Dr. Thomas Schad

Dr. Thomas Schad

Founder | Historical Anthropologist

A German-Bosnian researcher from Berlin, trained as a historical anthropologist specialising in South-Eastern Europe, Turkey and Germany. Made his first dive as a toddler at Krivaja.

Contact: Thomas@krivaja.org

Academic background

I obtained my PhD in 2020 as a historian anthropologist at the Chair of South-East European History at Humboldt University of Berlin (HU), and I was a member of the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies (BGSMCS). For my doctoral thesis on migration from the SFR Yugoslavia to Turkey and the AKP government’s public diplomacy initiative in the Western Balkans, I spent more than two years conducting research between Istanbul and Sarajevo. Working in multilingual (Turkish, BKMS) contexts, I used interdisciplinary methods (multi-method research) with a strong emphasis on metaphor analysis. My research focused on neighbourhood sociology, qualitative interviews using the life-stories approach, public opinion and discourse analysis, popular culture, and the anthropology of the nation state.

Professional and Personal Life

At the Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin and Istanbul University, I completed a Magister Artium programme in Eastern European Studies (History, Economics, Turkish language), Political Science and South Slavic Studies. Before starting my degree, I spent three years working as a project co-ordinator, campaign manager, fundraiser, volunteer and chairperson at the Stiftung Schüler Helfen Leben in Sarajevo and Berlin. This formative period provided me with extensive international experiences, regional and language skills. Before my PhD (2013–2020), I spent two years as a programme officer at the International Office of the Free University of Berlin (FU), where I was responsible for academic relations with the Balkans and Turkey. Due to my upbringing in a mixed German-Bosnian family, I developed intercultural competence from an early age. From working-class and migrant backgrounds to the academic communities in Berlin, Istanbul, Sarajevo and beyond, I move between different social classes. Even today, I regularly work as a translator between very different groups, which helps me to understand how public opinion is formed in its different facets.

Research interests

  • Cosmopolitisation and the transformation of the nation-state;
  • Physical and discursive climate change;
  • The impacts of global heating on urban and rural areas;
  • More-than-human history(ies) and security;
  • Public opinion, demagoguery, neo-populism, historical revisionism;
  • Genocide research, displacement, “demographic engineering”;
  • (Post-)Migration, superdiverse societies, multidirectional memory culture;
  • Belief systems, emotions and affects, language and storytelling;
  • Germany, Turkey, South-Eastern Europe & global issues.

Research and writing projects

  • Neopopulism: Naturräumlicher und sozialer Klimawandel im Anthropozän (LINK)
  • Histoire pour la liberté (LINK)
  • Acta Francorum: Essays über das Große im Kleinen (LINK)

Publications (selection)

2026

2025

  • Schad, Thomas: Die vier Säulen der fossilen Zivilisation (2): Ökologie und einstürzende Neubauten. Als Antwort auf ein Podcast des ORF, unter Mitwirkung des Autors. In: NEOPOPULISMUS / Neopolis vom 19.11.2025.
  • Schad, Thomas: Die vier Säulen der fossilen Zivilisation (1): Vom Pantheon zum Plattenbau. Als Antwort auf ein Podcast des ORF, unter Mitwirkung des Autors. In: NEOPOPULISMUS / Neopolis vom 18.11.2025.

2024

2023

  • Schad, Thomas: On populism and historical revisionism, in: The Past is now — Politics of Denial and Dealing with the Past in the Western Balkans. Perspectives No. 10, May 2023, pp. 66-69.
  • (Ko-Autorschaft) Gábor Koloh, Jakub Rákosník, and Thomas Schad: Demographic Change in Contemporary History (ca. 1900–2000), in: Jan Hansen, Jochen Hung, Jaroslav Ira, Judit Klement, Sylvain Lesage, Juan Luis Simal and Andrew Tompkins (Eds)(2023), The European Experience: A Multi-Perspective History of Modern Europe. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0323, S. 155-163.
  • (Ko-Autorschaft) Jaroslav Ira, Thomas Schad, and Erika Szívós: Interethnic Relations in Contemporary History (ca. 1900–2000), in: ebda, S. 189-197.
  • (Ko-Autorschaft) Laszlo Csorba, Sylvain Lesage, and Thomas Schad: Religions in Modern History (ca. 1800–1900), in: ebda, S. 705-713.
  • (Ko-Autorschaft) Laszlo Csorba, Sylvain Lesage, Ángela Pérez del Puerto, and Thomas Schad: Religions in Modern History (ca. 1900–2000), in: ebda, S. 715-724.

2022

2021-2015

  • Schad, Thomas: Faktizität, Identität und Emotionalität: Kulturelle Strategien zum Umgang mit Genozid-Leugnung im Fall Srebrenica, in: Südosteuropa Mitteilungen 05/2021, S. 33-48.
  • Schad, Thomas: Über die Sevdah, den bosnischen Künstler Damir Imamović und die Würdigung „schrankenlosen Sentiments“, in: Südosteuropa Mitteilungen 5/2020, S. 67-84.
  • Thomas Schad. Die öffentliche Diplomatie einer kommunikativen Figuration zwischen Sarajevo und Ankara: Das Verhandeln von Sicherheit, Kultur und Verwandtschaft, in: Telbizova-Sack, Jordanka und Christian Voß (Hg.) (2019): Islam auf dem Balkan. Muslimische Traditionen im lokalen, nationalen und transnationalen Kontext. Reihe: Südosteuropa-Jahrbuch. Berlin (u.a.): Peter Lang, S. 149-175.
  • Razgovor sa Thomasom Schadom o iseljavanju muslimanskog stanovništva u Tursku [Gespräch mit Thomas Schad über die Aussiedelung der muslimischen Bevölkerung in die Türkei], Interview mit Harun Karčić für Algoritam (Savremena Islamska Misao i Kultura), Sarajevo. [Link]
  • Thomas Schad. Türkische Kulturdiplomatie in Montenegro. Blog Humboldt Balkan Cosmos vom 18.7.2019. Link.
  • Thomas Schad. A Communicative Figuration Between Sarajevo and Istanbul in the Course of Gentrificating Turkey’s Post-Ottoman Hinterland, in: Anatoli No. 9, Dossier thématique: Migrants et réfugiés en Turquie, dans leur contexte historique, politique et social (sous la direction d’Elif Aksaz et de Catherine Wihtol de Wenden), S. 127-139. Link.
  • Thomas Schad. From Muslims into Turks? Consensual demographic engineering between Interwar Yugoslavia and Turkey, in: Journal of Genocide Research 18(4), S. 427-446. Link.
  • Thomas Schad. The Rediscovery of the Balkans? A Bosniak-Turkish Figuration in the Third Space Between Istanbul and Sarajevo, in: Working Paper No: 8 (2015), Istanbul Bilgi University, European Insitute Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence. Link.
  • Thomas Schad. In Bosnia (I). Blog der Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies, vom 10.12.2015. Link.

Contact

Please feel free to write to me:

thomas@krivaja.org