Jakob Krais specializes in the modern cultural history of North Africa, particularly the Maghreb. He studied history, Islamic studies, and philosophy in Berlin and Rome and obtained his PhD from Freie Universität Berlin (FU Berlin) in 2014 with a dissertation on historiography and nation-building in Qaddafi’s Libya. He has done research and taught at FU Berlin, as well as at Ruhr-Universität Bochum and at Hochschule Bremen. Apart from that, he has been affiliated with Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Centre Marc Bloch of Humboldt-Universität Berlin, and with the Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies (CNMS) at Philipps-Universität Marburg. Stays abroad took him to Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria, among other places. In 2022, he completed his habilitation at Ruhr-Universität Bochum with a study on the cultural history of the body in colonial Algeria. Besides the history of the body and of colonialism, his research interests include sports, gender, nationalism, and postcolonial studies.

At the University of the Bundeswehr Munich, Jakob Krais is contributing to the Cultural Studies program. His research will primarily deal with the entangled Franco-Maghrebi history of postcolonial thought.

Back to overview Department of Social Sciences and Public Affairs