Who are you looking for?
All
Research Associates
Faculty Members
Research School
Office
Head of Institute
Cultural writers
Project Staff
Scientific Advisory Board
Head of Institute
In 2007, Roland Norer became Professor of Public Law and Rural Law at the University of Lucerne, and is full professor of this chair since 2015. At the same time, he is the Executive Director of the Center for Law and Sustainability (CLS) at the University of Lucerne. He also accompanied various projects in Andermatt from a jurisprudential perspective.
Urner Gene: Pfäde, Pässe und Strassen
Andermatt Tourism Law Forum
Interview Luzerner Zeitung
Co-director of the Graduate School / Curator of the work area "Alpine Futures Literacy"
Jens Badura is a philosopher and co-director of the Graduate School “Cultures of the Alps” and curator of the “Alpine Futures Literacy” working area at the Uri Institute Cultures of the Alps at the University of Lucerne. He is also Head of the BA “Transformation & Sustainability” at the Department of Design Film Art at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and Associated Researcher at the Zurich University of the Arts.
He deals with the cultures of the Alps primarily from an aesthetic and cultural-philosophical perspective, often working in the field of tension between the sciences and the arts. He is also concerned with the question of how artistic ways of thinking and procedures can be fruitfully integrated into processes of transdisciplinary research and what potential this offers for the development of a new “Alpine Futures Literacy”.
"Correspondences. Building blocks of a theory of the genius loci"
Future Alpine Electricity. Cultural energy landscapes in climate-positive Alpine communities
Editing Syntopia Alpina
Aline Stadler has a Master of Arts in Cultural Studies with a focus on philosophy at the University of Lucerne. In her Master's thesis, she explored political aspects of listening. At the Urner Institut Kulturen der Alpen she is responsible for the online magazine Syntopia Alpina and editorial work. Aline Stadler furthermore works as a music journalist at SRF 2 Kultur in Basel.
Head of Secretariat and Communications
As a student assistant, Elena Arnold supports the management in various administrative matters and she is also responsible for public relations. She is currently completing her Master's degree in Cultural Studies at the University of Lucerne. She also completed various internships for example at the Cultural Departement of Lucerne and at the Local Museum in Küsnacht.
Research Fellow
Andreas Bäumler studied German philology and history in Basel. After his work as a translator and texter, he started in 2017 as a research fellow within the SNF professorship for literature and cultural studies at the University of Lucerne. Bäumler completes his doctorate in the summer of 2023 with a dissertation on the Reduit in literature at the Urner Institut Kulturen der Alpen.
Junior Research Fellow
Lisa Lee Benjamin is a curator and former landscape designer. She holds a Dr. des. from UNILU and is in the midst of publishing her book Barns Barning. She holds a master's degree in transdisciplinary arts with a focus on alpine cultures, a degree in plant and soil science (UVM), and a degree in permaculture design (CRMPI). She currently runs the Relationscape Lab and is an integral part of the Alpine Futures Literacy project. Her current work focuses on poetic practices that intra-actively correspond and syncopate with the Alpine region in sensory perception, transforming curation from a noun to verb.
Junior Research Fellow
The native of Graubünden studied literature and cultural studies at the University of Amsterdam. He is currently a doctoral student at the University of Lucerne and at the Research School Kulturen der Alpen. For his doctorate, he is working on questions of the literary representation of alpine ice and snow in the context of climate change. In this regard, he leads a transdisciplinary research and cultural project.
Empirische Kulturwissenschaft Schweiz
Madlaina Bundi is a historian, author, and project manager. For over twenty years, she has accompanied publication projects from conception and fundraising to implementation and marketing, from 2013 to 2018 as a partner and co-managing director at the publishing house Hier und Jetzt. As a historian, she researches topics with a focus on social and economic history, 19th and 20th centuries.
Archcor
Marcel Cornelisssen focuses on early post-glacial archaeology in (pre-)alpine Central Europe. The self-employed archaeologist studied at the universities of Leicester (UK) and Reading (UK). He has been working as an archaeologist since 2001, since 2005 mainly for various cantons and companies in Switzerland. On a mandate basis, Cornelissen heads the Bergeis project at the Urner Institut Kulturen der Alpen.
