Forschungszentrum Gotha (Gotha, Schloßberg 2) / Raum XX
nach Vereinbarung
Forschungszentrum Gotha der Universität Erfurt (FZG)
Schloßberg 2
99867 Gotha
Forschungszentrum Gotha der Universität Erfurt (FZG)
Schloßberg 2
99867 Gotha
I am a historian and philosopher of science whose interests gravitate towards historical epistemology, methodology, and linkages of social and conceptual history. I am active in two areas of research – the first focuses on agricultural Enlightenment, and, more broadly, entanglements of social history and epistemology in the 18th and early 19th centuries. My first book examined one of the most ubiquitous and yet little researched branch of technical knowledge in early modern Europe, agriculture. I have several articles published or underway which trace the transformations of knowledge under conditions of early modern social inequality. My second focus lies on the history of the human sciences, a still little-established field in the German history of science community. I am a founding member of the GWMT group Forum for the History of the Human Sciences which has been organizing an annual workshop on the history of the psy-sciences since 2017. I am currently working on a book on the global circulation of psycho-technologies in the second half of the 20th century which aims at exploring the polyvalences of psychological expertise between individualist and collectivist cultures.
Project on ‘technologies of the self’ under state socialism, the case of psychological leadership training in Socialist Germany 1960s-90s (funded by DFG – German Research Council)
EDUCATION
2016 PhD History of Science
Faculty I – Humanities/ Institute of History and Philosophy of Science, Technology, and Literature/ TU Technical University Berlin/ Germany
Supervisors: Prof.es S. Brakensiek, O. Breidbach (ƚ), M. Popplow, F. Steinle
2006 MA Philosophy and Early Modern/Modern History
Faculty of Philosophy I/ Institute of Philosophy/ Humboldt University Berlin/ Germany
2017 – Psychology BSc.
Fernuniversität Hagen (Correspondence Programme)
CURRENT POSITION(S)
2017 – today Postdoctoral researcher – habilitation project on global circulation of psycho-technologies from the 1960’s funded by DFG German Research Foundation
Faculty of Philosophy/ History of Science/ Erfurt University/ Germany
[2021] Visiting scholar/ Faculty of Arts & Science/ Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology/ University of Toronto/ Canada [DELAYED due to coronavirus]
PREVIOUS POSITIONS
2016 – 2017 Assistant professor
Faculty I – Humanities/ Institute of History and Philosophy of Science, Technology, and Literature/ TU Berlin/ Germany
2015 – 2016 Lecturer teaching and research
Faculty of Humanities/ IZWT Interdisciplinary Centre for Science and Technology Studies/ Wuppertal University/ Germany
ORGANISATION OF SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS (selection)
2012 – 2019 Co-leader of “Driburger Kreis”/ annual young scholars conference of GWMT German Society for the History Science, Medicine, and Technology/ 15–30 participants/ concept, planning, realization (with changing team)
2016 Organizer of international panel “Inequality in Early Modern Philosophy and Science”/ 7th Conference of ESHS European Society for the History of Science in Prague/ Czech Rep.
2016 Co-organizer of founding conference “Forum Geschichte der Humanwissenschaften”/ 30 participants incl. 9 established experts/ concept, planning, realization/ Humboldt University Berlin (with Carola Oßmer M.A. & Dr. Laurens Schlicht)
2019 Co-Organizer of double session “Political Epistemologies and Psychology: The East and Central European Countries“/ 7 papers & 1 discussion/ 38th Annual Meeting of ESHHS European Society for the History of the Human Sciences in Budapest/ Hungary (with Ass. Prof. Martin Wieser)
[2020] Organizer of international conference “Psychology in Socialist Europe: Expertise, Governance, Self-Management”/ concept, planning, realization/ Erfurt University/ Germany [POSTPONED due to coronavirus]
REVIEWING ACTIVITIES
2015 – 2016 Managing Editor of NTM – journal for the history of science, technology, and medicine
2020 – Reviewer for Review of General Psychology
2021 – Reviewer for Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte – History of Science and Humanities
MAJOR COOPERATIONS
2020 – with Martin Wieser: Collected volume Psychology in Communist Europe: Expertise and Governance (in preparation)
2016 – with Carola Oßmer and Laurens Schlicht: Founding member of Forum Geschichte der Humanwissenschaften/ GWMT-interest group/ promoting this field in the German history of science community
2017 – with Bernhard Kleeberg: workshop series History of the Psy-Sciences/ 20 participants all career levels/ concept, planning, realization/ annual event/ Gotha, Germany
Der denkende Landwirt. Agrarwissen und Aufklärung in Deutschland 1750–1820 [The Thinking Farmer. Agricultural Knowledge and Science in the German Enlightenment], Weimar/Köln/Wien: Böhlau 2020.
By excavating the values and hierarchies attached to agricultural labor and farm management, the book traces the intricate entanglements between technique, concepts of knowledge, and contemporary social order.
The historical force of creative concepts: a post-Koselleckian approach, in: Hendriksen, Marieke & Fokko Jan Dijksterhuis (ed.): Early Modern Understandings of Knowledge 1500–1900 (Knowledge Societies in History 5). Abingdon, New York: Routledge (in preparation).
Peasant eyes: a critique of the agricultural Enlightenment, in: Leen van Molle and Yves Segers (ed.): Knowledge Networks in Rural Europe since 1700, Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer (in press).
Zur Geschichte einer Metakategorie: Das ‚Empirische‘ in der deutschen Ökonomischen Aufklärung und frühen Agrarwissenschaft um 1800, Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 39 (2016), 79–98.
Lob des Handwerks: Wissenstheorie heute und bei Albrecht Daniel Thaer (1752–1828), Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte und Agrarsoziologie 62 (2014), 30–41.
Agrarwissen und Volksaufklärung im langen 18. Jahrhundert. Was sehen historische Gewährsleute und was sehen ihre Historiker:innen?, in: Mulsow, Martin and Frank Rexroth (ed.), Was als wissenschaftlich gelten darf. Praktiken der Grenzziehung in Gelehrtenmilieus der Vormoderne. Frankfurt/Main: Campus 2014 (Historische Studien 70), 485–514.
‚Laboratorium‘, in: Frietsch, Ute and Jörg Rogge (ed.), Über die Praxis des kulturwissenschaftlichen Arbeitens. Ein Handwörterbuch. Bielefeld: transcript 2013, 245–249.