Research Areas

• European History and Global Entanglements in the Revolutionary Era and the “long” 19th Century (1789-1914)
• Political Cultural History of Postwar
• Nationalism and War
• Theory of History: Temporality, Discontinuity, Narration

Completed Dissertation Project

Open Futures: Negotiating Postwar from Leipzig to Carlsbad, 1813-1819

The project examines how German contemporaries imagined, designed and debated postwar after the Napoleonic Wars. Postwar is viewed as a space of conflicting imagination in which concepts of reorganization, agency and political issues are inscribed. Relativizing the caesura of the Congress of Vienna in favor of a long-term perspective, the project accentuates the processual and public negotiation of postwar reorganization between 1813 and 1819 and draws on a large number of pamphlets and journal articles by bourgeois actors that have so far only been studied peripherally or selectively. 

On the one hand, the project explores the discursive and communicative strategies with which contemporaries opened up postwar and sought to legitimize their participation in the politics of reorganization. On the other hand, it reveals the diversity of postwar concepts that circulated between 1813 and 1819 and sheds light on the symbioses between liberal, national, federal and cosmopolitan blueprints. Overall, the work will thus contribute to a more profound understanding of change and continuity in the “long” transition from war to peace after 1815 and offer an innovative approach to historical postwar periods. 

For a detailed project description see my contribution on HistoNet19.

CV

Talks and Papers (Selection)

The German Nation in the 19th Century  – Myths, Ambivalences, Perspectives | Public Lecture for Senior Students, organized by KOOST (January 22, 2026): University of Cologne.

Temporal Politics of Postwar: Reconfiguring Time in Post-Napoleonic Germany | Conference The Aftermath. Postwar Times in Modernity and Premodernity: Re-Constructions - Re-Writings - Re-Orderings, organized by Philip Hoffmann-Rehnitz, André Krischer, Elisabeth Piller, Claudius Sittig, Paulina Starski, Sarah Katharina Stein and Joana van de Löcht (October 16-18, 2025): Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies, Freiburg University.

Open Futures: Negotiating Postwar from Leipzig to Carlsbad, 1813-1819 | 30th Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar in German History, organized by Richard F. Wetzell and Anna von der Goltz (June 3-6, 2025): German Historical Institute Washington & BMW Center for German and European Studies, Georgetown University, Washington DC.

The Politics of Postwar: Negotiating Peace and Agency from Leipzig to Carlsbad, 1813-1819 | War, Society and Culture Seminar, organized by Timothy Bowman, Ambrogio Caiani, Marc Connelly, Stefan Goebel, Richard Grayson, Erica Wald and Marc Condos (May 7, 2025): Institute of Historical Research, University of London.

Negotiating Postwar after Napoleon: An Alternative History of Reorganizing Peace, 1813-1819 | Research Colloquium “International History”, organized by Prof. Dr. Fabian Klose (May 5, 2025): University of Cologne & Cologne Center for Advanced Studies in International History and Law.

Which Peace for Whom? Reassessing Historical Postwar | Research Colloquium “Political Practices in the 19th Century”, organized by Prof. Dr. Ute Planert (October 29, 2024): University of Cologne.

Opening Postwar: Political Agency and the Public Sphere in Germany 1813-1818 | Conference New Postwar Orders: Transforming Europe and the World after War and Revolution (1815-1840) (April 24-26, 2024): University of Cologne.

Preventing Defeat after Victory: European Peace due to Federal Nationalism in Germany, 1814-1815 | Nationalism, War and Defeat. Interdisciplinary Conference on Nationalism, organised by Rasmus Glenthøj (May 25-16, 2023): University of Copenhagen.

"A Vivid Idea of the Times": Open Futures, Politics and Re-Organisation 1814-15 | Research Colloquium on Modern History and Contemporary History, organized by Prof. Dr. Patrick Wagner and Prof. Dr. Theo Jung (April 13, 2023): Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg.

