Sarah Thanner



  • Position: Associated member
  • Phone:
  • E-Mail: sarah.thanner@ur.de
  • Web site:
  • Address: TechBase, Room 1.103, Franz-Mayer-Str. 1, 93053 Regensburg

About

Sarah Thanner is an associated member of the PDA research group. She studied Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics in Regensburg and is currently completing working to complete her PhD work on the design and development of interactive technologies at Friedrich Schiller University Jena.

Until February 2023, Sarah collaborated with the PDA group as a researcher in the BMBF-funded project VIGITIA, which aimed to develop a framework for augmented tabletop surface technology. Among other things, there she was concerned with the development of participatory design formats and methods to facilitate public engagement in technological development. In her PhD project she is working towards an ethnographic account of the VIGITIA project at the intersection of Cultural Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies with a focus on the becoming of digital-material configurations and the modes of scientific knowledge production they are embedded in.

Sarah's research interests are wide-ranging and she is involved in a variety of multimodal collaborations, such as CECO (Code Ethnography Collective) or the Studiolab.arbeit an Arbeit. For a more detailed CV in German visit her page at the website of the Chair of Media Informatics.

Research interests

  • Digital Anthropology
  • Science and Technology Studies
  • Participatory Design
  • Work and Labour Studies
  • Anthropological Linguistics

Teaching

  • 2020. Course “Mensch - Technik - Algorithmus. Ethnografische Perspektiven auf digitalisierte Alltage”, Chair of European Ethnology, University of Regensburg
  • 2015-2019. Course “Anthropological Lingustics”, Chair of General and Comparative Linguistics, University of Regensburg
  • 2017. Course “Sprache und Ethnizität”, Chair of General and Comparative Linguistics, University of Regensburg
  • 2017. Course “Essential Readings in Linguistics”, Chair of General and Comparative Linguistics, University of Regensburg

Publications

2023. (in preparation) A hand is a hand is a hand is a table? On the (re)configuration of future choreographies. In: Samantha Lutz, Anna Oechslen Hannah Rotthaus, Quoc-Tan Tran, Gertraud Koch (ed.): Digital Futures in the Making: Imaginaries, Materialities, and Politics.

2023. (in preparation) Computercode in seinen Dimensionen ethnografisch begegnen. In: Martina Klausner, Dennis Eckhardt: Methoden in digitalen Feldern, Kulturanthropologische Notizen 85. Institut für Kulturanthropologie und Europäische Ethnologie, Universität Frankfurt. Together with Libuše Hannah Vepřek, Lina Franken and the CECO.

2023. Imaginieren – Intraagieren – Rekonfigurieren: Mensch-Technologie-Relationen im Werden. In: Zeit. Zur Temporalität von Kultur. 43. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Empirische Kulturwissenschaft (DGEKW). Together with Libuše Hannah Vepřek.

2021. Approaching code as process: Prototyping ethnographic methodologies. In: Kuckuck. Notizen zur Alltagskultur 1/2021: “Code“. Together with Rebecca Carlson, Ruth Dorothea Eggel, Lina Franken and Libuše Hannah Vepřek, URL: https://www.kuckucknotizen.at/kuckuck/index.php/1-21-code/216-1-21-code-leseprobe.

2021. Essen in der Krise. Unsicherheitserfahrungen und Prekarisierung im Prisma von Ernährungsroutinen in kulturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive. Blättel-Mink, Birgit (ed.): Gesellschaft unter Spannung. Verhandlungen des 40. Kongresses der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie 2020. Together with Gunther Hirschfelder, URL: https://publikationen.soziologie.de/index.php/kongressband_2020/article/view/1366.

2020. Augmented Truths on the Table – an ethnographic investigation in the field of digital-material innovation. Story Map presented online at the 7th conference of the Section “Digitization in Everyday Life” of the German Association of Cultural Anthropology and Folklore Studies, Humboldt University of Berlin, URL: https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/9a5f58141623d4cfd7172eec29950e40/truth-making-on-the-table-1/index.html.

