Prof. Dr.
Anke te Heesen

Photo: Nicolas Wefers

I am Professor of the History of Science at the Institute of History (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) and a Principal Faculty member at the International Max Planck Research School “Knowledge and Its Resources.” My research focuses on the materiality and application-oriented dissemination of knowledge-based objects crossing the boundaries of science and everyday life. At the center “Applied Humanities: Genealogy and Politics,” I will trace the history of applied arts as an element of humanities work in modernity. I am Principal Investigator of the DFG research training group “Small Forms” (HU) and have published prizewinning work on the history of knowledge. My most recent fellowships were at the Collegium Helveticum and ETH Zurich (2023/2024).

  • Situated Citizenship: Applied Art and Politics post-1945

    This project investigates the political significance of applied art as an element of humanities work. Applied art is often regarded as a reaction to the industrial manufacture of everyday objects and the segmentation of work processes since the 19th century. Yet more is at stake here than the higher-quality and more sophisticated design of practical articles. In post-1945 West Germany, applied arts accompanied a debate within the humanities proposing that democratically responsible citizens in the technologized world of modernity should be accorded a specifically designed environment. Applied arts are world-making, I argue, and thus form a crucial foundation for political action.

  • ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-9227-2578

    Forthcoming (2025). “Zurückverwandeln in Gesprochenes: Forschungserzählungen der Physik in der Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts,” in Geschichte(n) erzählen, edited by Petra Boden, Steffen Martus, and Rüdiger Zill. Bielefeld: Aisthesis.

    2025. Frauen vor Mustern. Ein Bildmotiv und seine Geschichte. Berlin: Wagenbach.

    2024. “The Desire for Materiality: The Beginnings of the Warburg Renaissance and the Juxtaposition of Art and Science, 1975–1989.” In Aby Warburg 150: Work, Legacy, Promise, edited by David Freedberg and Claudia Wedepohl, 350–56. Berlin: de Gruyter.

    2023. “Interview and Interior: Procedures of Narrative Surveys around 1900.” Science in Context 34, no. 4: 1–16. 

    2022. Revolutionäre im Interview. Thomas Kuhn, Quantenphysik und Oral History. Berlin: Wagenbach.

  • 2026. The Activated Museum (workshop organized with Niki Rhyner and Nataša Jagdhuhn at the Center for Advanced Studies “Applied Humanities”), April 10–11.

    2025. Keynote speech, Lebenswelten schaffen: Künste im Gebrauch (conference of the Collaborative Research Center “Intervening Arts” in cooperation with the Brücke Museum, Berlin), November 6. 

    2025.  “Frauen vor Mustern” (lecture). Leibnitz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Berlin, June 11.

    2025.  “Angewandte Geisteswissenschaften” (lecture). Kolloquium der Lehrstühle für Neueste Geschichte, Geschichte des Wissens und Geschichte der Frühen Neuzeit, Universität Greifswald, June 3.

    2025. Applied Humanities: Genealogy & Politics. Inaugural Conference of the Center for Advanced Studies “Applied Humanities” (conference organized with the Center’s team), May 15–17.

  • anke.te.heesen[at]hu-berlin.de

    phone: +49 (0) 30 2093 65862