Mountain ice. Rock crystal from the Alps in the Mesolithic period
Co-director of the Graduate School
Sebastian De Pretto is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bern. His research focuses on the environmental and social history of hydropower in the Swiss-Italian Alps. He was a fellow at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich and at the Universities of Innsbruck and Trento. He completed his doctorate in Lucerne after studying history and philosophy in Heidelberg, Basel and Bologna. He accompanies the historiographical projects at the Graduate School Cultures of the Alps.
Project
TETI, VOLUMES
Anne-Laure Franchette is a French artist with a background in human sciences. She works on urban nature and the circulation of plants in relation with industrial materials. Since 2018, she is part of the interdisciplinary research group TETI, which focuses on trans-industriality. She is also co-founder and artistic director of VOLUMES.
Construction site and botany
Junior Research Fellow
Ndjaka Mtsetwene is a research fellow and federal scholar at the Institute "Cultures of the Alps" and at the University of Lucerne. She completed a master's degree in African literature at the University of the Witwatersrand. She has collaborated on several community projects focusing on narratives of movement and place-making in the black diaspora and on the African continent.
Project coordinator and Research Fellow
Veronika Studer-Kovács studied Hungarian Studies and Romance Studies in Budapest. From 2013, she devoted herself to researching Franco-Hungarian cultural relations in the 18th century at the Sorbonne University in Paris. She completed her doctoral studies at the University of Lucerne from 2017 to 2022, where her dissertation examined the significance of cosmopolitan thinking in Hungarian nation building in the 18th century. Since 2023, she has been working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Research School of the Uri Institute Cultures of the Alps. In particular, she researches the history and current perception of world cultural and natural heritage. One focus of her work is on the impact of the changing Earth system on the definition and treatment of these two World Heritage categories.
Future Alpine Electricity. Cultural energy landscapes in climate-positive Alpine communities
Junior Research Fellow
Roman Walker studied singing, choral conducting, music education and sacred music. His interest in making music with young people led him to join the founding team of the Menzingen Gymnasium and to become the Stiftskapellmeister at the Stiftsschule Engelberg. He also worked for several years in school management and organisational development. Today he leads the music team at Zurich's old city churches and conducts various ensembles.
The Alps in Swiss Song
Hanns in der Gand - soldier singer, song leader
Research Fellow
Rahel Wunderli studied history and ecology. Her experiences as a shepherdess – on alps in Uri, among other places – were the starting point for a long-term engagement with the history and present of mountain agriculture. Since 2017, she has also been researching the so-called "commons": entities such as the Corporations of Uri and Ursern that collectively manage land and resources.
Uri in transition - Population and science in dialog
Ageing well in the mountains of Uri
Universität Luzern
Chiara Zgraggen works in the project Uri in Transition as a student research assistant. She studies history and art history at the universities of Lucerne and Zurich and works as a research assistant at Swiss Sports History and as a journalist and producer at the Luzerner Zeitung.
Uri in transition - Population and science in dialog
HEAD Genf
Mabe Bethônico is artist and researcher, having been professor at UFMG – Brazil between 2001 and 2018. She currently teaches at the École Nationale Supérieure de Photographie in Arles and at HEAD-Genève, having been artist researcher at ESAAA, Annecy. She holds a PhD from the Royal College of Art in London, and received a post-doctoral fellowship at the Musée d'Ethnographie de Genève in 2013, supported by the Brazilian national research agency CNPq.
Research Fellow
Annina Boogen studied Environmental and Energy Sciences and worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in environmental economics at ETH Zurich (2016-2022) and since 2020 at the Center for Energy and Environment at ZHAW. Between 2017 and 2020, she studied part-time in the MA Transdisciplinarity at ZHdK. In her current project she explores the sensory perception of energy infrastructure in the Alps.
