Biography

My field of research is early modern European history, with a particular emphasis on Germany and France. I research the religious history of seventeenth-century Germany, analyzing the theory and practice of confession in the Catholic South-East of the Holy Roman Empire. My research addresses questions of state-building, social disciplining, and the enforcement of the Counter-reformation on the ground.
My Ph.D. thesis, written in both a German and a French version, is on the role of political friendship in seventeenth-century French court society.
More generally, I am interested in the history of the nobility, of friendship and patronage, and in the application of social and cultural theory to early modern European history.
I will receive my Ph.D. in History in Autumn 2010 from the University of Freiburg im Breisgau and the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (E.H.E.S.S.) in Paris; my thesis is jointly supervised by Professors Ronald G. Asch (Freiburg) and Jean Boutier (E.H.E.S.S.). I hold an M.A. from the University of Freiburg im Breisgau and a B.A. from the University of Paris IV (Sorbonne).
I have several book chapters in print on various aspects of aristocratic life and court politics in early modern France.