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• Curriculum Vitae

  As historian of science I specialize in social histories of quantification. In particular, I am focusing on the measurement of resources, and how units of measurement and patterns of justification interact in allocation schemes. For this I investigate administrative and economic sciences or types of knowledge. Given the rich material heritage of the Pacific in Viennese collections I have not given up on the topic when I became full professor of the history of science at the University of Vienna in 2018, after several years at Humboldt-University Berlin, and fellowships at the MPIWG and GHI Washington. While clearly aiming at oceanic perspectives I also found several enquétes on specific topics in the German colonial archive. I argue that read through the lens of epistemic decolonization these may help to leave the perspective of the violent German rule. The enquéte as serialized form of knowledge production (often it was left to missionaries or bureaucrats to talk to informants and to fill out the lengthy questionnaires) formed the basis for two things: Firstly, the formation of scientific fields such as the comparative research on indigenous law from 1890s onwards. Secondly, the enquétes were consulted before metricizing and monetarizing the colonies or before cadastral surveys and statistics were deployed.

  With insights from several reading groups, a cooperation with the University of the South Pacific and a project on categories, clusters and colonial statistics which is part of the Volkswagen Foundation’s new initiative on “How is AI Changing Science?” (Karlsruhe, Bonn, Wien). Two books are scheduled for completion in the near future. One gives an overview of the lively field of history of data for Junius Hamburg: “Political Epistemology of Data”. The other has a longer trajectory and pursues patterns of justification of resources in the Pacific during German colonialism. My habilitation on the history of metrology, as discussed in several humanities and social sciences, will appear with the press house of Wallstein Göttingen in a book series on science studies “Historische Wissensforschung”, a special issue on “Data at the Doorstep” is under way as well as a translation of Mary Douglas’s fascinating take on resource regulation via tokens and administrative moneys – which could even turn money into an instrument of degrowth. In addition, I am one of three editors of Science in Context and spokesperson of the key research area history of science at the University of Vienna, which is in constant dialogue with working groups at, e.g., the academy OEAW, WU, CEU, various museums and the MedUni with its longstanding tradition in the history of medicine. 

  • Since March 2018: Professor of Modern History: History of Science at the Department of History, University of Vienna and since March 2019 spokesperson of the key research area History of Science at the Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies
  • 2018: Visiting Professor of History of Technology at the Institute of Philosophy, History of Literature, Science, and Technology, Technische Universität Berlin
  • 2017: Visiting Professor of Cultural History at the Institute for Cultural History and Theory, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin | Habilitation thesis defended on 8 February 2017
  • 2016: Fellow in the History of Knowledge, German Historical Institute Washington DC
  • 2015: Postdoctoral Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin (Department II)
  • 2014: visiting junior professorship of History of the Humanities, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
  • 2009-2016: research assistant at the Institute for Cultural History and Theory, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, 50% at the cluster of excellence TOPOI – The Formation and Transformation of Spaces and Knowledge in Ancient Civilizations, previously at the collaborative research centre Transformations of Antiquity (March 2008-May 2009)
  • 2009: dissertation thesis on Epistemic values in obituaries on scientists 1711–1860,
  • March 2007-July 2007: Predoctoral Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin (Department II and III)
  • January 2004-July 2006: visiting lecturer at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, and at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities; fellowship of the Gerda Henkel Foundation
  • October 2001-December 2002: research assistant to the curators of a science and art exhibition of the Volkswagen Foundation: Science + Fiction. Between Nano World and Global Culture
  • 1994-2001: magister programme in literature and cultural studies (Freie Universität Berlin), two semesters of physics. Semesters abroad and work experience: Goldsmiths College London (1998); summer school at the University of Silesia in Katowice (1999); Goethe-Institute, Manila (1996); editorial team Text + Kritik, Göttingen (1997); student radio Dahlemer Diwan (Institute of Comparative Literature, Freie Universität Berlin); radio station Berliner Rundfunk (1994)
  • 1980–1993: school education in Göttingen, experience abroad in Pau, Melbourne, Dnipro 

