Scholarship

I completed a PhD in History at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom in 2015 during a Junior Fellowship at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI) – in fact, I defended my dissertation in Simon Wiesenthal’s former office (which now no longer exists). Over the subsequent decade, I pursued a research and publishing career in the framework of various visiting positions and funding opportunities. However, due to the precarious nature of the academic field, I essentially retired from professional academic work in 2025 and now only conduct small research projects for fun.

 

My previous research and publishing activities focused on modern Austrian history and the former Habsburg Empire, with a particular focus on Jewish history and cultures of memory in modern Vienna. I was always especially interested in the intersection of place, text, and memory as manifest for example in cityscapes, memorials, burial sites, and textual corpuses.  Recently, I have returned to focus more on the themes of most interest to me: the Gothic, the macabre, and the diabolical in Central European culture. In 2021, my scholarship was recognised with a Prize of the City of Vienna for Outstanding Achievements in the Humanities.

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The following is an overview of the most important waystations in my academic career:

• Institute of Cultural Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna (Research Associate, March 2023–February 2025)

• Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture – Simon Dubnow, Leipzig (Research Fellow, May 2024)

• Institute for Contemporary History, University of Vienna (Guest Lecturer, March–August 2023)

• Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York City (Inaugural Prins Foundation Fellow, January–August 2018)

• Department of Contemporary History, Vienna University (Senior Research Fellow, September 2016–December 2017)

• Center for Jewish History, New York City (Prins Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, September 2015–June 2016)

• Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (Junior Fellow, October 2014–August 2015)

• Graduate College, University of Lancaster (Assistant Dean, October 2011-July 2014)

• Department of History, University of Lancaster (Associate Lecturer, October 2011–January 2014)

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My research and publishing activities were supported by the following funding bodies in Europe and the United States:

• Austrian Cultural Forum, New York

• Austrian Research Association, Vienna

• Department of Culture of the City of Vienna

• Edith Saurer Fund, Vienna

• Future Fund of the Republic of Austria

• German Historical Institute, London

• Leo Baeck Institute, New York

• National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism

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I continue to serve on the Academic Advisory Board of the Austrian Society for the Study of Exile and of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Austrian Studies and from 2020 to 2022 served a term on the Executive Board of the Austrian Studies Association. I previously also served as a blind peer-reviewer for various prestigious publications in the fields of Austrian studies, Jewish studies, and Holocaust studies.​

Click through the menu to find details of my various research and publishing projects, including reading samples and reviews of my work.

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