Jonas Prinzleve

Dr. Jonas Prinzleve coordinates the decolonial cultural policy programme at the Hamburg Ministry of Culture and Media, where he develops the city’s overarching decolonising memory concept and respective capacity building for civil society organisations. In this role, he works on mediation concepts for contested sites such as the Hamburg Bismarck monument, the former Lettow-Vorbeck barracks in Jenfeld, or the Baakenhafen waterfront.

Jonas is a fellow of the Frankfurt Memory Studies Platform at Goethe University Frankfurt and a member of the CITCOM research group at the Centre for Comparative Studies (CEComp), University of Lisbon. His work builds on a PhD in comparative literature and cultural studies from the University of Lisbon, with a dissertation on decolonial turns in urban memory politics in Hamburg and Lisbon, and on research stays at Goethe University Frankfurt and Stellenbosch University.

His research and writing focus on postcolonial memory, decolonial heritage practices and urban citizenship in Germany and Portugal, with articles and chapters published in venues such as Memory Studies and in edited volumes with Routledge and Brill, including a forthcoming book based on Lusophone and Luso‑Creole migration and memory. He has taught seminars on memory culture and democracy at the University of Lisbon, the Goethe University Frankfurt, and at the University of Hamburg.

Selected Publications

Prinzleve, J. Forthcoming 2027. Decolonising Heritage in European Cities: The Cultural Politics of Global Memory in Hamburg and Lisbon. London & New York: Routledge. Monograph accepted for publication.

Prinzleve, J. Kalter, C., E. Peralta & J. Prinzleve (eds.). Forthcoming 2026. Beyond Empire: Memory and Migration in Lusophone and Luso-Creole Cities. London & New York: Routledge Series “Memories Studies: Global Constellations”.

Prinzleve, J. Forthcoming 2026. “Decolonising Heritage in Post-Imperial Lisbon: The Djass Memorial ‘Prosperity and Nightmare’”. In Memory Studies in Spain and Portugal: A Handbook, ed. A. Ribeiro de Menezes, Ellen Sapega & M. Hristova. Leiden: Brill (Handbook Series in Memory Studies).

Prinzleve, J. 2024. Curating and the Legacies of Colonialism in Contemporary Iberia. Book Review. International Journal of Iberian Studies, 36: p. 319-321. https://doi.org/10.1386/ijis_00115_5

Prinzleve, J. 2022. “Silent memorylands: City branding and the coloniality of cultural memory in the Hamburg HafenCity”. Memory Studies Journal, 16 (4): p. 984-1002. https://doi.org/10.1177/17506980221122161

Prinzleve, J. 2021. Postcolonial lieux de mémoire: The concept of the memory site in the context of the ReMapping Memories Lisboa-Hamburg project. (Orig.: Postkoloniale Erinnerungsorte: Das Konzept des Erinnerungsorts im Kontext des Projekts ReMapping Memories Lisboa – Hamburg) Available at: https://www.re-mapping.eu/de/kontexte(accessed 18 October 2025).

Prinzleve, J. 2021. Entanglements: On the shared colonial legacy of the port cities of Lisbon and Hamburg. (Orig.: Verbindungslinien: Über das geteilte Kolonialerbe der Hafenstädte Lissabon und Hamburg) Available at: https://www.re-mapping.eu/de/kontexte (accessed 18 October 2025).

Institution: Ministry of Culture and Media Hamburg