Short Portrait: Mark Münzel

Mark Münzel
Mark Münzel

Mark Münzel was born in Potsdam in 1943. He finished secondary school in Frankfurt/Main in 1962 and subsequently took up his studies of Anthropology, Romance Philology and European Ethnology.

Münzel not only studied in Frankfurt/Main but also at the University of Coimbra in Portugal and at the Sorbonne in Paris. Between 1966 and 1968 he furthermore held a scholarship at the Instituto Joaquim Nabuco in Brazil. In Brazil he did research among the Kamaiura and the Maku people.

After his return to Germany Münzel worked at the Seminar for Völkerkunde at the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Frankfurt University between 1969 and 1971.

Münzel completed his Ph D thesis in 1970 and subsequently began lecturing (i.e., on the Anthropology of South America). Moreover, Münzel conducted field work among the Aché people in Paraguay in 1971/72.

From 1973 onward he was custodian at the Anthropological Museum (now: Museum for the Cultures of the World) in Frankfurt/Main. This position he held until 1989.

Between 1973 and 1977 Münzel lectured at the Institute for Geography of the Justus-Liebig-University in Giessen. During these years he did another field work, this time among the Shuara people in Ecuador in 1975.

Münzel lectured on Cultural Anthropology and Sociology at the Institute for Sociology of the Justus-Liebig-University in Giessen between 1976 and 1984. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he furthermore taught on Latin America at the Institute for Romanic Languages of the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Frankfurt University. Between 1978 and 1986 Münzel also did research on Roma people in Germany.

In 1983 Münzel took up a professorship at the Institute for Romanic Languages in Frankfurt/Main. A further field work was conducted among the Kamayurá in Brazil in 1988/89.

Since 1989 Münzel held  the Chair for Völkerkunde (Cultural Anthropology) of the Philipps-University in Marburg. He moreover was head of the Ethnological Collection Marburg form 1989 onward.

Mark Münzel retired in 2008.


(Text written by Vincenz Kokot in July 2012, based on information provided by the Homepage of the Philipps-University Marburg, Chair for Cultural and Social Anthropology; thanks to Prof. Münzel for additional information, )