Renewable energy in alpine landscapes – Making infrastructure perceptible to the senses
Future Alpine Electricity. Cultural energy landscapes in climate-positive Alpine communities
Kunsthaus Zug
Jana Bruggmann is an art and history scholar and works as a curator. She studied at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and completed the master's program "curatorial studies" at the ZHdK. She worked at the FU Berlin and at the Leibniz Institute for European History in Mainz. Her dissertation project is located at the intersection of image and knowledge history. Since September 2023 she is curator at Kunsthaus Zug.
SRF Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen
Andrea Meier has a PhD in cultural studies at the University of Potsdam's Faculty of Philosophy and is a cultural journalist, photographer and filmmaker. As a quiet observer of nature, she faces the slowing down and epiphany of the moment. She also researches and teaches relaxation medicine and understands to apply this inter- and transdisciplinarily as well as practically.
Il Pesch sbatta - The poetry of ice fishing and the rediscovery of silence
University of Westminster London / University of Arts Zurich
Uriel Orlov's practice encompasses film, photography, drawing, and sound. His installations focus on places and micro-histories, bringing image regimes and narrative modes into correspondence. His work is concerned with colonialism, spatial manifestations of memory and plants as political actors. Orlow is a senior researcher at the University of Westminster and a lecturer at the ZHDK.
ETH Zurich
Juanita von Rothkirch is a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Environmental Sciences at ETH Zurich (2021-2024). Her research focuses on socio-cultural mechanisms that influence the development of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) for Swiss emissions. She investigates the influence of discourses towards the possible futures of CDR and promotes reflection on the actual effectiveness of CDR.
University of Lucerne
Markus Schreiber is Co-Managing Director of the Centre for Law and Sustainability CLS at the University of Lucerne. He works in the Competence Centre for Energy Law, which addresses aspects of Swiss energy law with a focus on the Energy Strategy 2050. This involves a close exchange with practitioners as well as other universities and colleges.
University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons
Daniel A. Walser studied architecture at the ETH Zurich and the Sapienza in Rome. He teaches architectural history, architectural theory and urban planning at the Fachhochschule Graubünden and engages in research. His focus lies on contemporary architecture in the Alpine region. Walser has published on the architects Valerio Olgiati, Bruno Giacometti, Andres Liesch and Rudolf Olgiati.
Junior Research Fellow
Ariane Zangger has studied Social Anthropology, Sustainable Development and and Religious Studies at the University of Berne and graduated with a Master's thesis on wolf presence in the Upper Valais. In her doctoral thesis from 2021-2024 with Prof. Dr. Tobias Haller she is investigating human-wolf relationships in the Romanian Carpathians. From 2019 to 2022 she was responsible for the coordination of the interdisciplinary project "Silicon Mountains: The Swiss Alps in the Digital Age".
Junior Research Fellow
Elisabeth Nold Schwartz is an artistic associate at HSLU D&K. She graduated in Theater and Dance Studies in 2011 and holds a Master in Fine Arts with a focus on Art in Public Spheres since 2020. She is interested in the complementary connection of theoretical and poietic knowledge, which can be transcended in Bataille's sense and thus produce new spaces for thought and action.
Junior Research Fellow
Milka Lehner studied History, Slavic Studies, Eastern European History and Cultural Studies at the Universities of Zurich and Lucerne. She has been a start-up scholar at the Graduate School Lucerne and a member of the Graduate School Cultures of the Alps since 2023.
Invisible guests. Yugoslav seasonal workers in the Swiss Alps 1970-1991
Junior Research Fellow
Nils Widmer is writing his dissertation on skiing from a social and gender-historical perspective. From 2015 to 2021, he studied History and German Philology at the University of Basel. He worked as a research assistant at Swiss Sports History, as an assistant at the Department of History at the University of Basel, as a freelancer at Radio SRF and in educational projects.
Junior Research Fellow
Sara Šifrar Krajnik studied ethnology and cultural anthropology at the University of Ljubljana. She is currently working on her PhD thesis in the SNF-funded Ambizione project "Reservoirs and Resettlement Policies in the Alpine Region after 1918", under the supervision of Dr. Sebastian De Pretto. In her dissertation project she is dealing with hydroelectric power plants in Slovenian Alps and its impact on people and the surrounding nature.
