Christine Zabel

Biography

Christine Zabel is a Postdoctoral Faculty Member at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, where she teaches courses on cultural and intellectual history. She received her Ph.D. from Heidelberg University, Germany, and a Masters of Arts from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), France. She is the author of the book Polis und Politesse: Der Diskurs über das antike Athen in England and Frankreich, 1630-1760 (De Gruyter, Jan. 2016).

At CES, Zabel will continue her work on her second book, an early-modern European history of knowledge of speculation. Her research examines speculation as a theological and philosophical concept in the 16th-18th centuries and investigates the gradual emergence of speculation as an economic and financial tool. By looking at the development of the modern concept of risk as a means of calculating and controlling economic uncertainty, the project will also study the practical application of speculative methods on life annuities and life insurance by the end of the 18th century.

This information is accurate for the time period that the scholar is affiliated with CES.