© Die Junge Akademie/Peter Himsel

Pahl, Kerstin Maria

Researcher
Center for the History of Emotions
+49 30 82406-250
    • Publications

    Main Focus

    • History and culture of Britain, Europe, and North America in the early modern period and the long eighteenth century
    • Anglo-chinese relations since the seventeenth century
    • Life writing studies. Ego-documents
    • History of emotions, experience, and mentality
    • History of the public and political culture
    • Visual and material culture. Book history.

    Topics and approach

    My research focuses on the history of the Western self and the making of early modern and modern subjectivities. I work mainly with ego-documents - including, but not limited to, autobiographies, diaries, commonplace books, letters, or self-portraits - to understand historical conceptions of personhood, individuality, and feeling. I investigate how people experience the various distinctions permeating society (class, gender, race, age, or religion) and, more recently, I have been exploring historical experiences of cultural differences in such cases as missionaries or soldiers going abroad.

    My publications pivot around expressions of the self: In my first book, The Visuals Worlds of Life Writing (Liverpool University Press, 2025), I investigate the use of images in biographies. The special issue on "Revisiting the History of Emotions" (Geschichte und Gesellschaft 49, 2023, co-edited with Ute Frevert) offers case-studies on the historically, geographically, and culturally distinct expressions of emotions, while the special issue on "Changing the Feeling Rules" (Social Science History 4, 2024) brings together Pierre Bourdieu's theory of distinction with the history of emotions.

    I am also interested in how individuals interact with the political culture of their day, especially during the Enlightenment when the modern public sphere is said to have emerged. Our multigraph Feeling Political (Palgrave 2022) was cited in the Atlantic during the 2024 US presidential election.

    Project Participation


    Curriculum Vitae

    • Visiting Professor (50%), Chair for the History of Nineteenth-Century Europe (substituting for Birgit Aschmann), Humboldt University Berlin (June 2023 to March 2024)
    • Post-Doctoral Researcher, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, since May 2018
    • PhD in Art and Visual History, Humboldt University Berlin, Department for Art and Image History / King's College London, English Department (binational collaborative degree/co-tutelle), January 2018
    • Assistant, Cultural Foundation of the German Länder (Kulturstiftung der Länder e.V.), Berlin, 2011-2014
    • MA in Art History, Freie Universität Berlin, 2011
    • Studied art history, classical archaeology, and German literature in Frankfurt, Berlin, and Cambridge
    • Additional degree: BA in China Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, 2017-2020

    Awards, Grants, Visiting Scholar Programs

    • Fulbright-Program, scholarship for a research stay at Harvard University
    • Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES) at Harvard University, Visiting Scholars Programme, March to May 2023
    • Sign UP! for Leadership 2022: Careerbuilding Programme for Excellent Female Postdocs in the Max Planck Society
    • Fudan-Universität Shanghai, Fudan Fellow Programme, March to May 2020 – pending due to the pandemic
    • BOOST!-Programme, a measure in the area of talent management and equal opportunities by the Max Planck Society, 2019
    • PhD grant, German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes), 2014-2017
    • Others grants: German Academic Exchange Service (2010, 2018). British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (2018). King's College London (2019).

      Affiliations, Offices, Memberships

      • ALLEA (All European Academies, European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities), member of the board from 2025 (to 2027)
      • Die Junge Akademie at Berlin-Brandenburg Akademy of Science and Humanities and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, member (2022-27). June 2023 to June 2025: member of the board
      • Université du Québec à Montréal, Groupe de recherche en histoire des sociabilités, associated researcher
      • Memberships: German Association of Historians. Association of German Art Historians. Forum Art History of Britain and Ireland (FAHBI). British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (BSECS)/UK. Mensa Germany.
      • Twitter: @kerstinmpahl

      Selected Publications

      Books


      Special Issues

      • Ute Frevert und Kerstin Maria Pahl, eds., "Revisiting the History of Emotions," Geschichte und Gesellschaft 49, no. 1 (2023): https://www.vr-elibrary.de/toc/gege/49/1
      • Stephen Cummins und Kerstin Maria Pahl, eds., "Changing the Feeling Rules. How Emotions Reshape Social Relations," Social Science History (forthcoming in 2024).

