Recent Writing
The Pythia’s Elusive Name
Sometimes in academia you come across phenomena that make you disbelieve your own judgement. This essay is about one of these instances, upon which I stumbled quite a while ago but did not have the time and energy to look into more deeply. But then, when I finally decided to…
Setting the Stage for Ramona
Social mobility is hard. Very hard – as the person this text is all about knows only too well. If you want to move up the social ladder and overcome the structural challenges of our society, there are a lot of things you have to do. You have to be…
On Air-Pumps and Truth
It is one of the hardest tasks for historians of any period or field to “think away” what appears to be self-evident. Yet it is also this ability which differentiates very good scholarly work from the mere expression of personal opinion on the one hand and the simple reproduction of…
The Ghost of Ukiyo-e
They are quite easily overlooked, aren’t they? Japanese woodblock prints I mean. They are not particularly big, they are not particularly bright and colourful – at least in their given state – and they don’t look particularly precious at first sight. In fact, if you just walk past them in…
Research Profiles
