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Foto: Jannis Kohlt

Finn Langbein

Doctoral candidate: Subproject C12 - The pandemic situation

  • Contact

    Philipps-Universität Marburg
    Institut für Soziologie
    Ketzerbach 11
    Raum 206
    35032 Marburg

    ☎ 06421 28-27049

  • Vita

    Since 2022
    Doctoral candidate in subproject C12: "The pandemic situation"

    2018 - 2021
    Student assistant at the research area "Political Theory and History of Ideas"
    CRC 138 - Dynamics of Security

    M.A. Political Theory ("Excellent")
    Technical University of Darmstadt

    2018
    Student assistant in subproject A08: "The management of transnational health crises"

    2016 - 2018
    Tutor of the course "Theories and History of the Social Sciences", CRC 138 - Dynamics of Security

    2015 - 2018
    B.A. Social Sciences, Philipps-Universität Marburg

    2015
    Student assistant in the project "Competence development and learning transfer in university teaching" Philipps- Universität Marburg

    2014 - 2015
    B.A. Integrated Social Sciences Technical University of Braunschweig

    2012 - 2014
    B.A. International Communication & Media (preparatory course) Technical University of Braunschweig

    2010
    High school diploma Hogeschool Utrech

  • Research interests

    Sociology & Philosophy of Time

    Science and Technology Studies, in particular Actor-Network Theory

    Critical Security Studies

    Sociology of quantification

  • PhD project

    Simulations of the pandemic. On the interaction of pandemic simulations and pandemic reality in the case of COVID-19 simulations in Germany

    This dissertation contributes to Science and Technology Studies (STS) by exploring the “social life of computational simulations” (Schubert 2019), specifically focusing on their performativity in pandemic contexts. While previous research highlights the capacity of simulations to reshape socio-material arrangements, this study investigates how simulation practices themselves are altered during pandemic they co-construct. The dissertation examines pandemic simulations as an application of computer simulations situated within the COVID-19 pandemic. A recursive relationship is observed: on one hand, simulations were key epistemic tools in constituting the pandemic emergency; on the other, the pandemic inscribed its status as an emergency into the simulation process, which was thereby conducted under extraordinary conditions. This study adopts a pragmatist perspective to analyse German COVID-19 simulations. Four empirical moments are investigated to reveal how simulation practice and pandemic emergency co-evolve: the circulation of research personnel and their expertise, projections of the pandemic’s spatiotemporal dynamics, the affective atmosphere of simulation practices, and the communication of simulation results.

  • Publications

    Meinungsindustrie und Gesellschaft. Eine Vortragsreihe des Marburger Soziologen Werner Hofmann (1922-1969) von 1968 und die Gründe ihres Misserfolgs. Neue ideengeschichtliche Politikforschung, Bd. 14. (Hrsg.): Noetzel, Thomas und Probst, Jörg.


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