonial Genocide in the Aftermath of the Shoah,” is based on an 18-month-long multi-sited ethnographic, archival, and comparative study that delves into a critical question: how does a nation-state that committed the ur-genocide of the 20th century, the Shoah, respond to a demand for reparatory justice for colonial genocide? Specifically, my work examines how the German state responds to demands for reparation for the Herero and Nama genocide, and how a comparison with the response to genocide against Jewish bodies can inform an analysis of contemporary European racisms and the politics of recognition in Western Europe.

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I am also working on a collaborative project that carves out a space for studying Jews and Judaism (real and imagined) in the social sciences beyond the study of Israel and Palestine. Together with Dr Darcy Leigh (Sussex IR and Law), we are seeking to establish a new field of “Critical Jewish IR” that moves against the hegemony in the discipline of studies of Jewish politics that suture Jewishness solely to Israel, showing how Jewishness matters in international politics in places far beyond the politics of Zionism. We take our cues from the long legacy of Jewish and Palestinian anti-Zionism in order to imagine Jewish politics otherwise.

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I am also interested in the sexual politics of fascist and neo-fascist movements, specifically how they embrace notions of sexual liberation — especially though not only for men — rather than engage in the politics of repression. I am working on an article on this topic after co-teaching a seminar on this at UFSC in Brazil.

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My research has been funded by grants from the Wenner Grenn Foundation, the Program for Advanced Studies at the Free University in Berlin, The Brazilian Ministry of Education, the African Humanities Exchange Research Grant at Science Po Paris, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University, and the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory.

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