PD Dr. Mathias Grote

Chair for the History of Science | PD Dr. Mathias Grote

PD Dr. Mathias Grote

Foto: Figure S. Saygin
Name: PD Dr. Mathias Grote
Status: Research Associate (Heisenberg Programme)
Email: mathias.grote (at) hu-berlin.de

Institution: Humboldt-Universität → Präsidium → Philosophische Fakultät → Institut für Geschichtswissenschaften → Wissenschaftsgeschichte mit einem Schwerpunkt in der Geschichte der Bildung und der Organisation des Wissens im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert
Phone number: (030) 2093-70625
Mailing address: Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin

Diese Seite wird nicht mehr aktualisiert, Stand: Oktober 2023.

Vita

2022-2023: Visiting Chair in Historical Science Studies at University of Bielefeld
Summer Semester 2022: Parental leave
Winter Semester 2021/22: Fellow at Alfried-Krupp-Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald
August-September 2021: Parental leave
October 2021: Venia Legendi in Modern History (postdoctoral lecture qualification required for assuming a professorship at a German university)
Since February 2021: Heisenberg Fellow, German Research Foundation
October 2020: Admission to Heisenberg Programme, German Research Foundation
April-October 2020: Visiting Professor (Lehrstuhlvertretung), Chair for the History of Science, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
October 2019: Public habilitation colloquium "Moderne Wälzer - Wissenschaft und Enzyklopädismus, ca. 1880 - 1930"
Since October 2014: Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter at the Chair for the History of Science (Prof. te Heesen), Humboldt-University of Berlin
March 2016: Visiting Fellow, Department of History, Princeton University
February-April 2015: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia, PA
Summer/Fall 2013: Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Centre Cavaillès, École Normale Supérieure Paris, funded by German Academic Exchange Service and Maison des Sciences de l'Homme
June 2011-September 2014: Research Fellow at the Institut für Philosophie, Literatur-, Wissenschafts- und Technikgeschichte of Technische Universität Berlin
2010: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society (Egenis) at the University of Exeter, UK
2009: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
October 2008: Doctorate at Institute of Biology of Humboldt University, Berlin
2005 - 2008: PhD-student in the Department of Microbial Physiology at Institute of Biology of Humboldt University, Berlin
1999 – 2004: Studies in philosophy and biology (M.A.) at Humboldt University, Berlin and Université de Nantes, France

Research Interests

Epistemology and history of the modern life sciences (microbiology, molecular biologies and biotechnologies) and the chemical sciences
History of books and media in science
Temporality of knowledge and historiography of the sciences

Currents Projects

Publications

1. History and Philosophy of Science

Monographs

Grote, M. und Oesterhelt, Dieter (2022). Leben mit Licht und Farbe. Ein biochemisches Gespräch (Reihe: Lives in Chemistry - Lebenswerke in der Chemie). GNT-Verlag GmbH.
Grote, M. (2019). Membranes to Molecular Machines. Active Matter and the Remaking of Life. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Reviewed in Biospektrum, FASEB Journal, Isis, N.T.M.,
Small Things Considered, Choice

