Susanne Rau studied History, Romance Languages and Literatures and Philosophy in Tübingen, Reims and Hamburg. She received a PhD in Medieval and Modern History in 2001 at Hamburg University and her habilitation in 2008 at Dresden University. Since 2009 she is Professor of Spatial History and Cultures at Erfurt University and since 2011 regular visiting professor at the ENS Lyon and the CIHAM, France. She has published widely in urban history and in the theory, history and anthropology of spaces, including the history of cartography. Since 2018 she is a spokesperson of a Centre for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences - „Religion and Urbanity: Reciprocal Formations“ (funded by the German Research Foundation, FOR 2779) - in Erfurt. For her trailblazing work on spatial dimensions of historical societies, she received the Thuringian Research Award for Basic Research in 2023.