2019. Prekäre Lebenswelten im Prisma der Ernährung. Edited together with Gunther Hirschfelder. Waxmann: Münster/New York.

2019. Das Wechselspiel von Prekarität und Ernährung als Forschungsfeld – Zugänge, Perspektiven und Implikationen. In: Hirschfelder, Gunther/Thanner, Sarah (eds.): Prekäre Lebenswelten im Prisma der Ernährung. Waxmann: Münster/New York.

2019. Zur Verschränkung von Prekaritäts- und Nahrungsforschung – einleitende Bemerkungen zu einem studentischen Forschungsprojekt. In: Hirschfelder, Gunther/Thanner, Sarah (eds.): Prekäre Lebenswelten im Prisma der Ernährung. Waxmann: Münster. Together with Gunther Hirschfelder. Waxmann: Münster/New York.

2019. Personennamen und die Belebtheitshierarchie. Zur morphosyntaktischen Kodierung von Personennamen in Split-Ergativsprachen (= Regensburg Papers in Linguistics 8), URL: https://epub.uni-regensburg.de/40553/1/RPiL08_Thanner.pdf.

2019. Persönlichkeit gesucht! – Diskurse um den Ordnungsparameter Persönlichkeit in der Auswahl von Bewerberinnen und Bewerbern. In: Henkes, Janina et al. (eds.): Ordnung[en] der Arbeit. Verlag Westfälisches Dampfboot: Münster, p. 131-151.

2018. Schummler gegen Detektiv: Das Auswahlszenario von Bewerbern aus kulturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive. In: Forschungsergebnisse von Absolventen und Promovierenden der Fakultät für Sprach-, Literatur-, und Kulturwissenschaften der Universität Regensburg (ForAP 1/2018), p. 9-31, URL: https://forap.uni-regensburg.de/index.php/slk/article/view/13/18.

2018. Morphosyntactic coding of proper names and its implications for the Animacy Hierarchy. In: Cristofaro, Sonia/Zúñiga, Fernando (eds.): Typological Hierarchies in Synchrony and Diachrony, S. 381–404, Benjamins: Amsterdam/Philadelphia. Together with Johannes Helmbrecht, Ilenia Tonetti and Lukas Denk, URL: https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.121.11hel.

2013. Songanalyse I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die-Rag/Fish Cheer von Country Joe McDonald (Woodstock Version). In: Fischer, Michael et al. (ed.): Deutsches Volksliedarchiv populärer Kultur und Musik. Songlexikon. Encyclopedia of Songs. Freiburg, URL: http://www.songlexikon.de/songlexikon/songs/fishcheer.


Multimodal work

2023. A Vocabulary for Junk in Four Movements. In: Platypus: The CASTAC Blog. Zusammen mit Rebecca Carlson und Emil Rieger, URL: https://blog.castac.org/2023/07/a-vocabulary-for-junk-in-four-movements.

2020. Das Zwischen meiner Gedanken – Ways of knowing (the) human. Blogbeitrag auf der Website der Kommission „Digitalisierung im Alltag“ der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Empirische Kulturwissenschaft (DGEKW). URL: https://www.goingdigital.de/das-zwischen-meiner-gedanken-ways-of-knowing-the-human/.


Invited talks and conference presentations

22.06.2023. „Smarte“ Alltagsdinge im Werden – Von (T)Räumen anwendungsorientierter Forschung an der Schnittstelle zwischen Informatik und digitaler Anthropologie. Vortrag im Rahmen des Institutskolloquiums „Digitale Anthropologie: Exemplarische Felder und interdisziplinäre Schnittstellen“, Ludwig-Uhland-Institut, Universität Tübingen.

17.03.2023. Testing to Circulate – Addressing the Epistemic Gaps of Software Testing. Conference talk at STS-hub.de 2023 “Circulations”, Aachen. Together with Anja Klein, Mace Ojala, Libuše Hannah Vepřek, Tamara Gupper and Rebecca Carlson.

