Mareike Peschl *25

Mareike Peschl is a cultural historian with an interest in the rising cultural awareness for illusions (Täuschungen) during the decades around 1900. Her dissertation Uncommon Realities: Cultural Perspectives on Illusions puts psychological literature in dialogue with fiction and non-fiction sources spanning aesthetics, literature, psychoanalysis, law, and philosophy. It examines how writers across disciplines have kept reality shared and reliable at a historical moment when illusions – ranging from perceptual and mnemonic fallacies to collective self-delusions – were understood to be just as prevalent as unintentional.

Mareike was Junior Fellow at the International Center for Cultural Studies (IFK) in Vienna (2016–2018) before she joined Princeton’s German Department in the fall of 2018. She holds a BA and MA in Cultural History and Theory (Kulturwissenschaft) from Humboldt University Berlin. Part of her MA she completed at NYU’s Interdisciplinary Master`s Program (Draper Program; now called XE: Experimental Humanities and & Social Engagement) and she was a visiting scholar at NYU’s Department for Media, Culture, and Communication in 2017. Her work has been supported by the German Academic Exchange Service and she is a 2023-24 recipient of Princeton’s Charlotte Elizabeth Procter Fellowship.

Publications

“Täuschungsverhalten. Verstellung und Verwandlung um 1900.” Wissensgeschichte des Verhaltens. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven, edited by Sophia Gräfe and Georg Toepfer, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2023. Forthcoming

“Die Bereitschaft, sich führen zu lassen. Selbst-und Fremdführungstechniken in der Selbst-Tracking-Praxis.” Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft. Web Extra