Lukas Held is a historian of contemporary history and historian of science; his research lies at the intersection between the history of science, the history of ideas and the history of the environment. He has worked on the history of the modern human sciences, in particular the history of psychological, economic and anthropological thought since the late 19th century. He is currently focusing on the history of the commons as a new field of study and its impact on the transformation of the public spirit since the 1960s. His first monograph was published by Wallstein Verlag in 2024 and is entitled Angst und Antrieb. Verwissenschaftlichung des Willens und Politik der Selbststeuerung in Deutschland und den USA, 1874-1974 (open access).

Carreer path

• 8.2024 - : Postdoc at Bochum's chair for the history of technology and environmental history
• 8.2023 - 7.2024: Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter at the Institute for History and Theory of Architecture (gta), Department of Architecture, ETH Zurich
• 1. - 2.2023 Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C.
• 8.2016 - 2.2017: Visiting PhD student at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. with Jamie Cohen-Cole
• 7.2013 - 12.2021: Doctoral studies at UZH, funded by the Forschungskredit of the University of Zurich and the Swiss National Science Foundation (defense: 3. 2022)
• 2012 - 2013: Research Assistant to Prof. Dr. Veronika Lipphardt at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
• 2005 - 2011: Studies in Modern and Contemporary History and Literature at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, University of Leicester

Postdoc Project

Governing a fractured world. A History of the Commons-Paradigm and the Transformation of the Public Spirit, 1960s-2000s

The project examines the historical origins of the contemporary commons paradigm and its utopian promise to provide cohesive cohabitation in a fractured world. It reconstructs how the „study of the commons“ became a new field of interdisciplinary research encompassing both the social and natural sciences as well as a global network of scientists, living labs and test sites. It explores how the output of this research influenced development policies within governmental and non-governmental organisations and questions its popularisation in various social movements of different political hues (from Libertarianism to Eco-socialism). By investigating the links between science, politics and activism the project has two goals: It seeks to understand the emergence of a new sense of planetary responsibility since the 1970s, both in demarcation to and in connection with shifting notions of the state and the market. And it aims to trace the emergence of the „homo cooperativus“ by mapping out various concepts of cooperative behaviour and its environmental pre-conditions. The project contributes to the historicization of the era known as the "age of fracture".

Publications (*peer-reviewed)

Book

Held, Lukas: Angst und Antrieb. Verwissenschaftlichung des Willens und Politik der Selbststeuerung in Deutschland und den USA, 1874-1974, Göttingen 2024 (Wallstein Verlag, Konstanz University Press), Link

Articels

Held, Lukas: Social Intervention in Curacao. Using Behavioral Science Technologies for Social and Economic Development, 1969-1971, Science in Context (2025) (eingereicht)

Held, Lukas: Motivationspsychologen als politische Aktivisten: Zur Politik der Selbststeuerung in den USA der langen 1960er Jahre, in: NTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin, 30 (2022) 473-499, Link

Held, Lukas/Wulz, Monika/Germann, Pascal: Einleitung: Scientific Political Activism. Zur politischen Geschichte wissenschaftlichen Wissens, in: NTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin, 30 (2022) 435-444, Link

Book chapters

Held, Lukas (2018), Achievement and the Meaning of Effort: the Fixation with Goals and How the Concept of Motivation Replaced the Human Will, in: Reh, Sabine, Ricken, Norbert (Hrsg.), Leistung als Paradigma. Zur Entstehung und Transformation eines pädagogischen Konzepts, Springer: Wiesbaden, 271-284 Link

Held, Lukas (2017), Waste or Motivation? The Productivity Discourse Between Past and Future in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century, in: Peter-Paul Bänziger/Mischa Suter (Hrsg.): Histories of Productivity. Genealogical Perspectives on the Body and Modern Economy, Routledge, 2017: New York, 174 - 189, Link

Reviews

Held, Lukas (2022), Rezension: Berman, Elizabeth Popp: Thinking like an Economist. How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy, Princeton 2022, in: H-Soz-Kult, (25.9.2022) Link

Held, Lukas (2016), Rezension: Bradford, Gwen: Achievement, 212 S., Oxford UP, Oxford u. a. 2015, in: Neue Politische Literatur, 61 (1), 110 - 111

Held, Lukas (2014): Rezension: Jaeggi, Rahel: Kritik von Lebensformen, Berlin 2014 , in: H-Soz-Kult Link

