Dr. Bettina Gräf

 

Dr. Bettina Gräf

Modern Cultural History of North Africa 

Institute of Cultural Studies

 

Tel.: +49 89 6004-3191

b.graef@unibw.de

 

 

 

Bettina Gräf, PhD, has been a senior lecturer at the Chair for the Modern Cultural History of North Africa (Prof Jakob Krais) at University of the Bundeswehr Munich since 1 January 2026. Previously, she thaught at the Institute for Near and Middle Eastern Studies at Ludwig-Maximilians- Universität in Munich (at the Chair of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Prof Andreas Kaplony) from 2017 to 2025. There, she led the research group „Arabic Mass Media and (Trans)Regional Network Cultures.“

She studied Islamic Studies, Arab History and Culture and Political Science at the Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. In 2009, she received her PhD in Islamic Studies from Freie Universität Berlin with a thesis about the Egyptian scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi and media fatwas.

Since then, her research has focused on transcultural communication, media history and the interaction between technological innovations and social practices in Muslim societies.

She has conducted research at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) and the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies (BGSMCS) in Berlin and has taught in Berlin, Munich and Zurich. She has undertaken extended research stays in Yemen, Qatar, Egypt and Algeria/Western Sahara.


Research interests

- Cultural research on military technology and drones in Muslim societies since 9/11

- De/colonisation of Western Sahara

- Media history of Arabic-speaking societies since 1860

- Digitalisation and the popularisation of Islamic law

- Decolonisation of knowledge


Publications (selection)

  • “Drone Rugs. Knoted Images as a Reminder of the Cruel Global Present”, in: Haugbølle, Sune, Tina Dransfeldt Christensen and Søren Møller Christensen (eds.): Suzanna in the Bath. Essays on Middle East Studies and Public Discourse. Festschrift in honour of Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen's 60th birthday, 2023, 100-117.
  • “On Naming Drones: A European Perspective”, in: Digital War(2022), https://doi.org/10.1057/s42984-022-00056-3.
  • Rezo, Ramstein und Drohnentötungen im Jemen: Ein islamwissenschaftlicher Werkstattbericht, Diskussionspapiere 122, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2021.
  • Ways of Knowing Muslim Cultures and Societies. Studies in Honour of Gudrun Krämer, Leiden: Brill, 2018 (with Birgit Krawietz and Schirin Amir-Moazami).
  • “From the Pocketbook to Facebook: Maktabat Wahba, Publishing and Political Ideas in Cairo since the 1940s” in Gräf et. al (eds.): Ways of Knowing Muslim Cultures and Societies, Studies in Honour of Gudrun Krämer, Leiden: Brill, 2018, 223—245.
  • “Fatwā, modern media” in: Kate Fleet et al. (Hg.): Encyclopedia of Islam Third Edition, Brill: Leiden, 2017, 74—76.
  • „Die Geschichte arabischer Massenmedien von 1860 bis 1950“, in: Richter, Carola and Asiem El Difraoui (eds.): Arabische Medien, Konstanz, München: UVK Verlagsgesellschaft, 2015, 25—38. 
  • “Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī” in: Esposito, John L. and Emad El-Din Shahin (eds.): Oxford Handbook of Islam and Politics, Oxford University Press, 2013, 222—236 (paperback edition as Key Islamic Political Thinkers, 2018).
  • “Re-Introducing Ideology. Neoliberal Islam and Global Capitalism”, in: Swarowsky, Daniela, Samuli Schielke and Andrea Heister (eds.): In Search of Europe? In Collaboration. An Experiment, Heijningen: Jap Sam Books, 2013, 44—62 (Arabisch: “Taqdīm al-īdiyūlūjiyya min jadīd. al-Islām al-niyūlībrālī wa-l-raʾsmāliyya al-ʿālamiyya”, in ebd., 51—65) (with Mohamed Abdelkarim).
  • “Media Fatwas, Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī and Media-Mediated Authority in Islam”, in: Orient51 (2010) 1, 6–15.
  • Medien-Fatwas@Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Die Popularisierung des islamischen Rechts, ZMO-Studien 27, Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2010. 
  • Global Mufti. The Phenomenon of Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī, London, N.Y.: Hurst/Columbia University Press, 2009 (with Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen).
  • “The Concept of Wasaṭiyya in the Work of Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī”, in: Gräf, Bettina and Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen (eds.): Global Mufti. The Phenomenon of Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī, London, N.Y.: Hurst/Columbia University Press, 2009, 213—238.
  • “Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi in Cyberspace”, in: Die Welt des Islams47 (2007) 3–4, 403–423. 

 

 Media articles (selection)

 

CV