Evelyn Annuß is Professor of Gender Studies at mdw since 2019 and head of the newly founded International Research Center Gender and Performativity. Her peer-reviewed book Dirty Dragging. Performative Transpositions (2026), funded by the German Research Society (Heisenberg Award), focuses on transoceanic perspectives on mimesis and questions of queer temporality. From the very beginning of mdw’s sdp implementation, she has been strongly involved and has already served as co-coordinator. Committed to the internationalisation of academic studies, she has been forging cooperations e.g. with South Africa, Germany and the US.
Annuß studied Theater and German Studies, Sociology and Gender Studies in Erlangen, New York (Fulbright) and Berlin. She holds a PhD in Literature from the University of Erfurt (Elfriede Jelinek – Theater des Nachlebens/Theater of Afterlife, Fink 2007, 2nd ed., summa cum laude). Her habilitation, i.e. higher postdoctoral thesis, is based on her theater-historical research project on Nazi choruses and Thingspiele, which was funded by the German Research Foundation and based in Bochum (Volksschule des Theaters/The Theatrical Public School. Nationalsocialist Mass Stagings, Fink 2019). She was a founding member of the Center for Interdisiplinary Women’s and Gender Studies at the TU Berlin, a member of the structured doctoral program Representation – Rhetorics – Knowledge at Viadrina University, Frankfurt Oder, and assistant professor at Ruhr University Bochum. In Munich (LMU) and Berlin (FU), she taught as Professor of Theater and Media Studies. She was a fellow of the Berlin International Research Center “Interweaving Performance Cultures” and a visiting scholar in the US (Rutgers and Tulane) as well as in South Africa (University of Cape Town). Moreover, she worked as a curator for arts-based research in Namibia, Europe and at the UN. She is also an elected member of the FWF Curatorium, head of the working group “Interdependencies (Theater and Gender)” of the German Society of Theater Studies and has a wide and international network in the field of gender and performing arts studies (GTW, IFTR, ÖGGF etc.).