Language, society and emancipation: Prof. Dr. Miriam Lind and Prof. Dr. Sarah Speck hold inaugural lecture at the European University Viadrina

With a joint inaugural lecture, two professors appointed to the Faculty of Cultural Studies at the European University Viadrina in 2025 will introduce themselves to the public: Prof. Dr. Miriam Lind, Professor of Language Practices in Media Cultures, and Prof. Dr. Sarah Speck, Professor of Comparative Cultural Sociology. The public event will take place on Tuesday, January 20, 6:15 p.m. in the Senate Hall of the European University Viadrina, Große Scharrnstraße 59, 15230 Frankfurt (Oder). Interested parties are cordially invited to attend, registration is not required.

The guests will be welcomed by the President of the European University Viadrina, Prof. Dr. Eduard Mühle. An introduction to the event will be given by Prof. Dr. Timm Beichelt, Dean of the Faculty of Cultural Studies.

In her inaugural lecture, Prof. Dr. Miriam Lind will speak on the topic of "Language and Being Human. Cultural linguistic perspectives on human differentiation". Prof. Dr. Sarah Speck will give a lecture entitled "Dialectics of Emancipation. A cultural sociological perspective". Afterwards, all participants are invited to a reception.

Prof. Dr. Miriam Lind has held the Professorship for Language Practices in Media Cultures at the European University Viadrina since April 2025. She has been leading an Emmy Noether junior research group at Viadrina since September 2023. Her research focuses on cultural-analytical linguistics, linguistic discourse and media analysis, gender and queer linguistics as well as communicative practices between humans, animals and machines. In 2018, she received her doctorate from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz with a thesis in German Linguistics.

Since the summer semester of 2025, Prof. Dr. Sarah Speck has held the Chair of Comparative Cultural Sociology at the European University Viadrina. Previously, she taught and researched in Hamburg, Berlin, Darmstadt, Tübingen and Buenos Aires, among others, and most recently at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Her research interests lie in the field of cultural sociology and critical-theoretical diagnoses of time as well as gender studies. She is currently working, among other things, on the production of conspiracy theory knowledge and the contradictory transformation of gender relations. Prof. Dr. Sarah Speck is a member of the faculty of the Institute for Social Research.