Journal articles

Grote, M. (2022). Microbes before Microbiology: Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg and Berlin’s Infusoria. Endeavour, Juni 2022, 100815. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.endeavour.2022.100815. [translation of Grote, HiN, 2021.]
Grote, M., Hopwood, N., Müller-Wille, S. et al. (2021). Cycles and circulation: a theme in the history of biology and medicine. In: History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 43, Article No. 89.
Grote, M. (2021). „Aus dem Kleinen bauen sich die Welten“ – Christian Gottfried Ehrenbergs ökologische Mikrobiologie avant la lettre. In: HiN XXII, 42, 13-26.
Grote, M., Onaga, L., Creager, A. et al. (2021). The molecular vista: current perspectives on molecules and life in the twentieth century. In: History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 43, Article No. 16.
Grote M. (2021). Von Enzyklopädien zu Wikipedia und zurück? In: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, Wissen, 70. Jahrgang, 3-4/2021, 18th January 2021, 15-21.
Grote M., Creager, A. and Leong, E. (2020). Learning by the book: manuals and handbooks in the history of science. In: BJHS - Themes, Vol 5, Learning by the Book: Manuals and Handbooks in the History of Knowledge, 1-13.
Grote M. (2020). Total knowledge? Encyclopedic handbooks in the twentieth-century life and the chemical sciences. In: BJHS - Themes, Vol 5, Learning by the Book: Manuals and Handbooks in the History of Knowledge, 187-203.
Grote M. (2018). Petri dish versus Winogradsky column: a longue durée perspective on purity and diversity in microbiology, 1880s–1980s. In: New Perspectives in the History of the Life Sciences, R. Meunier and K. Nickelsen (eds.), History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 40, 11.
Grote M. (2016), Das Patchwork der Mikroben. Bio-Technologien, Leben und Wissenschaft jenseits der großen Erzählungen. In: Wissen ca. 1980, N. Güttler, M. Pratschke, M. Stadler (eds.), Nach Feierabend. Zürcher Jahrbuch für Wissensgeschichte 12, 35-51.
Grote M., Keuck L. (2015). Conference report “Stoffwechsel. Histories of metabolism”, workshop organized by Mathias Grote at Technische Universität Berlin, November 28–29th, 2014. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 37: 210-218.
Grote M. (2013a). Vintage physiology. Otto Warburgs „Labor-Kochbücher” und Apparaturen. NTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin 21: 171-185.
Grote M. (2013b). Purple matter, membranes and 'molecular pumps' in rhodopsin research (1960s-1980s). Journal for the History of Biology 46:331-368.
Grote M. (2011). Jeewanu, or the 'particles of life. The approach of Krishna Bahadur in 20th century origin of life research. Journal of Biosciences 36(4), 563-570.
Grote M., O'Malley M.A. (2011). Enlightening the lifesciences: the history of halobacterial and microbial rhodopsin research. FEMS Microbiology Reviews 35(6): 1082-1099.
Grote M. (2010). Surfaces of action. Cells and membranes in electrochemistry and the life sciences, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Biology and the Biomedical Sciences 41: 183-193.
Grote M. (2008). Hybridizing bacteria, crossing methods, cross-checking arguments: The transition from episomes to plasmids (1961-1969), History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 30: 407-430.
Grote, M. (2007). Die „Kräfte des Organischen“. Transformationen des Naturbildes in C.F. Kielmeyers Karlsschulrede, Verhandlungen zur Geschichte und Theorie der Biologie 13: 165-175.

Special Issues / Edited Volume

Creager, A., Grote, M. and Leong, E. (2020), Learning by the Book: Manuals and Handbooks in the History of Knowledge, BJHS - Themes, Vol. 5.
Grote, M., Stadler, M. (2015), Surfaces in the History of Modern Sciences: Inscribing, Separating, Enclosing. Topical Section/Introduction, Science in Context 28, Issue 3.
Grote M. and Stadler M. (2011), Membranes Surfaces Boundaries. Interstices in the History of Science, Technology and Culture. Preprint 420, Berlin: Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte (print/online).

Book chapters and other publications

Grote, M. (2021): "Wir sind Virus": Zur Aktualität biologischer Symbioseverhandlungen. In: Nassehi A. und Felixberger P. (ed.), Kursbuch 208 - "Koalitionen".
Grote, M., te Heesen, A., McLaughlin, P. and Rheinberger, H.-J. (2021). „Ordnung und Organisation“. Interview zur Historiographie der Biologie mit Hans-Jörg Rheinberger und Peter McLaughlin. In: Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 44 (2021), 267-280.
Grote, M. (2020). Petri dish (boîte de Petri, Petrischale). In: Bauer S., Schlünder M., Rentetzi M. (eds.), Boxes: A Field Guide. Manchester: Mattering Press, 459-470. [a short history of the Petri dish].
Stadler, M., Güttler, N., Rhyner, N., Grote, M. et al (eds.), Gegen|Wissen, Zürich 2020. [Symbiosen - Das gute, kleine Leben?, Naturpolitiken - Biotopia etc.] (online version here)
Grote, M. (2015), What could the 'longue durée' mean for the history of modern sciences? Working Paper, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris [FMSH-WP-2015-98; online, open access].
Grote, M. (2014). From enzymes to 'molecular machines': Materiality in research on rhodopsins, 1970s. In: Reinhardt C. & Klein U. (eds.), Objects of chemical inquiry, Sagamore Beach: Science History Publications, 343-368.
Grote, M. (2011). Jeewanu. In: Azzouni S., Brandt C., Gausemeier B. et al. (eds.), Eine Naturgeschichte für das 21. Jahrhundert: hommage à, zu Ehren von, in honor of Hans-Jörg Rheinberger. Berlin: Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 222-224 (new edition 2014, Alpheus Verlag, Berlin).

