Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences - Institute of Asian and African Studies

Dr. David Leupold

Foto
Name
Dr. David Leupold
Email
david.leupold.1 (at) hu-berlin.de
 
 
Profile

Dr. David Leupold is a habilitation candidate at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin chair for Transregional Central Asian Studies (Prof. Dr. Manja Stephan, Institute for Asian and African Studies). As a member of the Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences he obtained his doctoral degree (“summa cum laude”) from the Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, a master’s degree in social sciences from the Middle East Technical University Ankara and a bachelor’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies from the Otto-Friedrich Universität Bamberg.

He was a research fellow at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient Berlin and principal investigator of "Relicts of the Future. Life and Afterlife of the Socialist City in Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus" (2022-25) and a postdoctoral fellow in the University of Michigan Department of Sociology. His research interests comprise contested geographies and the collective imaginations of past, present and future in the post-Ottoman and post-Soviet space as well as questions of urban transformation and intergenerational change.

His first monograph Embattled Dreamlands: The Politics of Contesting Armenian, Kurdish and Turkish Memory (New York: Routledge, 2020) was awarded the 2021 annual book prize of the Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS) and was translated 2024 by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung into Armenian.

Leupold is currently working on finalizing a second monograph – titled The Death and Life of Southern Soviet Cities. Urban Futures and Their Afterlives – which will serve as his habilitation thesis. Originally created as embodiments of specific visions of the future, architecture today has become a symbol of the frictions between different historical periods, political ideologies and power constellations. Diverse language skills (Armenian, Azerbaijani/Turkish, Tajik/Persian, Kyrgyz, and Russian) allow him to cover a broad regional scope stretching from Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia to Armenia in the Southern Caucasus in an effort to rethink the Soviet city from its geographical South.

 

Research Foci
  • Memory wars
  • Urbanities and utopias
  • Nation-building and imperial legacies
  • Modern history of Central Asia and Western Asia

 

Curriculum Vitae

2025 – now: Habilitation candidate at the chair for Transregional Central Asian Studies (Prof. Dr. Manja Stephan), Institute for Asian and African Studies

2022 – 2025: Principal investigator (PI) of the individual research project "Relicts of (Another) Future? – The Afterlife of the Socialist City in Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus" funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)

2020 – 2025: Postdoctoral research fellow in the research unit "Representations of the Past as a Mobilising Force" at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Berlin, Germany

2018 – 2019: Manoogian postdoctoral research fellow and lecturer in the University of Michigan Department of Sociology, Ann Arbor, MI, United States of America

2014 – 2018:  Ph.D. (“summa cum laude”), Social Sciences, Berlin Graduate School in Social Sciences (BGSS), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; supervised by Prof. Dr. Klaus Eder, Prof. Dr. Silvia v. Steinsdorff and Prof. Dr. Ronald G. Suny

2011 – 2014:  M.A., German-Turkish Masters in Social Sciences, Middle Eastern Technical University Ankara and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

2008 – 2011: B.A., Contemporary Middle Eastern Studies, Otto-Friedrich Universität Bamberg

 

Thirdy-Party Funded Projects

2022 – 2025: "Relicts of (Another) Future? – The Afterlife of the Socialist City in Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus" funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (sole principal investigator)

 

Fellowships, Grants & Awards

2021 – CESS Book Award (Central Eurasian Studies Society)

2018 – 2019 Manoogian Postdoctoral Fellowship of the University of Michigan

2015 – 2017 Hansen Foundation Doctoral Fellowship

2014 – 2015 Erasmus Mundus Predoctoral Field Mobility

2011 – 2013 Humboldt Excellence Fellowship

  

Selected Publications

Monographs

  • The Death and Life of Southern Soviet Cities: Urban Futures and Their Afterlives (forthcoming)
  • Embattled Dreamlands: The Politics of Contesting Armenian, Turkish and Kurdish Memory. (Routledge, New York / London, 2020)
  • Armenian translation: Martnch’vogh hishoghut’yunneri yerkir․ hayer, k’rder, t’urk’er (Heinrich-Böll Foundation, Yerevan, 2024)

Edited Volumes

  • Mobile Histories, Activated Memories: Mediums, Archives and Mnemonic Infrastructures, edited volume with Norman Saadi Niko, Routledge Transdisciplinary Souths book series (forthcoming)

Peer-reviewed journal articles

Further publications

Print media

 

Selected lectures
  • "Writing Against Stalin's City. Mkrtich' Armen and the Spectre of the New East", evening lecture, UCLA (Los Angeles, United States of America), October 9, 2024.
  • "Komunashen: Soviet Konstruktivizm, Armenian Surrealism and the Waking Dream of the Commune House", evening lecture, UC Berkeley (Berkeley United States of America), October 4, 2024.
  • "For us the Deserts are Buzzing Cities: Early Soviet Urbanity between Armenian Futurizm and Post-Persian Nostalgia", evening lecture, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, United States of America), October 2, 2024.
  • "Embattled Dreamlands. The Politics of Contesting Memory between Asia Minor And Karabakh", lecture held at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, February 15, 2024.
  • "Payk’arogh yerazats yerkrner: mrts’akits’ hishoghut’yan k’aghak’akanut’yuny P’vok’r Asiayi yev Arts’akhi mijev | Voyuyushchiye voobrazhayemyye strany: politika konkuriruyushchey pamyati mezhdu Maloy Aziyey i Artsakhom", lecture held at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography NAS RA – Yerevan, June 21, 2023.
  • “Relicts of (Another) Future? Genesis and Afterlife of the Microdistrict (Mikroraion) at the Foot of Tian Shan”, lecture held at the DFG-Graduiertenkolleg "Kulturelle und technische Werte historischer Bauten, BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, December 14, 2022.
  • "Caught up in the past? The weaponisation of history in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan", lecture held at the Körber History Forum, May 19, 2021.
  • "Activism under the Hammer and Sickle: Young Internationalists from Czechoslovakia in Soviet Central Asia (1925-43)," keynote at the Workshop “Youngsters' Livelihoods and Movements in Peripheralised Regions”, Friedrich Schiller-Universität Jena (Jena, Germany) February 27-28, 2020.

 

Scientific events
  • “Relicts of the Ancien Régime: Socialist and Imperial Legacies & the City”, international conference held at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, September 13-15, 2023 (main organizer)
  • “Contested Landscapes, Competing Narratives: Armenian and Global Perspectives”, international workshop held at the University of Michigan, February 22, 2019 (co-organizer with Dr. Mehmet Polatel)
  • “Asylum Seeking 2016”, KOSMOS-funded international workshop held at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, September 22-23, 2016 (main organizer)