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• Conference organisation

  • "BEYOND QUANTITY Research with Subsymbolic AI" October 21-23, 2022, in cooperation with Sorbonne Center for Artificial Intelligence (SCAI) at Paris, Opening Conference of the research project "How Is AI Changing Science" (Karlsruhe, Bonn, Wien)
  • "Scales, Norms, Limit Values in Times of (Digital) Change", main organizer of the annual meeting of the GTG (Society for the History of Techonlogy) and the GWMT (Society for the History of Science, Technology, Medicine), together with Anne Ebert of the Technical Museum Vienna, 17. -- 19. September 2021
  • “Anthropocene Histories,” partnership seminar in twelve parts at the Institute for Historical Research London, twelve parts over the course of 2021, co-convened with  Sophie Page (UCL), Amanda Power (Oxford), John Sabapathy (UCL), Sujit Sivasundaram (Cambridge)
  • 2nd Pre-and Postdoctoral Workshop  "Central, Eastern and South Eastern European Histories of Science and Humanities", organized together with Claudia Kraft, Lukas Bothe, Bernhard Kleeberg and Friedrich Cain of the working group (East) European Epistemologies, University of Vienna: 2.10.2020
  • Graduate Workshop II: »Medizingeschichte und Public Health« (Pre-Circulated Papers, Online Kommentare) Dr. Birgit Nemec, Institut für Geschichte und Ethik der Medizin, Universität Heidelberg und Prof. Dr. W. Weninger, Anatomical Institute of MedUni Vienna, June 18th, 2020
  • »Data at the Doorstep. Sites and Side Effects of Interrogation (c. 1800-1950)« January 23.-25., 2020, Laurens Schlicht / Sophie Ledebur / Anna Echterhölter in cooperation with the working group “The State Multiple. Bureaucracy, Politics, and Accounting”, University of Vienna and the Research Plattform “Social Sciences History” at the Institute for Advanced Studies Vienna [more]
  • Graduate workshop I: »Human Scales -- Die Quantifizierung menschlicher Körper«, January 9, 2020
  • »Reweighing Antiquity: Material Practices of Precision between Science and Humanities.« Panel gemeinsam mit Cesare Pastorino, Annual History of Science Society Meeting 2018, Seattle
  • »Measuring Risk and Human Needs: New Perspectives from the History of Knowledge,« Spring Lecture Series 2016 at the German Historical Institute Washington DC in cooperation with the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. Organised in cooperation with Simone Lässig and Christine von Oertzen.
  • »The Points of Conversion: Quantification and Measurement in Rural India, Germany and Mexico (1800-1940)«, panel at the conference The Making of Measurement, by Daniel Jon Mitchell, Hasok Chang and Eran Tal, at CRASSH, University of Cambridge/UK, 23/24 July 2015.
  • »Rationierung. Logiken, Formen und Praktiken des Mangels«, conference organised in cooperation with Frederike Felcht (Institut für Skandinavistik, Goethe University Frankfurt on Main), 4/5 July 2014, at the Weltkulturen Museum Frankfurt, funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation.
  • »Marginal Economies and Economic Marginalisation since Antiquity«, workshop of the CSG-II at the cluster of excellence TOPOI, 27/28 April 2012, organised in cooperation with Iris Därmann.
  • »Praktiken. Handliches / Unhandliches«, workshop of the CSG-II, TOPOI, 17 June 2011, organised in cooperation with Iris Därmann.
• Research projects

  • seit 2019 »Indigenous Law and Colonial Statistics in Oceania« together with Daniel Midena, University of the South Pacific, Fiji, more...
    
    
  • seit 2018 »Tokens. A History of Regulation«
    
    
  • 2020 »How is Artificial Intelligence Changing Science? Research in the Era of Learning Algorithms« (VWS Planning Grant), mit Jens Schröter, Alexander Waibel, Andreas Sudmann and Paul Feigelfeld more...
    
    
  • 2019-2020 »The State Multiple. Practices, Resources and Sites of Planning« (Working Group University of Vienna), more...
    
    
  • 2016-2020 Internationale Arbeitsgruppe »History of Bureaucratic Knowledge« am Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin more...
    
    
  • 2015-2016 Project on the History of Rationing Tokens »Governmental Moneys – Rationing Devices in the History of Economic Anthropology« (GHI Washington D.C.)
    
    
  • 2011-2015 Working Group »Ökonomie/Oikonomia« Exzellenzcluster TOPOI (HU und FU Berlin), more... 
    
    
  • 2008-2009: Transformations of Chronology. On the Construction of Cultural Identity Through Calculation of Times and Universal History
• Research interests

  • History of science (18th and 19th century) 
  • Historical epistemology, history of quantification
  • Colonialism, measurement and quantification (German New Guinea)
  • History of the auxiliary sciences and historical methods (metrology, chronology)
  • Technologies of money, multiplicities of money, paranumismatica 
• News

  

  

  For events please consult the calendar of the key research area history of science [mehr] 

  We also provide a list of Viennese archives and missionary archives of interest for historians of science [mehr]

  NEW MASTER's PROGRAMME starts in October 2022: Epistemologies of Science and Technology! Curriculum, and all courses in www.ufind/SPL18/Philosophy [mehr]

  OPENING CONFERENCE of the Research Project "How is AI Changing Science"

  October 21-23, 2022
  BEYOND QUANTITY Research with Subsymbolic AI
  in cooperation with Sorbonne Center for Artificial Intelligence (SCAI)

  2021 Annual Meeting of the German societies for History of Science, Medicine and Technolgy and the Society for the History of Technology, co-hosted with the Technical Museum Vienna (17. bis 19.9.2021)

  2nd Pre-and Postdoctoral Workshop »Central, Eastern and South Eastern European Histories of Science and Humanities« together with Claudia Kraft, Lukas Bothe / Vienna and Friedrich Cain, Bernhard Kleeberg Erfurt from the working group (East) European Epistemologies at the University of Vienna Octobre 2, 2020

   

  Books in the making____________________________________________ 

  2021 together with Tilman Richter and Caspar Friedolin Lorenz: CfP ilinx 6, administrative tools

  2021 together with Laurens Schlicht and Sophie Ledebur: topical issue "Data at the Doorstep" for  "Science in Context"

