Manuela Boatcă appointed Theodor Heuss Professor at the New School for Social Research 

In the upcoming academic year 2026-2027, Professor Manuela Boatcă will be Theodor Heuss Professor at the New School for Social Research in New York, USA. 

Established in 1962 at the initiative of Theodor Heuss, the first President of the Federal Republic of Germany, the visiting professorship is awarded annually to a leading sociologist, historian, economist, political scientist, philosopher, social anthropologist, or psychologist in Germany. Previous holders of the Heuss professorship include the founding director of Freiburg University’s Institute of Sociology, Heinrich Popitz, sociologists Niklas Luhmann and Renate Mayntz, philosophers Jürgen Habermas and Rahel Jaeggi, historians Reinhart Koselleck and Rebekka Habermas. The latest recipient was the psychologist Gerald Echterhoff from the University of Münster. 

As part of the Heuss Professorship, Manuela Boatcă will conduct research on issues of colonial citizenship in the still-occupied territories of the Caribbean and write a monograph on the enslavement of Roma in Romania and its literaryrepresentation in transatlantic dialogue (in collaboration with literary scholar Anca Parvulescu of Washington University in St. Louis). At Freiburg University, she will be substituted by PD Dr. Ercüment Çelik.