Sarah Dusend holds a master in Near and Middle Eastern Studies, Political Science and French Language and Literature from the University of Bonn. She studied Arabic and Persian at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales in Paris as well as Arabic in Damascus. After completing her M.A. she was the coordinator of the Bonn Center for Asian Studies (2009-2013) as well as the Bonn Graduate School for Oriental and Asian Studies (2013-2015). Currently, she is a research fellow at the Department of Islamic Studies and Near East Languages at the Institute of Oriental and Asian Studies (IOA) at the University in Bonn, working on her PhD project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Her thesis deals with three pilgrimage reports by Qajar women at the end of the 19^th century.
In addition to her research in the fields of women’s studies and travel writing in the Iranian and Arab world as well as mobility and pilgrimage in Islam, she is furthermore interested in Afghan and Pakistani contemporary historiography and identity politics.

Focus & topics:

Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, gender, travel writing, mobility, historiography, identity politics

dusend [at] carpo-bonn.org

Selected publications:

(2013): ‘Pilgern nach Mekka – zur Reisewirklichkeit einer qajarischen Prinzessin und den Funktionen ihres Pilgerberichtes Rūznāme-ye safar-e ʿatabāt va-Mekkeh’, in: Conermann, S./ Agai, B. (ed.): Wenn einer eine Reise tut, hat er was zu erzählen“ Präfiguration – Konfiguration – Refiguration in muslimischen Reiseberichten vom Ende des 18. bis zum Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts, Berlin, pp. 75-118.

(2010): Solidarische Vernetzung, gesellschaftlicher Fortschritt und die Rolle der Frau: Die Debatten und Ergebnisse des Kongresses der Orientalischen Frauen in Teheran 1932, Berlin.