RESEARCH
My research is driven by a central question: what can the history of geographical thought and practice contribute to contemporary debates in human geography? To answer this, I develop Historical Regional Geography as a distinct research programme — one that combines archival-based historical geography with conceptual and methodological reflection on how spatial knowledge is produced, contested, and transformed under changing political conditions.
DFG Research Project (2025–2028)
The Conceptualisation of the Regional in Historical-Geographical Landeskunde (1922–1970)
Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) — Individual Research Grant
This project investigates how the concept of the regional was conceptualised and methodologically operationalised in German historical-geographical Landeskunde before the paradigm shift of 1969. Focusing on the geographer Hans Fehn (1903–1988) as a case study, the project draws on extensive archival sources — including personal papers, institutional records, and scientific correspondence — held in archives across Germany.
The project is structured around three interconnected studies: a bibliometric and qualitative analysis of Fehn's published work across five decades; a praxeological reconstruction of his research practices based on field notebooks, manuscripts, photographs, and letters; and a multi-level analysis of the scientific policy frameworks — from the Weimar Republic through National Socialism to the early Federal Republic — that shaped his work.
The project is based at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (IfL) in Leipzig and forms the empirical foundation of my Habilitation thesis.
Habilitation Project
Historical Regional Geography: Towards a Research Programme
University of Bamberg — Advisory Board: Prof. Dr. Andreas Dix (chair), Prof. Dr. Nina Kleinöder, Prof. Dr. Judith Miggelbrink
Building on the empirical findings of the DFG project, the Habilitation monograph develops Historical Regional Geography as a theoretically grounded and methodologically distinctive research field within human geography. It argues that historical depth — understood as a critical engagement with past geographical concepts, practices, and spatial imaginaries — constitutes an indispensable epistemic resource for addressing current geographical debates about space, knowledge, and power.
Research Interests
— History and philosophy of geography, with a focus on German-speaking geography in the twentieth century
— Historical geography of Central and Eastern Europe: borderlands, peripheries, and rural regions
— Geographical knowledge production under political pressure: Weimar Republic, National Socialism, Cold War
— Border studies and cross-border regional development in the Czech-German-Austrian borderlands
— Scientific policy and the institutionalisation of geography as an academic discipline
Research Affiliations
— Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (IfL), Leipzig — Department of Theory, Methodology and History of Geography
— University of Bamberg — Professorship of Historical Geography
— Herder Institute Research Academy (HIRA), Marburg