15.02.2023. Technologieentwicklung zwischen Wissensproduktion, politischem Innovationsnarrativ und Produktversprechungen. Mögliche Positionierungen aus der Empirischen Kulturwissenschaft. Vortrag im Rahmen des DFG-Workshops „Formen. Öffentliche Diskurse um neue Technologien und die Rolle der Empirischen Kulturwissenschaft“, LMU München.

11. 01.2023. Comuptercode und Algorithmen in ethnografischer Forschung. Begegnungen in unterschiedlichen Dimensionen. Invited talk in the lecture series „Digital(ität) ethnografieren? Methoden für den digitalen Alltag“ of the Institut für Kulturanthropologie und Europäischer Ethnologie der Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main. Together with Libuše Hannah Vepřek and Lina Franken.

16.09.2022. A hand is a hand is a hand is a table? On the (re)configuration of future choreographies. Conference talk at the 8th conference of the Section „Digitization in Everyday Life” of the German Association of Cultural Anthropology and Folklore Studies (DGEKW) „Digital Futures in the Making: Imaginaries, Politics, and Materialities”, Universität Hamburg.

08.07.2022. Tom and the SmartProjectorLamp? Envisioning users and usage in coded human-machine relationships. Conference talk at the EASST 2022 Kongress „Politics of Technoscientific Futures“, Madrid, Spain.

06.04.2022. Imaginieren – Intraagieren – (Re-)konfigurieren: Mensch–Technologie-Relationen im Werden, online conference talk at the 43th conference of the DGEKW (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Empirische Kulturwissenschaft) „Time. On the Temporality of Culture (Zeit. Zur Temporalität von Kultur)“. Together with Libuše Hannah Vepřek.

09.10.2020. Augmented Truths on the Table – an ethnographic investigation in the field of digital-material innovation. Story Map presented online at the 7th conference of the Section “Digitization in Everyday Life” of the German Association of Cultural Anthropology and Folklore Studies (dgv) on “Digital Truth-Making – Ethnographic Perspectives on Practices, Infrastructures and Affordances of Truth-Making in Digital Societies“ at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

22.09.2020. Kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf Unsicherheitserfahrungen und Prekarisierung im Prisma von Ernährungsroutinen, online conference talk at the 40. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, together with Gunther Hirschfelder.

27.05.2020. Augmented Realities put on the table: Ethnographic perspectives on the use and development of interactive tabletops, invited talk at the Media & Digital Anthropology Lab (MeDiA Lab), Humboldt University of Berlin, online.

13.01.2020. Intelligente Tische aus kulturanthropologischer Perspektive, poster presentation at the Basel Winter School “Technisch.Kritisch.Digital“, Filzbach, University of Basel.

28.11.2019. Anthropological Perspectives on Interactive Tabletops, poster presentation at the 2nd network congress of the ZD.B-Initiativen für die Wissenschaft, Neumarkt.

21.11.2019. Prekäres Essen auf smarten Tischen? Möglichkeiten und Herausforderungen digitaler Ernährungskommunikation aus kulturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive, presented at the Junges Forum Public Health and Nutrition, University of Applied Sciences Fulda.

12.02.2015. Personennamen in Split-Ergativsprachen: Implikationen für die Belebtheitshierarchie, presented at the Linguistisches Kolloquium “Mehr als Schall und Rauch: Die Linguistik der Namen“, University of Bremen.

16.8.2013. Morphosyntactic Coding of Proper Names and its Implications for the Animacy Hierarchy, presented at the 10th Biennial Conference of the Association for Linguistic Typology, University of Leipzig, together with Johannes Helmbrecht, Ilenia Tonetti and Lukas Denk.

Organization of workshops, conferences and exhibitions

12.-17.08.2022. Pop Up Science Exhibition „VIGITIA meets Degginger 4.0”, Participatory design exhibition the BMBF-funded project VIGITIA at the Culture and Creative Center Degginger, Regensburg.

