Our Profile

The close collaboration between Egyptology and African Studies in Cologne explicitly challenges the Eurocentric separation of Egypt in the north from the rest of Africa and the notion that the sub-Saharan continent should be viewed in isolation, as well as the idea of cultures and languages as distinct entities. On the contrary, research and teaching at our institute demonstrate how cultural knowledge and cultural skills emerge and evolve through contact and exchange across time and space. The collaboration between archaeology, cultural anthropology, and linguistics also challenges the tendency to separate material aspects of culture from its historical, social, or linguistic dimensions. At our institute, students learn about cultural practices and cultural dynamics across these specializations.

The focus of our work is foundational research. We engage in active exchange with relevant disciplines such as archaeology, cultural and global history, ethnology and comparative cultural anthropology, comparative linguistics, and sociolinguistics. Staff members at the institute are involved in major linguistic projects (SFB 1252 „Prominence in Language“) as well as in regional and social science consortia (e.g. the Global South Studies Center), the Research Training Group on the Archaeology of Pre-Modern Economic Spaces Archäologie vormoderner Wirtschaftsäume and various other research consortia (such as the SFBs „Our way to Europe“ and „Future Rural Africa“).

From day one, our students learn what interdisciplinary work entails: The institute is affiliated with many externally funded projects, and many of our courses are also open to interested students from geography, ethnology, queer and gender studies, intercultural communication, and classical studies.

Code of Conduct

for community, awareness and inclusivity

With these suggestions and guidelines for interacting with one another, we at the Institute of African Studies and Egyptology are committed to fostering a respectful and considerate environment.

We regard our Code of Conduct as dynamic and evolving. It is important to us at all times that everyone working and studying here feels comfortable and safe, so as to facilitate exchange, learning and joint discussions.

To ensure that our work in research, teaching, studies and administration runs smoothly, we ask everyone to speak and act thoughtfully. In particular, we would like to draw your attention to the following points:

We take responsibility for one another and treat each other with respect. This means that when someone reports experiences of violent and/or discriminatory behaviour, we take these experiences seriously and do not trivialise them.
In our face-to-face interactions as well as in our email correspondence, we practise responsible communication, including with regard to intercultural diversity and multilingual practices. We are also committed to fostering a culture of recognising and addressing problems. We expect ourselves to have the courage to intervene in cases of discriminatory behaviour and to follow the steps set out in our university’s Code of Conduct. At the same time, we recognise that taking action against discrimination is always a process of exploration, and that solutions can only be found collectively.
Fairness, tolerance and solidarity are values that are of great importance to our institute. This is also reflected in the way we use language. We are therefore committed to creating non-discriminatory spaces in which we aim to facilitate and value diverse forms of expression. In doing so, we expect each other to exercise the utmost sensitivity towards any form of disparagement, exclusion or marginalisation of people, including through the use of language that challenges discrimination. We therefore ask that you be mindful of your own language use, take a critical approach to generalisations and the construction of categories, and respect linguistic self-determination (e.g. by using the correct pronouns or self-designations).
To ensure that we can all work and learn effectively, we also take a responsible approach to the use of shared spaces and resources, such as books and equipment.