Rate My Professor Stefan Höhne

Dr. Stefan Höhne is a senior researcher at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut (KWI) Essen, an institute for advanced study in the humanities jointly operated by the universities of the University Alliance Ruhr, including Universität Duisburg-Essen. He received his PhD in Modern and Contemporary History from Technische Universität Berlin in April 2017, graduating summa cum laude with a dissertation titled 'Machinic Subjects – Metamorphoses of the Passenger in the New York City Subway (1904–1968).' His earlier education includes an M.A. in Cultural Studies, Philosophy, and Sociology earned between 2000 and 2007 at universities in Berlin, Leipzig, and Copenhagen. Höhne's career encompasses roles such as researcher and lecturer at the Center for Metropolitan Studies, Technische Universität Berlin (2013–2018); researcher and research fellow at the Institute for Cultural History and Theory, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (2011–2013); and lecturer and adviser at New York University Berlin and New York (2016–2018). He has been a visiting scholar at Columbia University Department of History (2008–2009), visiting fellow at the University of Leipzig (2020), and researcher in residence at the Free City of Christiania, Denmark (2024). Since 2022, he has held a permanent senior researcher position at KWI, and since 2015, he has been a member of the editorial collective of the open-access journal sub\urban – zeitschrift für kritische stadtforschung.

Höhne's research focuses on the cultural and technological history of western modernity, urban history, Science and Technology Studies, and cultural and social theories of the 20th and 21st centuries. He led the international HERA Joint Research Programme project 'Governing the Narcotic City: Imaginaries, Practices and Discourses of Public Drug Cultures in European Cities from 1970 until Today' (2019–2022) and co-leads the Narcotic City Archive since 2021. Since September 2024, he has co-led the ERC Synergy Grant project 'Cultures of the Cryosphere: Infrastructures, Politics and Futures of Artificial Cooling,' marking him as the first cultural scientist in Europe to receive such a grant. His major publications include 'Riding the New York Subway: The Invention of the Modern Passenger' (MIT Press, 2021), 'Narcotic Cities: Counter-Cartographies of Drugs and Spaces' (co-edited, Jovis Verlag, 2023), and contributions to journals such as City (2015), sub\urban (2021), and Amerikastudien (2021). Awards include the First Prize for Dissertations from the Society for City History and Urban Research (2014), the Translation Award Geisteswissenschaften International (2019), and a Mercator Research Fellowship (2019–2021).