Max Schnepf
Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology
Research Associate (Prof. Dr. Hansjörg Dilger)
Project "PrEPped Intimacies in Berlin: Affective Ambivalences and Embodied Subjects in Biomedical HIV-Prevention"
Room 105
14195 Berlin
Pronouns: he/they
Having studied Social and Cultural Anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin in my bachelor's, I obtained my Master of Science at the University of Amsterdam. As part of the program in Social Sciences, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork at an upmarket hairdressing salon in Berlin about bodies in styling practices. Since 2019, I am co-chairing the working group “Gender & Sexualities | Queer Anthropology” within the German Anthropological Association (DGSKA). With an interest in Science and Technology Studies, Queer Studies, and Medical Anthropology, I conceptualize my PhD project about the co-constitution of biotechnologies and queer intimacies in HIV-prevention.
Queer Ethnography, Fall term 2024/25, B.A. Cultural Studies, University of Bremen
Urban Imaginaries: Between Space and Place in Berlin, Summer 2024, FUBiS International Summer and Winter Univeristy, Freie Universität Berlin
Themes and Theories in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Fall term 2021/2021, B.A. Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin
Anthropology of Pharmaceuticals, Spring term 2021, B.A. Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin
Anthropology and Intimacy, Fall term 2020/2021, B.A. Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin
Methods of Social and Cultural Anthropology (Übung/tutorial), Spring term 2020, B.A. Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin
Social Sciences, Fall term 2019/2020, HMKW University of Applied Sciences for Media, Communication and Management, Campus Berlin
Body, Technology, Knowledge: Approaches in Feminist Science and Technology Studies, Fall term 2017/2018, co-taught reading group with Maja Sisnowski, B.A. Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin
Project „PrEPped Intimacies in Berlin”, funded by the German Research Foundation
Director: Hansjörg Dilger
Duration: April 2022 - March 2024
PrEP – “Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis” – is a new biotechnology that, if taken regularly, protects effectively against an HIV infection. In Germany, PrEP has been available on prescription since October 2016 and it is covered by public insurance as of September 2019, inciting new discussions about what constitutes “safer sex” and “risky behavior” as well as concerns about increasing infection rates with other sexually transmitted infections. My planned PhD project aims at situating PrEP as well as the discourses and practices surrounding it in the lives of gay men in Berlin, who constitute the main user group of PrEP. Attending to how sexual subjectivities and queer intimacy are shaped and transformed in relation to this new biotechnology, I ask: How do gay men in Berlin perceive themselves as sexual beings, enter in intimate contacts, relate to discourses about “at risk populations,” and deal with HIV/AIDS-related stigmata?
Journal articles
[forthcoming]. Care, and the Less of it: Haunted Gestures and the Affective Economy of Pharmaceutical HIV Prevention. Feminist Anthropology.
2022. Chemical becoming: Embodied moments of urban belonging in Berlin [Chemisch-Werden: Verkörperte Momente urbaner Zugehörigkeit in Berlin]. sub\urban 10 (2/3): 17-42. https://doi.org/10.36900/suburban.v10i2/3.762
2022 (with U. Probst). Moral Exposures, Public Appearances: Contested Presences of Non-Normative Sex in Pandemic Berlin. European Journal of Women's Studies 29 (1): 75-89. https://doi.org/10.1177/13505068221076386
2020. Camp at the Salon: Anthropological Sense-Making with a Wink. Etnofoor 32 (2): 83-98. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26964289
Blog posts
2022. In Suhbet with Queer Companions: An Affectionate Book Review. AnthroDesires: gender & sexualities in context.
2020. Back home to normal? Emerging spaces of queer intimacy and ethnographic pathways. Boasblog: Fieldwork meets crisis.
2020 (with U. Probst). Thinking sex in times of corona: A conversation. Somatosphere: Science, Medicine, and Anthropology.
2017. Enacting the homosexual body: The Turkish military’s practice of ‘proving’ homosexuality through rectal examinations. Blog Medizinethnologie.
Reports
2020 (with H. Dilger). Alternative Gesundheitsvorstellungen und -praktiken in der deutschen Therapielandschaft: Bericht zur Literaturrecherche ‘Vielfalt im Gesundheitswesen’ im Auftrag der Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH. Berlin.
2019 (with K. Buchner). Where is my mind? Ecologies of healing and care in more-than-human worlds. Curare: Journal of Medical Anthropology 42 (1+2): 125-31. (online on Blog Medizinethnologie)
2019 (with U. Probst and K. Buchner). Creative methods and participatory arts research in medical anthropology: Conference report of the 9th MAYS meeting. Blog Medizinethnologie.
2017. Transfigurations in/of medical anthropology in Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. Medicine Anthropology Theory 4 (4).