After graduating with honours (M.A.) from Goethe-University Frankfurt, Diana Miryong Natermann received a scholarship to do her PhD research at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy. Since then she has done post-docs and University of Hamburg, worked as Assistant Professor at Leiden University and was a fellow at University of Cape Town, South Africa, at NIOD Dutch Institute for War and Genocide Studies, as well as a guest researcher at University of Namibia (UNAM) in Windhoek.
As an historian, her intellectual interests lie on the mid 19th to early 21st centuries with a focus on visual history and (post)colonial theories (esp. gender & whiteness studies), digitalisation, cultural and political history, genocide studies and global orders. Therein, she focuses on modern European and African contexts, and her expertise also includes global history, biographical research, memory and heritage studies as well as the interplay between culture and politics within Europe and decolonised states. The latter involves current debates on European identity/ies concerning restitution, museum and heritage-related policies. Her latest research combines several of the above foci with the study of cultural genocide and digital restitution.
When teaching, her goal is to communicate to students the value of owning their craft, trusting their own voices and thinking critically. Furthermore, she enjoys being a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the journal LawArt and part of the Afrikamuseum, Berg en Dal, reopening committee.