Vera K. Egbers is an archaeologist who recently did her PhD at the Institute of Near Eastern Archaeology at the Freie Universität Berlin and was a member of the Berlin Graduate School of Ancient Studies as well as the Excellence Cluster TOPOI. While pursuing her B.A. and M.A. in Berlin, Istanbul and Paris, she participated in various field projects i. a. in Turkey, Turkmenistan, Iraqi-Kurdistan and Brandenburg, Germany. Fond of traveling and international exchange, she spent one semester of her PhD studies at the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University, followed by a long-term completion fellowship at the Research Center for Anatolian Studies (ANAMED) of Koç University in Istanbul. Additionally, she was granted a scholarship by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes) and the FAZIT-Foundation. In her thesis, Vera applied the theoretical concept of the so-called Thirdspace, developed by Henri Lefebvre and Edward Soja, to analyze the relationship of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Urartu during the first half of the 1^st mill. BCE in Northern Mesopotamia. Since January 2020 Vera is a post-doctoral researcher at the DFG Research Training Group 1913.

Research interests: Sensory archaeology and anthropology, subjectification processes, theories of space, archaeology of modernity as well as questions of ethics and archaeology.

Project: Internal Colonization as a Way of Modernisation? Contested Spaces in Rural Turkey before and after the Foundation of the Nation-State

Publications:

Reinhard Bernbeck / Vera Egbers (eds.) “Subaltern Spaces”. Forum Kritische Archäologie (forthcoming)

Egbers, Vera (forthcoming): ‘Ein Assyrer in Urartu’. Thirdspace in Eisenzeit in Nord-Mesopotamien. In: Bernbeck, Reinhard / Egbers, Vera (eds.): “Subaltern Spaces”. Forum Kritische Archäologie (forthcoming),

Egbers, Vera / Magnani, Matthew / Grindle, Dalyn / Loomis, Sarah / Kim, Alexander / Clindaniel, Jon / Hartford, Alexis / Johnson, Eric / Weber, Sadie / Campbell, Wade (2019): Evaluating Claims for an Early Peopling of the Americas: Experimental Design and the Cerutti Mastodon Site. Antiquity, June 2019, 789–795.

Egbers, Vera (2019): A Biography of Building 10 in Monjukli Depe. In: Leiden, Peeters / Pollock, Susan / Bernbeck, Reinhard (eds.): Looking Closely. Excavations at Monjukli Depe, Turkmenistan, 2010–2014. Chap. 4, 107–132.

Egbers, Vera / Schreiber, Stefan / Neumann, Sabine (2019): ‘I like to keep my archaeology dead’. Alienation and Othering of the Past as an Ethical Problem. Canadian Journal of Bioethics 2019, 2(3), 88-96

Egbers, Vera / Schreiber, Stefan / Jauss, Carolin / Merten, Stephanie / Renger, Martin / Cyrus, Georg / Bochatz, Dominik / Tollkühn, Philipp / Karl Raimund (2018): Archäologie braucht Ethik! Ein Werkstattbericht als Diskussionsaufruf. In: Archäologische Informationen, Band 41, S. 341–370.

Egbers, Vera (2017): Chapter D. Excavating Gird-i Bazar: the 2016 Season. In: Radner, Karen / Kreppner, Janoscha / Squitieri, Andrea (eds.): Unearthing the Dinka Settlement Complex: The 2016 Season at Gird-i Bazar and Qalat-i Dinka. Peshdar Plain Project Publications 2. Gladbeck 2017.

Egbers, Vera / Bochatz, Dominik (2016): Hohe Kongresskosten als Werkzeug in der Ordnung des archäologischen Diskurses? In: Blickpunkt Archäologie, 2016.1

Talks:

“Geosophy as a progressive political agenda in a positivistic discipline”. Talk at the Workshop ‘Geosophy’, Zentrum für Geoinformation ZfG, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, 26th June 2019.

“Urartian-Assyrian Relations through the Lens of Everyday Sensory Experience of Space in Times of Military Conflict”. Talk at the ANAMED Fellow’s Symposium in Istanbul, Turkey, Session ‘Eastern Anatolia’, 15th May 2019.

Talk at the Annual Meeting der Society of American Archaeologists in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. Title ”Lived Space of Displaced People: A Comparative Approach to Contested Spaces in Iron Age Northern Mesopotamia and Modern Europe“, Session ”Contested Landscapes: The Archaeology of Politics, Borders, and Movement“, 14th April 2019.

“‘I like to keep my archaeology dead’. Entfremdung und ‘Othering’ der Vergangenheit als ethisches Problem”. Talk with Stefan Schreiber and Sabine Neumann at the Verbandstagung des WSVA und MOVA in Würzburg, Session ‘Mensch, Körper, Tod. Der Umgang mit menschlichen Überresten im Neolithikum’ (AG TidA, Theories in Archaeology), 4th April 2019.

“‘I like to keep my archaeology dead’ – Alienation and Othering of the Past as an Ethical Problem”. Talk with Stefan Schreiber and Sabine Neumann at the ‘Colloque sur l’Éthique en Archéologie’, Paris, France, 25th/26th May 2018.

Organization of the Workshops “Subaltern Spaces” at the Excellence Cluster Topoi in Berlin, with Prof. Reinhard Bernbeck (and talk), 19./20. June 2017.

 “‘An Assyrian in Urartu’. Lived Space in Iron Age Northern Mesopotamia”. Talk at the conference “Broadening Horizons 5”, Udine, Italy, 8th June 2017.

“Thirdspaces in early first millennium Mesopotamia”. Talk at the Meeting of the Key Topic Identities Think Tank Topoi, Berlin, 3rd November 2016.

“Ästhetik und Macht: Porzellan des Amtes Schönheit der Arbeit”. Talk at the 8. Deutscher Archäologiekongress, Session ‘Ordnungen des Wissens. Disziplinäre Macht im archäologischen Diskurs’, Berlin, 7th Oktober 2014.