In this episode you can listen to our third webinar. These take place once a month on Thursday afternoons (GMT) so follow us on social media and subscribe to the email list here to not miss any webinars and join the discussion!
In this session, we celebrate the book publication of the anthology “Queer(ing) Urban Space. Histories, Tactics, Futures in a Glocal World!”. We have the editors – Jessica Albrecht and Sanchali Sarkar – as our guests as well as the following authors who present their work in this episode:
Lobsang Norbu, Maya Nitis, Ruth Quante, Paul Thompson & Trude Sundberg – and also Jessica again as an author.
Follow us to not miss any episode, join En-Gender, send us your work to publish, and become a part of The Network.
If you want to support us, Become a Patron! here.
Jessica A. Albrecht
is a postdoctoral scientific coordinator at CAS-E (FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg). She received her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Heidelberg, focusing on girls’ schools in Sri Lanka. Her current research looks at theories of embodiment in religion as well as Buddhist psychology, religious activism and global history. Jessica Albrecht is also the founder of En-Gender, an international and interdisciplinary journal and network for Gender Studies.
Lobsang Norbu Bhutia
is a Doctoral candidate in Sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His primary research interests revolve around Urban Studies, Race and Sexuality Studies, with a focus on the intersections of identity, migration, and marginality. He is currently based between Sikkim and New Delhi. He is also deeply engaged in Northeast Indian studies, exploring the socio-political dynamics and cultural narratives of Sikkim. His work often reflects an interdisciplinary approach, drawing from lived experiences and critical theory alike. Apart from that, he is skilled in recommending films to friends, and enjoys going on long walks.
Maya Nitis
brings a transdisciplinary approach to critical theories, focusing on the interrelation of feminist, queer and race-critical perspectives. Their Languages of Resistance 1: Performativity and Cultural-Political Translation addresses the revolutionary aspect of the intertwinement of language and reality. They have published articles in journals including diacritics, Feministische Studien and MLN. Dr. Nitis currently serves as Assistant to the Dean and Assistant Director of the Ph.D. Program at Morgan State University, where they teach in the Ph.D. Program in Architecture, Urbanism and Built Environment Studies. They also teach in the Masters of Liberal Arts Program at Johns Hopkins.
Ruth Quante
is a Ph.D. student in English Literature at the University of Heidelberg. Her thesis, titled Working Towards Independence: Women, Labour, and Spatial Experience in Late-Victorian Fiction, 1880–1900, deals with the spatial experience of middle-class women engaged in wage labour in late-Victorian fiction and culture. Her article “Talking politics at home: a subversion of the domestic sphere in Victorian women’s drawing-room meetings” has recently been published in the Philological Quarterly, and her essay “‘We are trying to change ourselves, not men’: the Education Question as discussed in Victorian Periodicals” is forthcoming in the Victorian Periodicals Review in the autumn of 2025.
Sanchali Sarkar
is a Doctoral Researcher at the Chair of Critical Development Studies at University of Passau in Germany. Her research lies at the intersection of gender, mobility, and migration, with a particular focus on the experiences of the South Asian diaspora in Germany. She is especially interested in how transnational mobility shapes gendered identities, social networks, and the politics of belonging. Her work critically engages with questions of inclusion, representation, and agency in migratory contexts.
Trude Sundberg
is a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Kent and Director of its Q-Step Centre. They are an internationally recognised scholar in social policy and social research methods, with a longstanding record of excellence in research, teaching innovation, and collaboration with policymakers worldwide. They are Director of the University of Kent’s Q-Step Centre and leader of a successful MA in International Social Policy designed for civil servants. Their research focuses on the lived experiences of vulnerable and marginalised groups, exploring the emotional and physical impacts of discrimination, stereotyping, and inequality. They are known for developing radically inclusive and innovative research methods aimed at creating safer and more inclusive learning spaces. Trude earned their Ph.D. from the University of Kent, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and an MPhil from the University of Oslo. They joined the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research in 2012. Currently, Trude is working closely with Subham Mukherjee where they together lead a collaborative project on Water Security in South Asia, partnering with community members and researchers from the University of Calcutta among others.
Paul Thompson
is an academic researcher, writer, and editor from Scotland, specialising in mid-twentieth-century queer paperbacks, with side interests in phenomenology and W.G. Sebald. After a career in the UK civil service, Paul became a scholar, gaining a 1st class BA (Hons) from the Open University, an MSc with Distinction from the University of Edinburgh, and a Ph.D. from the University of St Andrews with a prizewinning thesis that was subsequently published as a monograph.
En-Gender 