In addition to the history of culture and science, Birgit Kolboske’s research spans political science, linguistics, semiotics, as well as Latin American studies. A certified translator herself, her academic interest in this field focuses on the role of interpreters in the war crimes trials in Germany, from the Nuremberg to the Auschwitz trials.
Following her MA at the Freie Universität Berlin in 1995 with a feminist analysis on the role of women in Latin American guerrilla movements, Birgit Kolboske worked for many years as a journalist, translator, and editor in Mexico, Guatemala and New York. In 2022, she received her PhD from the University of Leipzig with a dissertation on the history of women in the Max Planck Society. In 2024, her book Hierarchies: The Max Planck Society in Gender Trouble was published open access (the German version was published open access in 2022). In 2025, she joined the Department on Knowledge Systems and Collective Life (Benson) at the MPIWG.
In her current research project, On Misogyny: Feminism, Foetuses and Femicides, she uses an epistemological approach to abortion to illustrate the connections between misogyny, authoritarianism and right-wing extremism.
Media
Projekte
On Misogyny: Feminism, Fetuses, Femicides
Selected Publications
Kolboske, Birgit (2024). Hierarchies: The Max Planck Society in Gender Trouble. Studien zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft 7. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. https://www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com/detail/index/sArticle/59083…
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Kolboske, Birgit (2024). “Jerarquía, género y ciencia: científicas y secretarías en el Instituto Max Planck.”. In Constelaciones feministas para habitar el mundo: miradas entrecruzadas y destellos de luz para un presente herido, ed. G. Rovira Sancho…
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Renn, Jürgen, Carsten Reinhardt, Jürgen Kocka, Florian Schmaltz, Birgit Kolboske, Jaromír Balcar, and Alexander von Schwerin, eds. (2024). Die Max-Planck-Gesellschaft: Wissenschafts- und Zeitgeschichte 1945–2005. Studien zur Geschichte der Max…
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Kolboske, Birgit and Juliane Scholz (2024). “Personalstruktur im Wandel.”. In Die Max-Planck-Gesellschaft: Wissenschafts- und Zeitgeschichte 1945–2005, ed. J. Renn, C. Reinhardt, J. Kocka, F. Schmaltz, B. Kolboske, J. Balcar, and A. v. Schwerin, 550…
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Past Events
Colloquium
- Institute Event
On the Criminalization of Femicide in a Comparative Legal Perspective
MOREColloquium
- Institute Event
POSTPONED: Forced Examinations, Protection of Life, and Medical Professional Ethics: Reproductive Regimes and Abortion Discourses as a History of Violence in the 1980s and 1990s
MOREColloquium
- Institute Event
Film and Discussion: "Getty Abortions"
MOREColloquium
- Institute Event
Talk: On the Necessary Transgressions of #Metoo
MOREColloquium
- Institute Event
Film and Discussion: "Handicap et stérilisations forcées: la fin d'un crime?"
MOREWorkshop
- Institute Event
[RESCHEDULED] Workshop: "BIPoC, birthing bodies, fauxminism—und wie sage ich das auf Deutsch?"
MOREVortrag
- Institute Event
Die gereizte Frau. Was unsere Gesellschaft mit meinen Wechseljahren zu tun hat
MOREWorkshop
- Institute Event
Workshop: "Missing Pictures"
MOREColloquium
Hierarchies. The Max Planck Society in Gender Trouble
MOREBook Launch
- Institute Event
Fundamental Questions: Gender Dimensions in Max Planck Research Projects
MORESymposium
Fünfzig Jahre später – fünfzig Jahre weiter?
MOREInstitutskolloquium
Equal Opportunities in the Max Planck Society: Education, Human Development and Gender Issues
MOREPublikationen