Organized conference panels and workshops

6/2021 History of Science Suisse - Connecting Switzerland based early career scholars in the History of Science, ETH Zürich, 7.6.2021 (zusammen mit Niki Rhyner und Stephan Graf), Link

5/2019 Workshop: Scientific Political Activism. Zur politischen Geschichte wissenschaftlichen Wissens, Zentrum Geschichte des Wissens, ETH & Universität Zürich, 2.-3. Mai 2019 (zusammen mit Monika Wulz), Bericht auf H-Soz-Kult

7/2017 Konferenz-Panel: Technological Reinvention of the Mind: Emancipatory Promises, Colonizing Assumptions, and 'the Human' in Educational Technologies of the long 1960s, International Standing Conference for the History of Education, Argentinien, Buenos Aires, 18.07.2017 (zusammen mit Viktoria Boretska und Barbara Emma Hof), PDF

Talks

12/2023 Werkstattgespräche des Master of Advanced Studies in „Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur", 14.-15.12.2023 an der ETH Zürich – Gastkommentare zu den Forschungsplänen von drei Masterand:innen, Link

11/2023 „The Past as Moral Reservoir and Filter. How ‚commons' thinking creates and (mis-)uses history", Swiss Conference for Early-Career Historians: Reflections on the Past, Perspectives for the Future: The Role of Historians in Times of Societal Changes, Basel, 9-10 November 2023, Link

1/2023 Vorstellung des Habilitationsprojekts am German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C. (19.01.2023)

1/2023 Using Behavioral Science Technologies for Social and Economic Development, 1969-1971 (Vortrag & Paper), Author's Workshop "Historicizing Interventionist Social Knowledge, 1950s–2000s", Universität Luzern, 26.-28.1.2023

5/2022 Governing a Fractured World. A History of the Commons-Paradigm and the Transformation of the Public Spirit, 1960s-2000s, History of Science Suisse Meeting, University Fribourg, 20.5.2022, Link

6/2021 Panel Chair und Kommentar zu drei Vorträgen, History of Science Suisse Meeting, ETH Zürich, 7.6.2021

3/2020 Creating the Will. Modern Origins of Will Psychology, the Politics of Motivation during the Cold War, and the Making of Capitalist Democrats, 1870-1975 (Vortrag), History of Science Suisse Meeting, 6.3.2020, EPF Lausanne, Link

5/2019 Politik der Selbststeuerung: Strukturelle Ungleichheit als psychologisches Problem (Vortrag), Scientific Political Activism. Zur politischen Geschichte wissenschaftlichen Wissens, Zentrum Geschichte des Wissens, ETH & Universität Zürich, 2.-3. Mai 2019

9/2018 Primary rejection and the liveable life: Foucault's late concept of free will in his reading of the Iranian Revolution and revolutionary voices from Ukraine (Vortrag), ‚Primary Rejections' A Comparative Workshop On the Refusing Personality in German and European Literature, History, and Culture, University of Cambridge, UK, 28.-29.9.2018, Link

7/2017 Motivation Psychology and its Impact on Education (Vortrag), International Standing Conference for the History of Education, Argentinien, Buenos Aires, 18.07.2017

2/2017 From Will to Motivation. Concepts of achievement and concpets of Effort in historical perspective (Vortrag), Kolloquium von Prof. Dr. Jamie Cohen-Cole, George Washington University, Washington D.C., 06.02.2017

8/2016 The construction of achievement and the emergence of motivation psychology in West Germany (Vortrag), Konferenz: »Merit / Achievement as a Paradigm: Discourse and Practices in a Historical Perspective«, Chicago, 16.08.2016

8/2015 Leistung zwischen Kritik und Lob: Die Leistungsdebatte der 1970er Jahre als Selbstverständigungsprozess am Ende der Hochmoderne (Vortrag), Konferenz: „Wertewandel in Wirtschaft und Arbeitswelt? Arbeit, Leistung und Führung in den 1970er und 1980er Jahren in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland", Mainz, 26.08.2015

6/2014 Der Körper als Ressource. Produktivitätsdiskurse zwischen Vergangenheits- und Zukunftsorientierung (Vortrag), Konferenz: Produktive Körper. Aktuelle Forschungen zur Körpergeschichte des Ökonomischen, Basel, 05.06.2014 - 07.06.2014