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Dr. Stefan Esselborn

Postdoc

History of Technology

Stefan Esselborn is a Post-Doctoral Researcher in History of Technology, working in the context of the DFG Research Group “Practicing Evidence – Evidencing Practice”. His main professional interests lie in the fields of History of Science, Technology and the Environment, Global and (Post-)Colonial History, the history of knowledge and expert networks, and the history of risk and safety.

Stefan studied Contemporary History, Social and Economic History, and Political Science at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) Munich, and the Université Paris IV – La Sorbonne. In 2016, he defended his doctoral dissertation on the history of the International African Institute and transnational African studies in the 20th centuryat LMU (supervised by Martin H. Geyer). He joined TUM in March 2016 working first as a coordinator of the research group “evidence practices”, then as researcher in the group’s subproject on history of technology.

 

  • stefan.esselborn@tum.de
  • +49(89) 2179 540
  • Mailing Address: Prof. für Technikgeschichte c/o Deutsches Museum, Museuminsel 1, 80538 München
  • Visitor Address: Library Building, Deutsches Museum
  • Room: 1407
  • History of Science, Technology and the Environment
  • History of Knowledge and Expertise
  • History of Safety and Risk
  • Nuclear and Automotive History
  • Global History
  • History of Empires and Decolonisation
  • African History

MONOGRAPHS

Esselborn, Stefan. Die Afrikaexperten. Das Internationale Afrikainstitut und die europäische Afrikanistik, 1926–1976. Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2018 (Deutsches Museum Publication Prize 2018).

 

EDITOR

Ehlers, Sarah, and Stefan Esselborn, eds. Evidence in Action between Science and Society Constructing, Validating, and Contesting Knowledge. New York: Routledge, 2023.

Esselborn, Stefan, eds. “Automobilities. Automation, Safety and Responsibility in the History of Mobility.” Technikgeschichte 87.1 (2020). doi.org/10.5771/0040-117X-2020-1.

 

ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS

Esselborn, Stefan and Mauch, Felix. “In einem Semester um die Welt? Globalgeschichtliche Ansätze in der technikhistorischen Lehre”, Technikgeschichte 88, 2, 197-201. https://doi.org/10.5771/0040-117X-2021-2-197

Esselborn, Stefan and Zachmann, Karin. “Nuclear Safety by Numbers. Probabilistic Risk Analysis as an Evidence Practice for Technical Safety in the German Debate on Nuclear Energy.” History & Technology 36,1 (2020). doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2020.1766916.

Esselborn, Stefan. “Introduction: Auto-Mobilities. Automation, Safety and Responsibility in the History of Mobility.” Technikgeschichte 87,1 (2020): 3-10. doi.org/10.5771/0040-117X-2020-1.

Esselborn, Stefan. “Constructing Crashworthiness. The Experimental Safety Vehicle (ESV) Program and the Global Renegotiation of Automobile Safety in the 1970s.” Technikgeschichte 87,1 (2020): 11-42. https://doi.org/10.5771/0040-117X-2020-1-11 (ICOHTEC Maurice Daumas Prize 2021, 2nd place).

Karin Zachmann, Stefan Esselborn, Ruth Müller, und Kay Felder. “Messen und Ermessen: Vertrauen in Zahlen oder Expertise für technische Sicherheit und Wissenschaftsförderung.” In: Wissen und Begründen. Evidenz als umkämpfte Ressource in der Wissensgesellschaft, edited by Karin Zachmann and Sarah Ehlers. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2019, 83-108.

Esselborn, Stefan. “Afrikawissen in Bewegung. Internationale Afrikaforschung im Zeitalter der Dekolonisierung und die Rolle des International African Institute (IAI).” In: Wissen in Bewegung Migration und globale Verflechtungen in der Zeitgeschichte seit 1945, edited by Stephanie v. Zloch, Lars Müller and Simone Lässig, 111-142. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018. doi.org/10.1515/9783110538076.

Esselborn, Stefan. “Koloniale Landschaft und industrielle Landwirtschaft. Das ‚Groundnut Scheme‘.” In: Ökologische Erinnerungsorte, edited by Frank Uekötter, 219-251. Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2014.

Esselborn, Stefan. “Environment, Memory, and the Groundnut Scheme. Britain’s Largest Colonial Agricultural Development Project and its Global Legacy.” Global Environment 11 (2013): 58-93. doi.org/10.3197/ge.2013.061104.