President Scientific Advisory Board
Junior Research Fellow
Silvano Frei was born in 1996 in Flawil (SG). He studied cultural studies with a focus on philosophy at the University of Lucerne. In his master's thesis, he focused on the European Décadence as a central intellectual-historical topos of cultural and aesthetic modernity.
With the start-up scholarship of the University of Lucerne (since 1.10.2023) he prepares his PhD project.
Junior Research Fellow
Catrina Klee completed her Bachelor's degree in Popular Cultures at the University of Zurich, where she focused her thesis on the contemporary significance of mobility. She went on to study World Society and Global Governance with a major in History at the University of Lucerne. Her Master's thesis explored the topic of female entrepreneurs and globalization in Africa. She is currently pursuing her PhD as an independent doctoral candidate at the Graduate School of Lucerne.
Research Fellow
Jonas Frick is a literary scholar from Zurich. In his dissertation he studied the literary perception of acceleration in the interwar period. In his early postdoc-project, he studied the cultural imaginaries of networked computers between 1960 and 2000. Besides that, he is interested in weirde literature and in narratives about digitalization.
The cultural perception and representation of artificial snow
Junior Research Fellow
Sophie Fäs completed her Bachelor's and Master's degree in History and German Studies at the University of Basel. She wrote her master's thesis on midwifery in Fricktal in the 18th century. Since autumn 2021, she has been working on her dissertation under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Caroline Arni has started. Since April 2022, her doctoral project on the transition from home birth to hospital birth has been funded by the SNSF.
bildfluss-Verlag
Christof Hirtler is a photographer, author, journalist and director of bildfluss-Verlag, Altdorf.
He uses oral history to research the recent history of the canton of Uri. His publishing house has published various books on this subject: "Urnerboden", "Hirt, Tinner und Fugibootschä - Urner Berglandwirtschaft früher, heute, morgen", "Fotografie in Uri", "Singende Seile - Die Seilbahnlandschaft des Urner Schächentals".
Alpine networks of interconnectedness: the cableways of Uri as role players and spheres of action
climate landscaping
As part of «climate landscaping», Cedric Zangger develops solutions for agriculture adapted to climate change. He is also involved in the development of solidarity-based agriculture in the Zurich Oberland. For the Uri Institute of Alpine Cultures, he leads the project «Biochar and Electricity - Pyrolysis Plants in the Alps».
Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz
Michel Roth, born in Altdorf (Uri), is a composer and Professor of Composition, Music Theory and Artistic Research at the Hochschule für Musik Basel. He conducts research into musical applications of game theory and cybernetics (doctorate at the University of Basel), organology of contemporary music and Alpine sound sociology ("ropeway singing").
Junior Research Fellow
Kiah Lian Rutz received a Bachelor's degree in Classical Archeology from University College London (UCL) in 2016 and a Master's degree in Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology from the University of Oxford in 2019. She has been writing her dissertation at the University of Zurich since 2022 on the diverse human adaptations and reorientation to climatic changes, i.e. the disappearance of snow and winter, in the Surselva Valley.
Materialities of Obsolescence: A Study of Snow, Seasons and Changing Conditions in the Swiss Alps
Junior Research Fellow
Marzell Küttel, M.A., studied German Literature and Linguistics and General and Comparative Literature in Geneva, Fribourg and Zurich. He works at a cantonal school. As part of the Research School Kulturen der Alpen, he is writing a dissertation on the subject of hydropower in Swiss literature.
Progress and Loss. The Contribution of Literature to the Myth of Swiss Hydropower
Junior Research Fellow
Oliver Kerrison is a doctoral researcher at the Department of History at the University of St.Gallen and works as a journalist for Radio SRF. He studied cultural studies, philosophy, and organisational and management theory at the Universities of Lucerne and St.Gallen.
Research Fellow
Elisabeth Schubiger is a social anthropologist at the University of Fribourg. Her research examines how small-scale hydropower plants in Bernese Alps are maintained across generations and the role of commons, local knowledge, and social networks in this process. She aims to contribute to a better understanding of sustainable transformations and explore ways to navigate trade-offs. Schubiger studied social anthropology and art history in Bern and obtained her PhD from the Graduate Institute in Geneva in 2024.
