Dagmar Schäfer

adjunct professor at the department of Sinology at the Freie Universität

Biography:

Dagmar Schäfer is director of Department III, “Artifacts, Knowledge, Action,“ at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, professor h.c. of the history of technology at the Technische Universität, Berlin and adjunct professor at the department of Sinology at the Freie Universität, Berlin as well as guest professor at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the University of Tianjin. Her main research interest is the history and sociology of technology of China, focusing on the paradigms configuring the discourse on technological development. Dagmar Schäfer is editor-in-chief of the journal Transfers. She has published widely on materiality, the processes and structures that lead to varying knowledge systems, and the changing role of artefacts in the creation, diffusion and use of scientific and technological knowledge. Recent publications include Animals through Chinese History, co-edited with Roel Sterckx & Martina Siebert (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and Threads of Global Desire, co-edited with Giorgio Riello & Luca Mola (Boydell & Brewer, 2018). Her monograph The Crafting of the 10,000 Things (University of Chicago Press, 2011) won the History of Science Society: Pfizer Award in 2012 and the Association for Asian Studies: Joseph Levenson Prize (Pre-1900) in 2013.