Team

Claudia Wiesner is Jean Monnet Chair and Professor of Political Science at Fulda University of Applied Sciences, as well as adjunct Professor in Political Science at Jyväskylä University (Finland). She has also been Acting Professor at Hamburg, Bochum and Marburg University, and a Visiting Fellow at Institutions such as the Minda de Gunzburg Centre for European Studies at Harvard University, New York University, the Robert Schumann Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute (EUI), and the Berlin Social Sciences Centre (WZB). Her main research interests lie in the comparative study of democracy, political culture and political sociology in the EU multilevel system. She especially focuses on changes of concepts and institutions, as well as on the related debates and discourses. Wiesner's second field of Research is Public Policy, its evaluation, its reform and its theory. Here she has a long-standing experience in public policy consulting. 

Wiesner is the Principal Investigator of the Jean Monnet Network “Debating Europe” and of the international projects “Transnational Governance and Human Rights” and “Practising Transnational Politics". Moreover she chairs the ECPR Standing Group “Political Concepts”. She published various monographs, volumes and book chapters with publishers such as Palgrave Macmillan, Routledge, Springer and Nomos and journal special issues and articles in journals such as Contemporary Political Theory, integration, the Journal of European Integration, Leviathan, Politics and Governance, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Redescriptions, Parliaments, Estates and Representation, Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft and Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft.

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Philip Liste (Dr. phil. Goethe University Frankfurt; Habilitation University of Hamburg) is Professor of Political Science and the Politics of Human Rights at Fulda University of Applied Science and Senior Research Fellow at King’s College London (Transnational Law Institute, Dickson Poon School of Law). His fields of interest include Human Rights, International Relations Theory, International Law, Law and Society Studies, Transnational Legal Theory, Global Studies and Critical Theory. His current research project is on transnational law and tax-driven equity trading. Philip Liste teaches Political Science, International Relations, International Law, Postcolonial Studies and International Political Theory. He has published in refereed journals like European Journal of International Relations, Transnational Legal Theory, International Political Sociology, and Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen. Philip Liste (Dr. phil. Goethe University Frankfurt; Habilitation University of Hamburg) is Professor of Political Science and the Politics of Human Rights at Fulda University of Applied Science and Senior Research Fellow at King’s College London (Transnational Law Institute, Dickson Poon School of Law). His fields of interest include Human Rights, International Relations Theory, International Law, Law and Society Studies, Transnational Legal Theory, Global Studies and Critical Theory. His current research project is on transnational law and tax-driven equity trading. Philip Liste teaches Political Science, International Relations, International Law, Postcolonial Studies and International Political Theory. He has published in refereed journals like European Journal of International Relations, Transnational Legal Theory, International Political Sociology, and Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen.

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Meike Schmidt-Gleim is Senior Researcher at the University of Applied Sciences Fulda. She studied political philosophy at the University of Vienna and art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and obtained her doctorate in Philosophy in 2005 from the University of Vienna. She was granted visiting and research fellowships from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the MAK-Schindler Residence in Los Angeles, the Cité des Arts in Paris, the European Union (Marie Curie) and the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. She has been principal investigator of several research projects, such as the Marie Curie Fellowship project "The history of Europe seen through the lens of the figure of the barbarian" at the Università dègli Studi del Piemonte Orientale „Amedeo Avogadro“, Alessandria (I), and Atlas of Arcadia at the Academy of Fine Arts, funded by the Austrian Science Foundation. Currently she works in the project “Debating Europe” directed by Claudia Wiesner. Her main research interests lie in Democratic Theory, Critical theory Gender studies and Arts Based Research. She critically explores what we perceive as given and unchangeable, questioning the authority of history and empowering alternative readings often at the crossroads between art and theory. She exhibited her art work in international exhibitions at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in Salzburg, the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Fabra-i-Coats in Barcelona, Kunsthaus Hamburg. Her art work is also part of several public collections (Museum of Modern Art Salzburg, Albertina, Oberösterreiches Landesmuseum). Her publications in the field of political philosophy and the arts include Atlas of Arcadia (Walther König 2020), Was hätte Virginia Woolf dazu gesagt? (Marta Press 2018), Die Regierung der Demokratie (Passagen 2009).

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Muriel Cathérine Pluschke is a Researcher, PhD student and Lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Cultural Sciences at Fulda University of Applied Sciences. She is currently working on her doctoral thesis on the subject of “Top-down und bottom-up Dynamiken europäischer Öffentlichkeit im Lokalen” (Top-down and bottom-up dynamics of a European public sphere in the Local), for which she has been granted a scholarship. Her research interests focus on the European Union and European Integration, the building of a European Public Sphere, (local) Journalism as well as Democracy. Muriel C. Pluschke holds a Bachelor's degree in Politics and Economics from Bielefeld University and a Master's degree in “Intercultural Communication and European Studies” from Fulda University of Applied Sciences.

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Zhylien Kaja is a research coordinator and assistant at the Department of Social and Cultural Sciences at Fulda University of Applied Sciences. He holds a Master's degree in Intercultural Communication and European Studies from the same institution. Previously, he worked as a student assistant for Professor Doctor Claudia Wienser and as an academic tutor for the subject "Introduction into the EU Integration" at Fulda University of Applied Sciences.Kaja is working on his Ph.D. project with a focus on EU enlargement and the Western Balkans, examining the impact of civil society on political changes that could facilitate the Western Balkans' accession to the EU.He obtained his Bachelor's degree in British and American studies from the University of Tirana. His research interests primarily revolve around the European Integration, civil society, democracy, and the Western Balkans' prospects of joining the EU.

Vivian Seidel is a research coordinator at the Department of Social and Cultural Sciences at Fulda University of Applied Sciences. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in European Studies from Maastricht University and a Master’s degree in North American Studies from the University of Augsburg. She worked as a student assistant for the Committee on Federal and European Affairs and Interregional Relations of the Bavarian State Parliament and completed an internship in Finance and Accounting for Bertelsmann in Weaverville, North Carolina. After graduating Vivian Seidel worked as assistant to the President and the Executive Director of the German Association for American Studies (GAAS) and as a research assistant at the Chair for Contemporary History at the University of Mannheim. Her teaching included seminars on Transatlantic perspectives on the Cold War in the 1980s and the history of New York City. She received a scholarship from Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung to conduct research on her PhD thesis focusing on the Transatlantic and Western European Perspectives on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Her research interests include the Cold War in past and present, transatlantic relations, the EU and the idea of Europe, as well as American history. She is currently working as the Executive Director of the Point Alpha Research Institute (PARI) in Geisa.

Clara Umstätter finished her Bachelor of Arts in “Social Sciences with a Specialization in Intercultural Relations” at the Faculty of Social and Cultural Studies at Fulda University of Applied Sciences in summer 2021. She then started her Master in “International Administration and Global Governance” at Gothenburg University in Sweden. Clara Umstätter initiated the National Model United Nations project at the University of Applied Sciences Fulda and continues to organize and teach seminars in this regard. She is also the founder and Secretary General of the Fulda UAS UN Club, the co-founder of the ECPD Global Youth Network, and holds a scholarship by the “Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes”.