Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religion & Ethnic Diversity
https://www.mmg.mpg.de/person/99020

Vanessa Rau is an interdisciplinary social scientist/sociologist with a special interest in Religion and Secularism, Migration and the Politics of Difference. Her current research concerns, “Civil Society Organizations and the Challenges of Migration and Diversity: Agents of Change” especially in the Kontext of “Disability and Sexual Minorities”. Vanessa completed her PhD at the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge, and focused on migration and diaspora, religion, secularities and the politics of identity in diverse urban spaces. Her dissertation “Contesting the Secular and Converting Space in Berlin? Becoming Jewish in an Urban Scene” examines a newly emerging Jewish-Hebrew scene in Berlin and investigates how religious and secular belonging are negotiated under specific discursive representations. Vanessa holds a BA and a PhD from the University of Cambridge as well as a MA from Humboldt and Freie Universität, Berlin.

Selected publications: 

• Hensold, J., Kynes, J.A., Öhlmann, P., Rau, V., Schinagl, R.C., Taleb, A. (Eds.) 2020. "Religion in Motion. Rethinking Religion, Knowledge and Discourse in a Globalizing World". Springer.
• Rau, V. 2019. Turning the Kaleidoscope and pluralism inside-out: the case of Berlin’s Jewish scene. In J.-J. Bock (Ed.), Emergent religious pluralisms (pp. 195-221). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, Springer Nature.
• Rau, V. 2016. Exotisierung, Faszination und Befremdung. Ein Blick auf Migration und Begegnung zwischen Israel und Deutschland. In O. Glöckner, & J. H. Schoeps (Eds.), Deutschland, die Juden und der Staat Israel. Eine politische Bestandsaufnahme. (pp. 216-246). Hildesheim/Zürich/New York: Georg Olms Verlag.
• Rau, V. 2014. Vehementer Säkularismus als Antisemitismus? Aus Politik und Zeitgeschehen, APuZ, 28-30, 31-38.