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Picture: L. Kurz

Laura Kurz M.A.

Working area(s)

PI Emmy Noether Research Group "KoLT",

Contact

Work S3|12 402
Residenzschloss 1
64283 Darmstadt

Dissertation project

Technology bears meaning and ideologies and is constructed through social and material means. While digital technologies have been accessible for some, others have been excluded from participating in the “digital revolution” or were chased out of the disciplines, specifically women. In connection to technology, there are certain connotations, cultural biases and clichés surrounding user groups and their affinity to the matter as well as how said user groups are treated in education, training and the workforce. Intersectionally connected dimensions of gender, class, habitus, “race", ethnicity, education background and the material surroundings of a subject determine the subject’s handling and experience with technology and technological education. Technology and gender are situated in a co-constructionist relationship and are mutually dependent concepts. Both digital technologies and gendered technologies are learned.

In my dissertation, I am concerned with the (co-) construction of gendered learning subjects (as in individuals) from 1950 to 2000. My main interest is the discursive relation of gender and technology regarding education and work since the postwar period in the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic as well as reunified Germany. My dissertation aims to work out the epistemological foundations that influenced learning subjects in Germany regarding their gender and technological knowledgeability.

Research interests:

  • History of Technology
  • Human-machine relationship
  • Gender, (en-)gendering practices
  • Learning Theories
  • Technical design and usability

Publications

Liggieri, K. & Kurz, L. (2025). The Gendered Language of Technology. Technology and Language, 6(3), 10-25. https://doi.org/10.48417/technolang.2025.03.02

Presentations

Blank Spaces in the History of Gender-Technological Education: A Historical-Epistemological Examination of the Federal Republic of Germany from the Post-war Years to the 1990s. – Herausforderungen der Technik. Transatlantischer Workshop zur Geschichte der Mensch-Maschine-Beziehung im 20. Jahrhundert, 25.05.2024 (https://www.hsozkult.de/event/id/event-143842.

Geschlechteressentialismus im Technikbildungsdiskurs der BRD in den 1970er und 80er Jahren. – Studientag an der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, 13.03.2025

The Essentialization of gender regarding technology in the West German education discourse in the 1970s and 1980s. – European Social Science History Conference, 26.–29.03.2026, Leiden, Niederlande

06/2014 Abitur

10/2014 – 3/2020 Joint Bachelor of Arts – German Linguistics and Literature and Political Science, Darmstadt Technical University

4/2020 – 4/2023 Master of Arts – Data and Discourse Studies, Darmstadt Technical University

Since 09/2023 PhD candidate and research assistant in the Emmy Noether research group “KoLT" at the Department of History of Technology at Darmstadt Technical University

Working experience

08/2016 – 11/2017 Freelance teacher for German as a foreign language, Frankfurt a.M.

12/2017 – 01/2020 Student assistant, Hochschulrechenzentrum – IT department, training and education team, Technical University of Darmstadt

06/2019 – 10/2020 Student assistant, Institute of Linguistics and Literature (LingLit) – digital literary science, Prof. Dr. Evelyn Gius, Technical University of Darmstadt

11/2020 – 03/2022 Student assistant Zentrale Studienberatung (currently: Science Communication Center), editorial podcast staff, Technical University of Darmstadt