Dr. Alrun Schmidtke

I hold a PhD in history and have worked on 19th- and 20th-century publishing, on the history of scientific exhibitions, and on German contemporary history. After finishing my dissertation on advisers in science publishing, I went into applied history and worked at Germany’s federal museum of contemporary history, Stiftung Haus der Geschichte.

Professional portrait of a woman with short blonde hair and glasses, wearing blue and rose, posed against a bright yellow background.

Photo: Sabine Mittermeier

  • I am currently working on a book about predatory science publishing, 1900–present. Starting with controversial business practices of German publishers with strong science lists such as Julius Springer Verlag at the turn of the 19th century, the book will critically examine the disruptive impact of self-proclaimed science publishers such as Pergamon Press in the UK in the 1950s and 1960s. Finally, the book will relate the genealogy of science publishing to lasting costs to scholarly publishing in the present.

  • ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-2941-7982

    Forthcoming. “Was heißt hier ‘Handbuch’? Eine Fallstudie zu Titelstrategien im Wissenschaftsverlag.” Kodex. Jahrbuch der Internationalen Buchwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft (2026).

    2025. “Das Offene Depot (Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge, neue Dauerausstellung)” (exhibition review). H-Soz-Kult (March 15). 

    2019. “PDF und Schluss? Wissenschafts- und Buchgeschichte, 18.–20. Jahrhundert.” NTM 27, no. 1: 95–106.

    2018. “Learning by the Book: Manuals and Handbooks in the History of Knowledge.” Bulletin of the German Historical Institute Washington 63 (Autumn): 141–48.

    2016. “Mapping a Distant Empire: Bruno Hassenstein’s Atlas of Japan (1885/87).” In SpaceTime of the Imperial, edited by Holt Meyer, Susanne Rau, and Katharina Waldner, 367–93. Berlin: de Gruyter.

  • 2025–28. Co-organizer of the series on the genealogy and politics of publishing at the Center for Advanced Studies “Applied Humanities” (HU Berlin), with Niki Rhyner.

    2025. “‘Pergamonsters’: Predatory Science Publishing, 1950s–1960s” (presentation). Session “Transformations of Science Journals after World War II” (organized by Aileen Fyfe and Nick Hopwood), British Society for the History of Science (BSHS) Annual Conference, Cambridge, July 8–10.

    2025. “Was heißt hier ‘Handbuch’?” (presentation). Titelpraktiken: Akteure – Formate – Geschichten, Internationale Buchwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft (IBG) Annual Conference, Bergamo, March 19–21.

    2025. “Introducing ‘Publish or Perish’: Predatory Science Publishing, ca. 1950s–1960s” (online presentation). Action Research on Research Culture Peer Learning Seminar, University of Cambridge, January 22.

    2024. “Wissenschaftsverlage und der Reiz des Zeitschriftenformats” (presentation). Publizistik & Polemik: mediale Kommunikation in den Orientwissenschaften, conference organized by the Center for Advanced Studies “Rethinking – Governance in the Ancient Near East”, Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, October 16–18.

  • alrun.schmidtke[at]hu-berlin.de
    phone: +49 (0) 30 2093 65865