Advisory Board

Oliver Hochadel is a historian of science at the Institución Milá y Fontanals for the Research in Humanities in Barcelona (CSIC, Spanish National Research Council). His research focuses on the relationship between science and its publics in historical perspective. Case studies include electricity as a public science in the German enlightenment, the history of human origins research in the twentieth century and the (inter-)urban history of science around 1900. He is particularly interested in the circulation of knowledge on a European and global scale. With this transnational approach in mind, he is working on a history of the emergence of the “global zoo” in the long nineteenth century, taking a particular interest in East Asian zoos.

Recent publications include “Producing Knowledge, Using Knowledge: Science, Technology and Medicine in the European City.” In Modern Europe from c. 1850 (The Cambridge Urban History of Europe, vol III), edited by D. Brantz and G. Sonkoly, Cambridge: CUP, 2025, 723-43; “Electricity and Enlightenment: The Itinerant Lecturer Martin Berschitz.” In Cultivating and Communicating Natural and Technical Knowledge around 1800: Devotees of Science, edited by S. Gessner, N. Bijleveld and A. Dijkstra, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2025, 81-117; “Palaeoanthropology and the Mass Media: An Entangled History.” In Palaeontology in Public: Popular Science, Lost Creatures and Deep Time, edited by C. Manias, London: University College London Press, 2025, 287-316; “Avi: Representation and Reality of Barcelona’s Iconic Zoo Elephant (Ca. 1873-1914).” Humanimalia 16, no. 1 (2025): 81-126.

He is associate editor of the history of science journal Centaurus and editor of the series Cultural Dynamics of Science (DeGruyter Brill), https://brill.com/view/serial/CDS