Contributions to blogs

Grote, M. (2018), The Politics of the Handbook, History of Knowledge, July 31, 2018. .
Grote, M. (2018), Who Has Been to Ames, Iowa? Or: Handbooks as an Unappreciated Dimension of Science. History of Knowledge, May 25, 2018.
Grote, M. (2018), Why Manuals and Handbooks? Why Now?, History of Knowledge, May 2, 2018.
Grote, M. (2018), Petri's dish vs. Winogradsky's column - shifting boundaries between purity and mixture of microbes. Small things considered [Blog der American Society of Microbiology].
Grote, M. (2016), Take your kids to the microbes - Micropia, the world's only microbe zoo in Amsterdam. Small things considered [Blog der American Society of Microbiology].

Podcasts, videos, newspaper articles and other formats

Grote, M., Leben mit Licht und Farbe. Ein Gespräch über Biochemie. [Interview with Dieter Oesterhelt]. MPG newsroom, 21.09.2021.
"The 'How' of 'How-To?'"—Handbooks and Knowledge Democracy with Mathias Grote and Elaine Leong. Episode 4 of the podcast Science Social: Conversations on History, Science, and Society, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, 18.03.2021, available also on iTunes and Spotify.
Grote, M., Mehr als die Verpackung des Impfstoffs, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 27.01.2021, p. N2 [History and imagery of Lipidnanoparticles].
Grote, M., Ein Feind und Helfer. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 13.5.2020, p. N2 [History of the relationship of humans to microbes]
History of Science ON Call: Mathias Grote. Videointerview des Max-Planck-Instituts für Wissenschaftsgeschichte Berlin, 20.4.2020.
Die Renaissance des Notizbuchs. Podcampus, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 7, 15.1.2020, with Anke te Heesen, Alrun Schmidtke and Cora Knoblauch.

Book reviews and contributions to reference works

Grote, M. (2022), Victoria Lee: The Arts of the Microbial World: Fermentation Science in Twentieth-Century Japan. University of Chicago Press 2021, in: The FASEB Journal 36 (5) [online publication].
Grote, M. (2020), „Onur Erdur: Die epistemologischen Jahre. Philosophie und Biologie in Frankreich, 1960–1980. Zürich 2017“, in H-Soz-Kult 08.04.2020 [online publication].
Grote, M. (2020), Inépuisables surfaces. Philosophie de la Chimie, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent und Richard Eastes (Hg.), Paris: deboeck supérieur, 267–270.
Grote, M. (2018), Wissenschaftsgeschichte als Handbuchwissenschaft, review of M. Sommer, S. Müller-Wille und C. Reinhardt (Hg., 2017), Handbuch Wissenschaftsgeschichte und S. Bauer, T. Heinemann, T. Lemke (Hg., 2017), Science and Technology Studies – Klassische Positionen und aktuelle Perspektiven, NTM. Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin, 1-11.
Grote, M. (2016), Take your kids to the microbes - Micropia, the world's only microbe zoo in Amsterdam. Small things considered [blog of the American Society of Microbiology].
Grote, M. (2015), Khorana, Har Gobind, eLS Encyclopedia of the Life Sciences, [online publication].
Grote M. (2013), Review: Biomedical Computing. Digitizing Life in the United States von Joseph C. November. Biology, Computing, and the History of Molecular Sequencing. From Proteins to DNA, 1945–2000 von Miguel García-Sancho, Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 36:200-202.
Grote M. & Méthot P.O. (2012), Michel Morange: La vie, l’évolution et l’histoire. Metascience 21, 507-508.
Grote M., O'Malley M.A. (2010), History of science is good for you. Nature Reviews Microbiology 8: 752.

2. Life Sciences

Selected journal articles

Grote, M., Engelhard M. & Hegemann , P. (2014). Of ion pumps, sensors and channels – Perspectives on microbial rhodopsins between science and history (Review). Biochimica et Biophysica Acta Bioenergetics 1837, 533-545.
Grote M., Polyhach Y., Jeschke G., Steinhoff H.-J., Schneider E. and Bordignon E. (2009). Transmembrane signaling in the maltose ABC transporter MalFGK2-E: Periplasmic MalF-P2 loop communicates substrate availability to the ATP-bound MalK dimer, Journal of Biological Chemistry 284: 17521-17526.
Grote M., Bordignon E., Polyhach Y., Jeschke G., Steinhoff H.-J. and Schneider E. (2008). A comparative EPR study of the nucleotide-binding domains’ catalytic cycle in the assembled maltose ABC-importer. Biophysical Journal 95: 2924-2938.