      Articles

      • (with Stephen Cummins): "Feeling the Rules: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Emotional Norms and Social Distinctions," Social Science History 4 (2024): "Changing the Feeling Rules. How Emotions Reshape Social Relations," 1-17. [Open Access]
      • (with Ute Frevert): "Revisiting the History of Emotions. An Introduction," Geschichte und Gesellschaft 49, Nr. 1 (2023): "Revisiting the History of Emotions," hg. von U Frevert und KM Pahl: 7-26.
      • (with Ville Kivimäki): "Histories of Emotions and Experiences. Studying Soldiers' Letters, Poems, and Memoirs," 49, Nr. 1 (2023): "Revisiting the History of Emotions," hg. von U Frevert und KM Pahl: 47-69.
      • Agnes Anna Arndt and Kerstin Maria Pahl, "Emotions and Capitalism: An Introduction," in Capitalist Cold. Callousness and other Economic Emotions in Europe and the US, 1840 to today, ed. Agnes Anna Arndt and Kerstin Maria Pahl. New York: Routledge, erscheint 2024.
      • "De l'insensibilité à l'anesthésie: indifference, indolence, de 'défaut de sentiment' au XVIIIe siècle," Sensibilités. Histoire Critique & Sciences Sociales: Insensibilités 11 (2022), 12-25.
            English version: "Perfect Insensibility. Indifference, Stupidity, Indolence, and Other Kinds of
            'Want of Feeling' in British Moral Sense Theory," forthcoming online.
      • "Political Iconography and the History of Emotions," in Kritische Berichte 3 (2022): 8-16.
      • "Virtue is Our Daily Bread. The English Citizen's Taste," in Kerstin Maria Pahl and Julien Puget, eds. Citizens of the Enlightenment: Navigating Values, Rules, and Spaces in Eighteenth-Century Europe. Paris: Honoré Champion, forthcoming.
      • (with Ute Frevert) "Introducing Political Feelings: Participatory Politics, Institutions, and Emotional Templates," Ute Frevert, Kerstin Maria Pahl, et al. Feeling Political. Emotions and Institutions since 1789. London: Palgrave, 2022: 1-26 [open access].
      • "Feeling Political through Pictures: Portrayals of US Presidents, 1796 to 2020," in Ute Frevert, Kerstin Maria Pahl, et al. Feeling Political. Emotions and Institutions since 1789. London: Palgrave, 2022: 121-158 [open access].
      • "Biography and Emotional Practice," in Hans Renders and David Veltman, eds. Fear of Theory. The Theoretical Backside of Biography. Leiden: Brill, 2021: 55-71.
      • "Be Brief(ed) in Your Morality. Jonathan Richardson and the Ethics of Abstracts, Essays and Characters in Early-Eighteenth-Century England," in Lothar van Laak and Kristin Eichhorn, eds. Moral Cultures. Hamburg: Meiner, 2021: 492-504.
      • "Proclamations of Neutrality. Disinterest and Deliberation in Gilbert Stuart’s Portrait of George Washington ('The Lansdowne Portrait', 1796)," in Philipp Ekardt, Frank Fehrenbach, Cornelia Zumbusch, eds. Politische Emotionen in den Künsten / Political Emotions in the Arts. Berlin: De Gruyter 2021: 95-110.
      • "Morphings at Meta-Levels. Ovid, John Dryden and the Art of Likeness in Translation," in Karl E. Enenkel and J. L. de Jong, eds. Intersections: Re-Inventing Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 1300-1700. Leiden: Brill, 2021: 423-442.
      • "The Language of Love's Lessening. Falling out of Love and Nineteenth-Century English Literature," Cultural and Social History 16 (2019): 1-16 [open access].
      • "Autographing the Self. Self-Portrayal Through Lettering in Eighteenth-Century England," Journal18:Self/Portrait #8 (Herbst 2019) [open access].
      • "Joint Adventures. Company and Companions in Seventeenth-Century English Travelling Culture," in Karl Enenkel and Jan L. de Jong, eds. Intersections: Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture: Artes Apodemicae and Early Modern Travelling Culture. Leiden: Brill, 2019: 195-214 [abstract].
      • "An Intersectional Likeness. Godfrey Kneller’s Portrait of Michael Alphonsus Shen Fuzong ('The Chinese Convert', 1687)," Revue Histoire de l’Art 82, no. 1 (2018: Special Issue: Asie-Occident): 97-108.
      • "Frontverläufe. Biographische Darstellungen John Miltons als politische Stellungnahmen im englischen 18. Jahrhundert," in Christoph Klein and Falko Schnicke, eds. Legitimationsmechanismen des Biographischen. Berlin: Peter Lang, 2016: 184-204 [review].
      • "Starke Schwäche. Zur Aktualität von Benjamin Wests 'Tod des General Wolfe', oder: Gedanken über die ästhetische Funktion des nicht-idealen Körpers im politischen Diskurs," in Martin Doll and Oliver Kohns, eds. Die zwei Körper der Nation. Ästhetische Figurationen des Politischen. München: Beck, 2016: 505-533.
      • (with Lukas Werner) "Variation als Aneignung: Affirmation und Demarkation in der Dürer-Biographik zwischen 1790 und 1840," in Beate Boeckem, B. Schellewald, and Olaf Peters, eds. Die Biographie. Mode und Universalie? Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015: 89-100.
      • "Milton als Modell und Medium. Schlaglichter eines Diskurses im englischen 18. Jahrhundert," in Sonja Georgi, Julia Ilgner, Isabell Lammel, Cathleen Sarti, and Christine Waldschmidt, eds. Geschichtstransformationen. Medien, Verfahren und Funktionalisierungen historischer Rezeption. Mainz: transcript, 2014: 343-366. [Review]
      • "Einheit und Variation: Die Töchter des Johann Julius von Vieth und Golßenau, um 1773," in Robert Eberhardt, ed. Anton Graff. Porträts eines Porträtisten. Berlin: Wolff, 2013: 50-53.
      • "The Poetics and Politics of Romney’s 'Milton and his Daughters' (1793)," in Transactions of the Romney Society 17 (2012): 20-29.