'Periodization in the Making': Time and the Figure of "Turning Point" in German Print Media 1814/1815 | Conference Periodization and Time in History: Perspectives from Germany, Europe and the Middle East, organised by Oded Steinberg, Anna Gutgarts and Marcus Colla (March 29-30, 2023): University of Cambridge.

Archetype of "Europe"? German Nationalism, Print Media, and the Quest for European Postwar Order 1813-1815 | Conference Changing Concepts of “Europe” since the 18th Century: Between the National, the Transnational, and the Global, organised by Katja Gorbahn and Marcus Otto (March 2-4 2023): Aarhus University.

Kairological Paradigm: Temporal Hybridity and Politics in the German Public Sphere 1814/1815 | Cambridge German History Research Group, DAAD Cambridge Research Hub for German Studies (November 17, 2022): University of Cambridge.

Temporal Hybridity: A Liminal Approach Towards Periods of Transition and Social Change | 2022 Cambridge AHRC International Conference, Open-Oxford-Cambridge Doctoral Training Partnership (September 20-21, 2022): University of Cambridge.

Open Futures. Concepts of political (Re-)Organisation between Napoleonic Empire and the Concert of the European Powers 1813-1822 | Research Colloquium on Modern History, organized by Prof. Dr. Ulrike Lindner (May 17, 2022): University of Cologne.

Open Futures. Concepts of political (Re-)Organisation between Napoleonic Empire and the Concert of the European Powers 1813-1822 | Doctoral Colloquium on History of the 19th Century (May 12-13, 2022): Cologne.

Teaching

Summer term 2026 | Advanced Theory Course: Times Change! Histories of Temporality since 1750

Summer term 2026 | Proseminar: Never Say Never - James Bond in Historical Perspective (together with Martin Günzel)

Winter term 2025/26 | Proseminar: Postwar and New Order after Napoleon: The Congress of Vienna (1814-1815)

Winter term 2024/25 | Proseminar: The German Kaiserreich as an Empire (1884-1918)

Winter term 2024/25 | Advanced Theory Course: What Is a Historical Event?

Winter term 2023/24 | Proseminar: Constellations, Dynamics, In-Betweenness: Colonial History of the Kaiserreich

Winter term 2022/23 | Proseminar: Revolutionary Orders? Nationalism, Liberalism and the European State System 1848/49 (together with Elias Mahiout)

Summer term 2022 | Proseminar: „Ja dürfen s’ denn des?“ – The German States in the Kaleidoscope of Revolutions 1848/49 (together with Elias Mahiout)

Winter term 2021/22 | Proseminar: 1871 – Europe and the Founding of the Kaiserreich (together with Elias Mahiout)

Summer term 2021 | Proseminar: War and Nation: The German "Wars of Unification" 1864-1871 in European Perspective (together with Elias Mahiout)

Winter term 2020/21 | Proseminar: Europe or the World? Great Power Conflicts 1740-1763 (together with Elias Mahiout)

Summer term 2020 | Proseminar: The Seven Years' War (1756-1763): Global Crises and European Conflicts at the Onset of the Modern Era (together with Elias Mahiout)

Publications

Review: Nakhimovsky, Isaac, The Holy Alliance. Liberalism and the Politics of Federation, Princeton: Princeton University Press 2024, In: H-Soz-Kult, 01.04.2025.

Review: Bogusław Dybaś (ed.), Die polnische Frage und der Wiener Kongress, 1814-1815, Wien 2021, In: The English Historical Review, Vol. 139, Issue 598-599 (2024), 935-937.

Review: Alexandra Paulin-Booth, Time and Radical Politics in France. From the Dreyfus Affair to the First World War, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2023, In: H-Soz-Kult, 03.05.2024.

Conference Review Neuere Forschungen zur Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts, May 12/13 2022, In: H-Soz-Kult, 22.09.2022. (Together with Elias Mahiout)

Organized Conference

"New Postwar Orders: Transforming Europe and the World after War and Revolution (1815-1840)"

April 24-26 2024, University of Cologne

co-hosted with Prof. Dr. Ute Planert & Elias Mahiout, M.A.

The conference report has been published by H-Soz-Kult.