Research Fellow
Agnieszka Joniak-Lüthi is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Fribourg and head of the project “Maintaining Relations: Community-owned Hydropower Infrastructure Through Time.” Agnieszka has spent more than four years studying and conducting research in China. Between 2018-2023, Agnieszka she the research project "ROADWORK: An Anthropology of Infrastructure at China's Inner Asian Borders", which focused on roads being built in the China-Central Asia borderlands as part of the One Belt One Road Initiative. Since 2019, Agnieszka has also been the Editor-in-Chief of the Open Access journal Roadsides.
In the “Maintaining Relations: Community-owned Hydropower Infrastructure Through Time” project, Agnieszka explores the question of how decentral energy production can be successfully maintained over time and how it can strengthen economic and social structures in the Alpine communities. She is focusing on the Canton of Uri in the Swiss Alps, where privately- and community-owned small scale hydropower stations and grids have been operating for more than a hundred years, providing valuable knowledge to help answer these questions.
Maintaining Relations: Community-owned Hydropower Infrastructure Through Time
Maintaining Relations: Community-owned Hydropower Infrastructure Through Time
Director
Boris Previšić has been the founding director of the institute he developed since February 2020. As editor of Gotthardfantasien (2016), he has continued his earlier work on the Alps as a professor of cultural studies and literature, having already established the concept of «Alpine fallow land» in a participatory project in the Safiental valley in 2007. Among other things, he led the SNF project on «Reduit und Gebirgskrieg» (2020-2024). He is head of the Research College Cultures of the Alps and is also responsible for the content of the online magazine Syntopia Alpina. He is also a sought-after expert and discussion partner on issues relating to clichés and cultural history, innovation and tourism, agriculture and forestry in the Alps. As a science and non-fiction author, he focuses on Alpine sustainability scenarios for the future. These include monographs on CO2 (2020) and Zeitkollaps (2023). In cooperation with national and international institutions, he has written further books such as «Bergstürze» (2022), «Gletscherbersten» (2023), «Die Alpen im Anthropozän» (2023), «Grenzgänge» (2024) and «Sonnenstrom» (2025).
Mountain Warfare and Reduits in Literature
From the Threatening to the Threatened
The Alps in Swiss Songs
Renewable energie sources and the Alpine region
Die Alpen für eine klimapositive Schweiz
The Alpes for a climate-positive Switzerland
The Alpes and Ukraine
Future Alpine Electricity
Research Fellow
Luregn Lenggenhager is a historian specializing in Namibia. He researches the connections between nature conservation, climate change, and land policies in (post-)colonial Africa and the Swiss Alps. He is an assistant professor at the Center for African Studies in Basel, where he heads the CEDEL project. His latest monograph, Space is the Ultimate Luxury, analyzes land grabbing in the name of nature conservation in southern Namibia.
Curated Escapes and Derelict Landscapes in Times of Climate Change (CEDEL)
Knowledge Transfer and Public Relations Officer
Chantal Vettorata holds a Master of Arts in Art History and History from the University of Zurich. In her master's thesis, she examined the interactions between art, politics, and exhibition practice in the context of Italian fascism. She works in the field of knowledge transfer and public relations.
Cultural Writer
Andrea Keller, born in 1981 in the Zurich Unterland region, works at the intersection of literature, cultural mediation, and participatory formats. She studied journalism and communication at the Institute for Applied Media Studies at the ZHAW in Winterthur, and holds a master's degree in cultural journalism (ZHdK, Zurich) and another in writing pedagogy (Alice Salomon University, Berlin). As the initiator of interdisciplinary cultural projects and writing workshops, she combines social issues with artistic, often dialogical formats. For several years, Andrea has also been intensively engaged with the relationship between humans and nature.