 

REVIEWS

Esselborn, Stefan. Review of “Moving Violations: Automobiles, Experts, and Regulations in the United States” by Lee Vinsel, Technology and Culture 62 (2021) 1, S. 290-292, https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2021.0031

Esselborn, Stefan. Rezension “The Science of Bureaucracy. Risk Decision-Making and the US Environmental Protection Agency” von David Demortain, Technikgeschichte 87 (2020) 3, S. 275-276, https://doi.org/10.5771/0040-117X-2020-3-275

Esselborn, Stefan. Rezension “The Chinese Typewriter” von Thomas S. Mullaney, Technikgeschichte 85,3 (2018): 236-237. https://doi.org/10.5771/0040-117X-2018-3-223

→ Current Courses Offered
  • Techhistories Alive (TUM Emeriti of Excellence – Zeitzeugen der Wissenschafts- und Technikgeschichte)
  • Risk in Society: Perspectives from the Social Science and Humanities
Further Courses Offered at TUM
  • Immersion Project “Yesterday’s Technology of the Future. Nuclear Energy and Its History” (WS 2020/21)
  • Global History of Technology (with Felix Mauch, WS 2019/20)
  • Techhistories Alive: TUM Emeriti of Excellence – Zeitzeugen der Wissenschafts- und Technikgeschichte (zuletzt 2019)

Reviewer for funding bodies (e.g. National Science Foundation, USA) and scientific journals (e.g. Science, Technology and Human Values)

(Selection since 2017)

  • “‘Project Risk Strategy’. Nuclear Energy and the History of Risk Research in West Germany, SHOT Annual Meeting, New Orleans, 18.–21.11.2021 (online).
  • „Constructing Crashworthiness. The Experimental Safety Vehicle (ESV) Program and the Global Renegotiation of Automobile Safety in the 1970s“, HSS/ICOHTEC, International Congress of History of Science and Technology (ICHST), Prag, 25.–31.7.2021 (online).
  • „Evidence Against the ‘Atomic State’. The Nuclear Energy Controversy and the Rise of ‘Gegenforschung’ in West Germany“, DFG Forschungsgruppe Evidenzpraktiken, Workshop „Critiquing Evidence Criticisms“, Villa Vigoni, 23.–24.3.2021 (online).
  • „Zwischen Reaktortechnik, Psychometrie und Rechtstheorie. Überlegungen zu einer Geschichte der Risikoforschung in der BRD (1960er bis 1980er Jahre)“, Deutsches Museum München, 21.12.2020 (online).
  •  „Automobiltechnik und Weltpolitik: Das NATO-ESV-Programm und die (globale) Konstruktion eines neuen automobilen Sicherheitsparadigmas in den 1970er Jahren“, Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Technikgeschichte (GTG), Karlsruhe, 17.-19.5. 2019.
  • “How Crashworthiness Came to Europe. The NATO-Experimental Safety Vehicle (ESV) Program and Changing Conceptions of Automobile Safety in the 1970s”, International Workshop “Who’s Driving? Agency and Evidence in the History of Technical Safety”, Deutsches Museum München, 6.–7.12.2018.
  • “Experts for Africa. The International African Institute and the Global History of African Studies, 1926 to 1980”, Deutsches Historisches Institut / Institut Historique Allemand, Paris, 4.12.2018.
  • Überzeugen mit Zahlen. Die Kernkraftkontroverse und die (quantitative) Risikoforschung in der BRD. Sektion Evidenzpraktiken und wissenschaftliche Glaubwürdigkeit in Zeiten gesellschaftlicher Spaltung (Organisation: Stefan Esselborn und Sarah Ehlers), 52. Deutscher Historikertag, Münster, 27.09.2018.
  • Wahrscheinlich sicher. Probabilistische Risikoanalysen als Evidenzpraxis in der deutschen Kernenergiekontroverse, Kuratoriumssitzung des Münchner Zentrums für Wissenschafts- und Technikgeschichte (MZWTG), Deutsches Museum München, 13.07.2018.
  • International, Transnational, Imperial, Panafrican? Competing Internationalisms and the Curious Case of the International African Institute (IIALC/IAI). Workshop „Historians Without Borders: Writing the History of International Organizations“, Leiden University, March 23, 2018.
  • Nuclear Safety by the Numbers. The Deutsche Risikostudie Kernkraftwerke as a “Trading Zone”. Annual Meeting of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), Panel Safety Tested: (Dis-) Proving Technical Safety in History (Organizer: Stefan Esselborn), Philadelphia, October 28, 2017.
  • European Scholars, American Philanthropists, African Subjects? The International African Institute (IIALC/IAI) and the Global Invention of African Studies, 1925 to 1965. 5th European Congress on World and Global History (ENIUGH), Panel: Internationalization of colonial knowledge production in an age of empire, Budapest, 1 September 2017.
  • Deutscher Historikerverband (VHD)
  • Society for the History of Technology (SHOT)
  • European Network in Universal and Global History (ENIUGH)

ICOHTEC Maurice Daumas Prize for Best Article Publication 2021 (2nd place) für “Constructing Crashworthiness. The Experimental Safety Vehicle (ESV) Program and the Global Renegotiation of Automobile Safety in the 1970s,” Technikgeschichte 87 (2020)1.

Publikationspreis „Forschung“ des Deutschen Museums 2018 für Die Afrikaexperten. Das Internationale Afrikainstitut und die europäische Afrikanistik, 1926–1976. Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2018.