Forgetting to Fall Has Become Harder: On Writing in Pandemia World
“There is an art, or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss” begins a memorable passage...
Author: Torsten Kathke
Torsten Kathke is a historian specializing in the United States and Germany during the 19th and 20th centuries. His book "Wires That Bind: Nation, Region, and Technology in the Southwestern United States, 1854–1920" is available from Transcript publishers in Europe, and from Columbia University Press elsewhere.
Torsten earned his doctorate in American Cultural History from Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany in 2013. He subsequently worked at the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC and at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne. He is a lecturer in American Studies at the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz.
Die Stunde der Erklärer
Morgens die Pressekonferenz des Robert Koch-Instituts, mittags Nachrichten mit allerlei gesammelten Statements aus Ministerien, Ländern, Städten. Am Abend spric...
Twitter Thread and Blog Post on the Folly of Comparing the American Left to Nazis
In August, I posted a long thread on Twitter regarding the problem of bad-faith distortions of history. It was set off by an especially egregious statement by D...
Tom Wolfe and the Age of Self-Involvement
Tom There’s writers in there like Pynchon. But if he were a realist. There’s thorough knowledge of American history and the people who wrote it down...
A History of the Third Dimension: Past Future Visions of 3D in Movies
The future would be brilliant, glowing, and rich in color. The future would be lifelike on the screen as much as off. The future, Hollywood attempted – and atte...
Past Prologue: In Between Conferences
Easter saw me returning from a trip across Europe for two back-to-back conferences, the biannual conference of the International Association of Inter-American S...
Deactivating Facebook
You may have landed here because you were looking for me on the internet. If you looked for me on Facebook, you may have noticed I’m not there. I’ve...
Podcast Appearance – #KönigVonDeutschland
Lutz Becker and Gunnar Sohn of #KönigVonDeutschland, a podcast about the many sides of, and issues related to the concept of utopia, recently spoke with me. The...
Interview with Mediendienst Integration
Mediendienst Integration recently interviewed me. It’s a German site that acts as a clearinghouse for all kinds of news and information related to the top...
Out Now Everywhere: My Book ‘Wires That Bind’
I am very happy to announce that my book Wires That Bind: Nation, Region, and Technology in the Southwestern United States, 1854–1920 is now available worldwide...