Erik Liebscher

January 2023 - April 2023

Employee in the project "Institutionalising the law of nature and nations: The universities of Kiel, Greifswald and Rostock 1648-1806", project manager Dr. Mikkel Munthe Jensen

February 2018 - April 2021

PhD scholar in the graduate centre "History of Knowledge in the Modern Era" at the Gotha Research Centre of the University of Erfurt

June/July 2017

Freelance employee in the exhibition project "All in All. The world of the mystical philosopher Jakob Böhme" at the Dresden State Art Collections

2015 - 2018

Research assistant in the DFG project "The mission of the English Philadelphians in Germany, the construction of their networks and the linguistic transmission of their ideas" at the Gotha Research Centre

2014 - 2017

MA studies of collection-related knowledge and cultural history at the University of Erfurt

2012 - 2015

Student assistant and tutor in the field of "Modern German Literary Studies" at the University of Erfurt

2011 - 2014

BA studies of History (major) and Literary Studies (minor) at the University of Erfurt

• Self-testimony research
• History of the nobility
• History of societies, in particular the history of Freemasonry and the Illuminati Order
• Court and residence research
• History of knowledge and science of the 18th and 19th centuries
• History of polar research
• (Digital) Text Editing

The Aristocratic Ego at the End of the Ancien Régime. The Diaries of Christian Georg von Helmolt and Karl Heinrich Julius von Salisch (working title)

On the basis of the diaries of the Gotha guard commander and chamberlain Christian Georg von Helmolt (1728-1805), from the years 1783 to 1788 (FB Gotha, Chart. B 1950 a-i), as well as the journals of the court junkie and publicist Karl Heinrich Julius Graf von Salisch (1769-1833), from the years 1794 to 1806 (FB Gotha, Chart. B 1859 and B 1860), I analyze the self-drafts of (lower) aristocratic writers in Gotha around 1800.

The investigation ties in with self-testimony research, specifically with the understanding of autobiographical writing as a social practice. The aim is to trace processes of self-constitution in the diaries in order to ultimately work out how aristocratic identity was formed in the face of processes of social change at the end of the 18th century. One focus is on the question of what role concepts and ideas of masculinity played in aristocratic self-understanding and whether specifically aristocratic designs of masculinity existed.

In this way, the work generates insights into the most diverse aspects of everyday life in the residence and at court and contributes to the study of the Thuringian aristocratic landscape, which - especially with regard to the 18th century - has been comparatively little studied.

Articles

Zwischen Wirtshaus und Akademie. Die Mikroskope des reisenden Optikers J. B. Oppelt, in: Julia A. Schmidt-Funke, Gunhild Berg, Martin Mulsow (eds.): Das Schloss als Hörsaal. Ludwig Christian Lichtenbergs Vorlesung über die Naturlehre und die residenzstädtische Wissensproduktion um 1800. Stuttgart 2021, pp. 109-144.

with Matthias Rekow: Ein Kabinett für den Herzog? Die Gothaer Sammlung mathematisch-physikalischer Instrumente, in: Julia A. Schmidt-Funke, Gunhild Berg, Martin Mulsow (eds.): Das Schloss als Hörsaal. Ludwig Christian Lichtenbergs Vorlesung über die Naturlehre und die residenzstädtische Wissensproduktion um 1800. Stuttgart 2021, pp. 319-398.

Das adelige Ich. Praktiken der Subjektivierung in den Tagebüchern Christian Georg von Helmolts (1728–1805) und Karl Heinrich Julius von Salischs (1769–1838), in: Mitteilungen der Residenzen-Kommission der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Neue Folge: Stadt und Hof 8 (2019), pp. 161-171.

Zwischen Lebenszeichen und Selbstinszenierung - Soldaten des Königlich Sächsischen 1. Jäger-Bataillons Nr. 12 schreiben aus dem Ersten Weltkrieg, in: Mitteilungen des Freiberger Altertumsvereins 109/110 (2016), pp. 251-280.

Online articles

Julius Payer entdeckt Petermannland – Wie eine Chimäre in die Karten des Perthes Verlages einging, in: Fundstücke, Blog of the Gotha Perthes Collection Gotha, 15.10.2015.

Reviews

Paul Beckus, Thomas Grunewald, Michael Rocher (eds.): Niederadel im mitteldeutschen Raum (um 1700–1806). Halle 2019, H-Soz-Kult, 01.12.2020.

Conference reports

Divine Wisdom and Worldly Knowledge: Scholarly Culture and Religious Reform in the Seventeenth Century, 05.12.2016 – 06.12.2016, Gotha, H-Soz-Kult, 14.06.2017.

Das Schloss als Hörsaal. Ludwig Christian Lichtenbergs ‚Vorlesung über die Naturlehre‘ und die residenzstädtische Wissensproduktion um 1800, 23.10.2017 – 24.10.2017, H-Soz-Kult, 17.02.18.

Noblesse oblige - Niederer Adel in der Frühen Neuzeit, Proseminar, University of Leipzig, summer term 2022.

Reisen ins 'Unbekannte' - Überseeische Kulturkontakte in der Frühen Neuzeit, Proseminar, University of Leipzig, winter term 2021/2022.

[Together with Julia A. Schmidt-Funke]: Hohe Herrschaften - niederer Adel. Nobilität in der Frühen Neuzeit, Proseminar, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, winter term 2019/2020.

Tutorium "Frühe Neuzeit", Friedrich Schiller University Jena, winter term 2019/2020.