In 2010 Dr. Susanne Stemmler was head of project and artistic director of global prayers • redemption and liberation in the cityat the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. She is a literary scholar and cultural theorist and got her PhD with a thesis on Orientalism in French literature. From 1997 to 2004 she was a lecturer at the University of Düsseldorf in French and Media Studies; from 2005 to 2007 she was Fellow of the German Research Foundation (DFG) at the Center for Metropolitan Studies in Berlin and New York. She was a visiting fellow at Columbia University and NYU working on her research project on Hip-hop. The Transcultural Aesthetics of Performance where she also conducted fieldwork in the Bronx and Harlem.

From 2008 until 2010 she was head of the department for literature and humanities at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. Susanne Stemmler is Editor of Multikultur 2.0. Willkommen im Einwanderungsland (2011). She is Co-editor of Hip-Hop und Rap in romanischen Sprachwelten. Stationen einer globalen Musikkultur (2007), New York – Berlin. Kulturen in der Stadt (2008), Metropolen im Maßstab. Der Stadtplan als Matrix des Erzählens in Literatur, Film und Kunst (2009), 1989 – Global Histories (2009), Raum - Bewegung - Passage. Postkoloniale frankophone Literaturen (2009), furthermore she is author of numerous articles about Francophone literature, migration, transcultural processes, colonialism/postcolonialism and urban cultures.