Barbara Mittler (born 15 February 1968 in Hagen, West Germany) is a German

sinologist Sinology, or Chinese studies, is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of China primarily through Chinese philosophy, language, literature, culture and history and often refers to Western scholarship. Its origin "may be traced to the ex ...

. She is Co-director of the

Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context" The Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context" is a research facility funded in the framework of the German Universities Excellence Initiative of the federal state governments of Germany since October 2007. It is a trans- and in ...

Early life and education

Barbara Mittler was born 15 February 1968, in

Hagen Hagen () is the Largest cities in Germany, 41st-largest List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany. The municipality is located in the States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located on the south eastern edge of the R ...

, West Germany. She is the daughter of

flautist The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

Uta Mittler and librarian Elmar Mittler. Mittler received her B.A. and M.A. from

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and her Ph.D. from

Heidelberg University } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...

. She also studied Chinese at the

Mandarin Training Center Mandarin Training Center (MTC; ) is one of the world's oldest and most distinguished programs for Chinese as a second language study. It is run by National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) in Taipei, Taiwan and located at NTNU Daan Campus. ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

Career and research

After her dissertation in 1994, Mittler worked as an assistant professor at

, where she was

habilitated Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

in 1998. She continued as an associate professor. In 2004, she became full professor at the Institute of Chinese Studies, which she managed as director until autumn 2012. At the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context”, Mittler became speaker of the research area “Public Spheres” in 2007. Since November 2012, she is the Cluster’s Co-Director. Barbara Mittler is a member of the German Academy of Sciences

LEOPOLDINA Leopoldina may refer to: * Colônia Leopoldina, a Brazilian municipality in the state of Alagoa * Leopoldina, Minas Gerais, a Brazilian municipality in the state of Minas Gerais * Maria Leopoldina of Austria (1797-1826), consort of emperor Pedro I ...

. In 2000, Mittler was awarded the Heinz-Maier-Leibnitz-Prize of the

German Research Foundation The German Research Foundation (german: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germ ...

and the

Federal Ministry of Education and Research The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (german: link=no, Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, ), abbreviated BMBF, is a cabinet-level ministry of Germany. It is headquartered in Bonn, with an office in Berlin. The Ministry provi ...

for her outstanding research. Between 2002 and 2004, she held the Heisenberg Fellowship awarded by the German Research Foundation. In 2009, Mittler received the Henry Allen Moe Prize of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

for her paper ''Popular Propaganda? Art and Culture in Revolutionary China''. In this paper, Mittler addresses the question why the items of propaganda of

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...

's time, a tragic period of suffering, are now popular in China, and why Mao has become a mythical figure. Mittler’s former desire to become a practicing musician (she plays the

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

and the

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

) led her to explore Chinese avant-garde music and fueled her passion for Chinese culture. Her research focuses on a wide range of topics such as Chinese music, Taiwanese literary and cultural history, encyclopedias and comics, Chinese women’s magazines, visuality and

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...

and national heroes.

Personal life

She is married to the classical

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

Thomas A. Schmitz.

Selected works

* ''Dangerous Tunes: The Politics of Chinese Music in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China since 1949''. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz (Opera sinologica 3), 1997. * ''A Newspaper for China? Power, Identity and Change in Shanghai’s News Media (1872-1912)''. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center (distributed by Harvard University Press) (Harvard East Asian Monographs Series 226), 2004. * ''A Continuous Revolution: Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture''. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center (distributed by Harvard University Press) (Harvard East Asian Monographs Series 343), 2012."Publications"
Institut für Sinologie Universität Heidelberg. Retrieved: December 19, 2012

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mittler, Barbara 1968 births Living people People from Hagen German sinologists Academic staff of Heidelberg University Alumni of Mansfield College, Oxford Members of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina