Dr. Verena Lehmbrock

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.