Assoc. Prof Sonja KMEC

Sonja Kmec is an associate professor at the Institute of History, at the Department of Humanities and head of the bilingual study programme MAHEC (Master en histoire européenne contemporaine / Master in European and Contemporary History). She is also a board member of LOGOS (international UGR annual doctoral school in the Humanities).

Sonja is working on women’s history and gender studies, currently on the project “Music and Gender in Luxembourg” (mugi.lu). She is also active in memory studies. She has studied usages of the past (Lieux de mémoire au Luxembourg; Inventing Luxembourg; Dépasser le cadre national des lieux de mémoire) and focused then on material aspects of remembering: monuments and cemeteries as well as rituals. This research led her to examine the impact of migration and cultural and religious pluralization on memory cultures (cemi-hera.org). Another strand of her research are international relations and small nations, using Luxembourg as a case-study. Sonja is a member of the editorial board of the “Revue d’histoire luxembourgeoise Hémecht” (hemecht.lu) and “Forum für Politik, Gesellschaft und Kultur” (forum.lu).

Sonja teaches at the Bachelor, Master and Doctoral levels, offering classes on early modern European History, Global history, the notion of modernity and gender studies.

Sonja is member of several scientific committees of cultural institutions and councils. She often participates in round-table discussions, and gives public conferences and interviews to national media outlets. The project Mugi.lu has a monthly column in the Tageblatt since October 2024.

Sonja was visiting professor at UC Berkeley (Fulbright Award 2014). Her publication Mobilities in Life and Death received the open access publication award of the Imiscoe Research Series (Springer 2023).

Sonja joined the University of Luxembourg after her PhD studies and worked first as postdoctoral researcher, before being nominated as professor in 2010. In-between she worked freelance for the European Capital of Culture (2007) and the Luxembourg City Museum.

Sonja completed her undergraduate studies in history at the Centre Universitaire du Luxembourg and Paris IV-Sorbonne (with an Erasmus exchange at Strathclyde University Glasgow). She did her Master’s degree in Seventeenth-Century Studies at the University of Durham and obtained her doctoral degree (D.Phil. in modern history) at the University of Oxford in 2004.