Cultural Writer
Seraina Kobler, born in Locarno in 1982 and raised in Basel, studied linguistics and cultural studies before working as a journalist for publications including the "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" newspaper. She then went on to become a freelance author and writer. Her debut novel, "Regenschatten" (Rain Shadow), was published in 2020. Her first Zurich crime novel featuring lake police officer Rosa Zambrano, "Tiefes, dunkles Blau" (Deep, Dark Blue), published by Diogenes Verlag, remained on the Swiss bestseller list for months. Her Swiss adventure novel "Tal der Schwalben" (Valley of Swallows) will be published in spring 2026. Seraina Kobler is the mother of five children and lives with her family in Zurich.
Cultural Writer
Zohra Felicitas Briki works at the intersection of artistic practice, knowledge production, and cultural mediation. She studied history and philosophy of knowledge at ETH Zurich and German language and literature and media studies at the University of Basel. She is active in the arts, culture, and science in Switzerland and the US. Her practice includes the development of dialogical formats, curatorial work, and text development and editing. The focus is on collaborative experimentation, reflection, and action. As part of the Kulturschreiber:innen scholarship, she is developing Index Uri, an open, processual writing project that examines Uri as a transit region. The research will culminate in a dynamic lexicon that serves as the basis for participatory formats and opens up different readings of the space.
Cultural Writer
Dr. phil. Christian de Simoni is a writer and lives in Bern. He also works as an editor and ghostwriter. Between 1999 and 2009, he studied German language and literature in Bern, Cologne, and Zurich and earned his doctorate with a thesis on contemporary literature after 9/11. He participated in the prose workshop at the Literary Colloquium Berlin and received the Prenzlauer Berg Literature Prize for an excerpt from his novel Rückseitenwetter (2011). He is particularly interested in customs, political discourse, and folk poetry. In two volumes of essays, he dealt with folk songs (Das Rigilied, 2017) and hiking as a cultural practice (wandern/schreiben, 2023).
Cultural Writer
Joachim Schloemer, choreographer, director, author, and dramaturge, develops literary material into precisely composed scenic spaces in which inner conflicts and social fault lines can be experienced emotionally and physically. His texts, especially his plays, often refer to mythological material. Based in Basel, he works interdisciplinarily in the fields of film, literature, dance, theater, and media art.
Head of Institute
Thekla Brunkert has been Assistant Professor of Interprofessional Primary Care at the University of Lucerne since 2024. She is a trained physiotherapist, holds a Master’s degree in Health Sciences (University of Lucerne), and obtained her PhD in Nursing Science from the University of Basel. Her research focuses on the development, implementation, and evaluation of new models of care in primary care settings.
Junior Research Fellow
Andrea Delvescovo, born in 1998 in Domodossola and currently living in Vanzone, Italy, has been Director and Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper Il Rosa. Periodico di cultura alpina fondato a Macugnaga nel 1962. He wrote his master’s thesis on smuggling between Ossola and Valais and is currently researching the valorization of historic transport routes. In 2024, he assisted in the production of the documentary film Il contrabbando non è peccato (“Smuggling Is Not a Sin”) by Nicola Buffoni.
Cross-border cooperation between Italy and Switzerland for the cultural promotion of border regions. Forms of local partnerships.
Junior Research Fellow
Claudio Loretz completed his bachelor as well as his master degree in law and economics at the University of St. Gallen (HSG). He gained practical experience during his studies, including at a renowned commercial law firm in Zurich. After graduating, he worked as a court clerk at the Administrative Court of the Canton of St. Gallen. In this role, he was involved in numerous landmark decisions in public law and published corresponding judgements. Following his work at the court, Claudio Loretz began teaching economics and law as a lecturer. He also obtained his first teaching diploma as a certified economics teacher at the University of St. Gallen (HSG) and is currently training for his second teaching diploma as a certified secondary school teacher. In parallel with his ongoing teaching activities, Claudio Loretz works as a research assistant to Prof. Dr. Roland Norer at the University of Lucerne and is pursuing a doctorate in public law. His dissertation project deals with the legal implementation of the Alpine Convention in Switzerland, with a particular focus on spatial planning approaches to preventing climate change in the Alpine region. As part of his dissertation project, Claudio Loretz is a member of the Research School Cultures of the Alps at the Urner Institute. In his private life, Claudio Loretz is a passionate skier and former ski instructor.