      Under review

      • (with Helga Schwalm) "Serial Compositions. Musical Lives in the Periodical Press - The Case of The Harmonicon, 1823-33", with Nineteenth-Century Studies.

      Interviews

      Essays, blog posts

      Academic reviews

      • Bettina Brandt and Britta Hochkirchen, eds., Reinhart Koselleck und das Bild. Bielefeld: Bielefeld University Press, 2021: "The Historian and his Images", Contributions to the History of Concepts 17, no. 1 (2022): 140-145.
      • Léa Kuhn, Gemalte Kunstgeschichte. Bildgenealogien um 1800. Paderborn: Fink, 2020, ArtHist.net (4 March 2021).
      • Vera Fasshauer, Wahre Charakter, gute Karikaturen, schöne Ungeheuer. Zur Poetik des Hässlichen im 18. Jahrhundert. Heidelberg: Winter, 2016, Das Achtzehnte Jahrhundert 44, no. 1 (2022): 143-145.

      Reviews for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

      • Lea Ypi, Frei. Erwachsenwerden am Ende der Geschichte [Free. Coming of Age at the End of History]. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2021: "Die ersehnte Freiheit ist zwiespältig" (23 July 2022).
      • Mareice Kaiser, Das Unwohlsein der modernen Mutter. Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2021: "Ich habe Sex, ich habe Hunger, ich will alles verstehen" (17 Aug 2021).
      • Carel van Schaik and Kai Michel, Die Wahrheit über Eva. Die Erfindung der Ungleichheit von Männern und Frauen. Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2020: "Ein Gemisch aus Potenz und Aggression" (16 April 2021).
      • Regina Toepfer, Kinderlosigkeit. Ersehnte, verweigerte und bereute Elternschaft im Mittelalter. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2020: "Zuflucht beim gefährlichen Dritten" (21 Nov 2020).
      • Anna Machin, "Papa werden". Zur Entstehung des modernen Vaters. Zur Entstehung des modernen Vaters [The Life of Dad. The Making of a Modern Father] Munich: Antje Kunstmann, 2020: "Im Kreißsaal wird mitgezittert" (3 March 2020).
      • John Ruskin, Grundlagen des Zeichnens, trans. by Helmut Moysich, with an afterword by Wolfgang Kemp. Mainz: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2019: "Wie fein sich doch die Natur komponiert" (28 Dec 2019).
      • Nara B. Milanich, Paternity. The Elusive Quest for the Father. Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 2019: "Wer soll als legitimer Erbe gelten?" (4 Oct 2019).
      • Kate Manne, Down Girl. Die Logik der Misogynie. Aus dem Englischen von Ulrike Bischoff. Berlin: Suhrkampf, 2019; Donna Zuckerberg, Not All Dead White Men. Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2018: "Das Patriarchat als Allerweltsformel" (4 June 2019).
      • Eva Illouz, Warum Liebe endet. Eine Soziologie negativer Beziehungen. Aus dem Englischen von Michael Adrian. Berlin: Suhrkamp, Berlin 2018: "Keine Dating-App ist auch keine Lösung" (2 Jan 2019).
      In preparation
      • Special Issue (with Nadja Gernalzick): "(Un)Like. Life Writing and Portraiture", European Journal of Life Writing (planned for 2024).
      • Special Issue (with Paul Franke): "Objective Feelings. Expertise and Emotions from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries" (planned for 2024).
      • Article: "'Political Apathy' and 'Political Quietism': Origins of a Topical Concern".

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