15.-19.03.2022. Pop Up Science Exhibition „VIGITIA meets Degginger 3.0”, Participatory design exhibition the BMBF-funded project VIGITIA at the Culture and Creative Center Degginger, Regensburg.

02.-03.07.2021. Online workshop on Methodologies for code in ethnographic research. From theory to practice. Organized together with Ruth Dorothea Eggel, Lina Franken and Libuše Hannah Vepřek.

15.-17.10.2021. 15th PhD conference of the dgv “Zwischendurch die Promotion?!“ in Niederau. Organized together with Ruth Weiand, Oliver Wurzbacher and Nikolas Wollentarski.

20.-25.09.2021. Pop Up Science Exhibition “VIGITIA meets Degginger 2.0”. Participatory design exhibition the BMBF-funded project VIGITIA at the Culture and Creative Center Degginger, Regensburg.

13.-17.09.2021. Pop Up Science Exhibition “VIGITIA meets Degginger”. Participatory design exhibition of the BMBF-funded project VIGITIA at the Culture and Creative Center Degginger, Regensburg.

23.01.2020. Workshop “Interactive tables in everyday life”. Idea and design workshop of the BMBF-funded project VIGITIA at the Culture and Creative Center Degginger, Regensburg.

Publications @ PDA

Rebecca Carlson, Ruth Dorothea Eggel, Lina Franken, Sarah Thanner, Libuše Hannah Vepřek

Approaching code as process: Prototyping ethnographic methodologies

Kuckuck. Notizen zur Alltagskultur 1/2021: „Code“, 2021-07-21 () (more...)

Sarah Thanner

Augmented Truths on the Table – an ethnographic investigation in the field of digital-material innovation

7th conference of the Section “Digitization in Everyday Life” of the German Association of Cultural Anthropology and Folklore Studies (dgv) on “Digital Truth-Making - Ethnographic Perspectives on Practices, Infrastructures and Affordances of Truth-Making in Digital Societies” at the Humboldt University of Berlin (Story Map), 2020-10-09 () (more...)

Projects @ PDA

Project: BirdsEye: Capturing top-view images of tabletop usage (2020-05-01 - )

A toolkit for capturing and analyzing tabletop usage.

Project: Prototype deployment in the Degginger Cafe (2021-02-23 - )

Imagine you go out to eat and an “intelligent” table shows you the menu and informs you about the origin of the products. Or maybe it lets you bridge the waiting time for your meal with a little game. With our VIGITIA prototype we explore these and other ideas at the Degginger Cafe in Regensburg

Project: Pop-Up Participatory Design facilitates Ideation, User Research, and Outreach (2020-01-09 - )

Pop-Up Participatory Design facilitates Ideation, User Research, and Outreach

Project: Survey on table use in everyday life (2020-06-04 - 2020-08-18)

Results of our survey on table use in everyday life (2020).

Project: Vigitia Meets Degginger 2.0 (September 2021) (2021-09-20 - 2021-09-25)

From September 20 to 25, 2021, we presented three prototypes to an interested public at Regensburg's Degginger Cultural and Creative Center. The primary goals of the exhibition were to generate ideas for further application scenarios and use cases, user research, public relations and science communication.

Project: VIGITIA meets Degginger 3.0 (March 2022) (2022-03-15 - 2022-03-19)

From March 15 to 19, 2021, we presented three prototypes to an interested public at Regensburg's Degginger Cultural and Creative Center. The primary goals of the exhibition were to generate ideas for further application scenarios and use cases, user research, public relations and science communication.

Project: Vigitia Meets Degginger (September 2020) (2020-09-14 - 2020-09-19)

Public exhibition of first project results

Project: BMBF-Verbundprojekt VIGITIA - Vernetzte Intelligente Gegenstände durch, auf und um interaktive Tische im Alltag (2019 - 2022)

Enhancing interaction on tabletops via projected AR.