  Äquvalenz und Asymmetrie. Vom ökonomischen Handwerk des Messens (Habilitation) with Wallstein / Göttingen 

   

   

   

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• Reviewer

  Reviews and peer reviews for: Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft, Isis, Modern Intellectual History, Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook, Zeitschrift für Technikgeschichte, Historische Anthropologie, MPG, ETH Zürich

  Supervisor in two sections of the Vienna Doctoral School of Historical and Cultural Studies (Social and Economic Spaces /  State, Politics and Governance in Historical Perspective)

   

   
• Editorship

  • Science in Context -- Editor with Moritz Epple, Jürgen Renn, Yossef Schwartz since 2022.
  • Historische Wissensforschung -- Editor of this key German book series for historical science studies in published by Wallstein Göttingen and  edited with Bernhard Kleeberg und Andreas Langenohl (before their reorientation the series appeared with Mohr Siebeck).
  • ilinx Founding member of ilinx magazine (peer review) and the book series ilinx.kollaborationen. In 2010 we founded the first German research journal dedicated to cultural theory, which implemented a peer-review process. Also the book series "ilinx.kollaborationen" was initiated as a forum for joint writing projects. After the Hamburg press agency Philo Fine Arts Verlag had to cease operation, the projects were restarted with the independent publishing house Spector Books Leipzig.
  • • ilinx 7, 2022 – Augury, ed. by Rebekka Ladewig, Angelia Seppi
    • ilinx 6, 2021 – Administrative tools, ed. by Tilman Richter, Caspar Fridolin Lorenz, Anna                              Echterhölter
    • ilinx 5, 2020 – Fallows, ed. by Birgit Lettmann, Katja Kynast, Stephan Zandt
    • ilinx 4, 2017 – workarounds, ed. by Holger Brohm, Sebastian Gießmann, Gabriele                                       Schabacher, Sandra Schramke
    • ilinx 3, 2013 – economic practices, ed. by Anna Echterhölter, Dietmar Kammerer, Rebekka                           Ladewig
    • ilinx 2, 2011 – Mimesen, ed. by Eva Johach, Jasmin Mersmann, Evke Rulffes
    • ilinx 1, 2010 – turbulences, ed. by Mark Butler, Anna Echterhölter, Sebastian Gießmann,                             Rebekka Ladewig
      
      
    • ilinx.kollaboration 1: Margit Berner / Anette Hoffmann / Britta Lange: Sensible Sammlungen. Anthropologische Objekte im Depot / Fundus Band 210 – Philo Fine Arts, Hamburg 2011.
    • ilinx.Kollaboration 2: Hendrik Blumentrath /Anna Echterhölter/ Frederike Felcht/ Karin Harrasser: Jenseits des Geldes. Aporien der Rationierung / analyse & exzess – Spector Books Leipzig 2019.
    • ilinx.kollaboration 3: Angelika Seppi / Rebekka Ladewig: Techno-ästhetische Perspektivierungen des Milieus. Spector Books Leipzig 2020.
    • ilinx.kollaboration 4: Angelika Seppi/ Michael Friedman: Grenzen der Formalisierung. Mathematisch-philosophische Bemerkungen. Spector Books Leipzig (in Vorbereitung).
• Exhibitions and Projects

  • Pre-enactment of an Austrian Climate Audit Court, with Alexa Färber, H. Justnik, A. Martos.
  • Thematic reader for the Corona crisis and beyond: Stay in Touch
  • Thematic contributions to the “Switches” and the ”Tokens” session at the experimental conference 1948: Technosphere Unbound, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 3 December 2017.
  • Discussant at COOP 3000: eine neo-solidarische concerngründung, Matthaei & Konsorten, Bochum, July 2017.
  • Project Mountains Seas Giants, discussions around Modern Moneys with Stephan Heidenreich, Hendrik Blumentrath, Erik Stein, Berlin-Kreuzberg, 2017.
  • This Situation (by Tino Sehgal, 2007): three-month participation in a discursive choreography at the Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin.
  • Echterhölter, Anna/Schiedon, Fons: Sheer Things: Aesthetic and Less Aesthetic Extremes of Collecting. In: The Collectors. Danish and Nordic Pavilions, 53rd Venice Biennale: the Publication. Ed. by Elmgreen and Dragset/Rebekka Ladewig. København: The Danish Arts Council 2009.
  • Picture editorial for Markschies, Christoph/Reichle, Ingeborg et al. (ed.): Atlas der Weltbilder. Berlin: Akademie 2011. 
  • Designing Nature. Modelle Moleküle Architektur. Curated by Stefan Iglhaut, Thomas Spring und Datenflug, Bonn 2004. (Picture editorial for the exhibition and the catalogue)
  • Science + Fiction. Between Nano World and Global Culture, science and art exhibition at the ZKM Karlsruhe, Nobel Museum Stockholm, Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo, and others. Research assistant to the curators, catalogue ed. by Iglhaut, Stefan / Spring, Thomas: 2 vols. Berlin: Jovis 2002, with essays by Homi Bhabha, Helga Nowotny, Barbara Maria Stafford, Peter Weingart, and others.