Update: In a statement, Bonn University confirms the renaming of the Otto Spies Memorial Series because of the archival material I quoted in my blogpost. In the meantime, the local newspaper Bonner General-Anzeiger published an article on the issue as well. www.ioa.uni-bonn.de/isl/de/nachr...

Unregulated e-bikes are a growing danger on American streets. In one Bay Area town, a terrible accident finally led to reform. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/m...

'growing numbers of Germans are gaining their PhDs through “cumulative doctorates”, known in other countries as “PhDs by publication”. In some disciplines, such as economics and business administration, the dissertation or monograph has virtually disappeared.' 1/2

I wrote a blog post explaining why I consider an honour for the orientalist Otto Spies (1901-1981) problematic, based on correspondence I examined in Berlin this summer: disorient.de/magazin/trot...

German academia: great place to work? You should think twice before giving it a try: Permanent positions are very rare, most scholars have to drop out after some precarious years. @dianakwon.bsky.social has written a great piece about this for @nature.com and also talked to yours truly. #IchBinHanna

Tolga U. Esmer - Economies of Banditry in the Late Ottoman Empire À paraître en février aux Oxford UP

My first peer-reviewed article, based on my BA thesis at FU Berlin, has just been published (OA). It traces Palestinian libraries from the late Ottoman period in the so-called Abandoned Property Collection (NLI). Thank you to everyone who supported! doi.org/10.1353/mns.... @sims-mss.bsky.social

Look at this absolute unit. Buckle up for a long thread about agrarian Palestinian folktales and lore! There is a lot. I personally own 6 volumes on the subject.

another banger!

My chapter focusing on German tobacco fantasies in German Southwest Africa (1884-1915, modern-day Namibia) is now published in the volume "Tobacco in Global Perspective, 1780-1960: Trade, Knowledge, Labour." Thanks to all who helped/contributed! link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

The edited volume The Library of Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār has been published (open access; Brill: 2025: brill.com/display/titl...). I contributed to the project by identifying 5 manuscripts from al-Jazzār's library in the so-called AP (“abandoned property") collection of the National Library of Israel.

I'm excited to share my new (open access) article in Social Codicology, edited by Olly Akkerman. The article connects Islamicate manuscript and talismanic scribal cultures with chemical-bacterial networks, Platonic cosmologies and technologies of climate resilience. brill.com/display/book...

the extent to which the western left is incapable of viewing any global development without *centring* us imperialism is *quite something* like, perhaps, and hear me out, your inability to seriously engage with local specificity and complexity is in and of itself... imperialist?

Knowing by Sensing: How to Teach the History of Smell Inger Leemans, et al, The American Historical Review, Volume 128, Issue 3, September 2023, Pages 1251–1264, doi.org/10.1093/ahr/... academic.oup.com/ahr/article/... 🗃