Current Research
Currently, Didem is working on a project that explores the transformation of modern architecture with respect to the notion of the healthy body during the period 1848 to 1933 in Germany. She examines how the new body model shaped in the nineteenth-century medical and social sciences became a model for the modern dwelling.
She co-chaired a session, "Healing Spaces, Modern Architecture, and the Body" at the annual conference of the Society of Architectural Historians in Austin, TX in 2014.
Didem's research is supported by grants from German Academic Exchange and Wellcome Trust in Medical History and Humanities.
Past Research
Didem Ekici's research focuses on a set of related issues: the relationship between body and architecture, housing reform in nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and architecture under capitalism and mass culture with an emphasis on twentieth-century German architecture culture. Her published work has analyzed the transformation of the modern dwelling under the influence of the healthy body cult at the turn of the twentieth century. A parallel research direction has been architecture under capitalism and the representation of collective memory in urban renewal projects that were realized after the reunification of Germany. Her scholarly work has appeared in such publications as Journal of Architecture, Journal of Architectural Education, and International Studies in Philosophy.
FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS
Wellcome Trust in Medical History and Humanities Grant, 2014
DAAD (German Academic Exchange) Study Visit Grant for Senior Academics (Host institute: Akademie der Kuenste, Berlin), 2013
U. of Michigan Rackham Graduate School One-Term Dissertation Fellowship, 2008
The Wolfsonian-Florida International University Fellowship, 2007
U. of Michigan Rackham Graduate School Research Grant for dissertation research, 2007
U. of Michigan Rackham/Hewlett/International Institute International Travel Grant, 2006
DAAD Graduate Research Scholarship for dissertation research in Germany, 2006
U. of Michigan Institute for the Humanities Fellowship, Mary Fair Croushore Graduate Student Fellow, 2005-2006
U. of Michigan Global Ethnic Literatures Seminar Fellowship (declined), 2005
U. of Michigan Center for European Studies Fellowship for dissertation research, 2005
U. of Michigan International Institute Graduate Seminar on Global Transformations, 2005-2006
U. of Michigan Rackham Graduate School Discretionary Funds for dissertation research 2004
U. of Michigan International Institute Predissertation Research Grant for research, 2003
U. of Michigan Graduate Fellowship, 2001-2005