1971, Morbach/Hunsrück. He works as a researcher at the Centre for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL) in Berlin. He has taught at the universities of Konstanz and Duisburg-Esse and has studied the work of authors such as Hermann Broch and Robert Walser. He is currently researching the theoretical formation of the young Georg Lukács. His work focuses on the relationships between literature, ethnology and politics, with particular attention to the relationship between Romanticism and early industrialisation.