Sonja Hegasy

Biography

Sonja Hegasy was born in 1967 in Leverkusen. She studied Arabic and Islamic Studies at the American University in Cairo, the University of Witten / Herdecke, the University of Bochum, and Columbia University, New York, where she completed her MA in 1990. In 1994 she worked as one of two program officers at the head of the newly established NGO Transparency International, In 1996 she received her Ph.D. from Free University of Berlin with a thesis on 'State and Civil Society in Morocco'. Between 1996 and 1998 she was a junior expert at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Cairo. Since 1998 Sonja Hegasy is a researcher at Center Modern Orient (ZMO) in Berlin. Since 2004 she is heading the center's outreach. In 2008 she was appointed Vice Director of ZMO (since 2017 Leibniz Center Modern Orient). Between 2009 and 2016 she chaired the Goethe Institute's Advisory Council, Science and Contemporary Events. She is a regular contributor of the internet portal qantara.de to promote dialogue with the Islamic world. In the first half of 2016 she was a Fulbright Fellow at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Her current research topic is: Transforming Memories:Morocco in the Aftermath of the Equity and Reconciliation Instance .

Research Interest

Current research area: Transforming Memories: reparation, media and historiography as a result of the Moroccan Truth Commission 2004/05