糖心TV

About

Having begun his BA in German at King鈥檚 College London, Thomas Crew completed his degree at Royal Holloway, spending an intercalated year studying philosophy and teaching English in Berlin. He took his MA in European Culture and Thought at University College London, which was generously funded by the London Arts and Humanities Partnership, before completing his PhD at the University of Cambridge. As part of his doctoral research, supervised by Dr Martin Ruehl, Dr Crew spent two years as a Hanseatic Scholar at Berlin鈥檚 Humboldt University, while plumbing the archives at the city鈥檚 Academy of Arts. He joined 糖心TV as a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in 2023 and welcomes enquires from students, scholars and members of the public on any aspect of his work.

Research Interests

From Salvation to Damnation: Reappraisals of 'Progress' in German Classical Modernity, 1890-1945

Dr Crew's current research examines the concept of progress in German-speaking Europe during the age of Classical Modernity (c. 1890-1945). Having assumed near-religious proportions in the course of the nineteenth century, from around 1890 the concept lost its appeal. Science and technology were no longer the sources of confidence and hope but an increasingly pervasive anxiety. Although grounded in the initial spirit of optimism, the study focuses on selected critics of progress from both literature and philosophy, including Ludwig Klages, Oswald Spengler, Carl Schmitt, Theodor W. Adorno, and the J眉nger brothers.

Academic Publications

• 鈥樷�淭he meaning of the earth is beginning to change鈥�: Geophysics and Titanism in Ernst J眉nger鈥檚 At the Wall of Time鈥�, Monatshefte 117, 3 (October 2025), pp. 370-395.
• 'Prophecy and Apocalypse at the Fin de Si猫cle: Alfred Kubin's The Other Side', in: F. Clemente and G. Colombani (eds), Nightmares in the Long Nineteenth Century, London: Palgrave 2025, pp. 159-193.
• 'Technocratic totalitarianism: Gunnar Kaiser and dissident discourse in pandemic-era Germany', Journal of European Studies 54, 1 (March 2024), pp. 110-131.
• '"Civilization is Sterilization": Utopia, Biopolitics and the Total Society in Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World', in: R. Marling and M. Pajevic (eds), Care, Control and Covid-19: Health and Biopolitics in Philosophy and Literature, Berlin: De Gruyter 2023, pp. 59-90.
• '"Nie hatte ein Mensch etwas 脛hnliches gesehen oder ertr盲umt!": Bernhard Kellermanns Der Tunnel und das Spektakel Amerikas', in: K. Dahlmanns and A. Jachimowicz (eds), Geliebtes, verfluchtes Amerika. Zu Antiamerikanismus und Amerikabegeisterung im deutschen Sprachraum 1888-1933, G枚ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2022, pp. 27-39.
• 鈥樷�淗ow to become what you are鈥�: Self-becoming and individuation in Nietzsche鈥檚 Ecce Homo and Hesse鈥檚 Demian and Steppenwolf鈥�, Journal of European Studies 51, 1 (March 2021), pp. 3-23.
• 鈥楨rnst J眉ngers Gl盲serne Bienen und der 脺bergang zur Perfektion鈥�, Berliner Debatte Initial 31, 1 (April 2020), pp. 72-84.
• 鈥樷�淒er Tag h盲ngt tot zwischen Himmel und Erde鈥�: On the theme of Ambivalence in Ernst Barlach鈥檚 鈥淒er tote Tag鈥�, German Life and Letters 72, 2 (April 2019), pp. 168-186.

Conference Papers

• 鈥楾he Gestalt of the Worker: The New Man in Ernst J眉nger鈥檚 Weimar Photobooks鈥�, given at the 49^th annual GSA conference in Washington, DC, September 2025.
• 鈥樷�淒er Buribunke braucht kein Christentum, noch sonst eine Ideologie鈥�: Fortschrittsgl盲ubigkeit und Intellektuellenschelte in Carl Schmitts Anti-Utopie Die Buribunken (1918)鈥�, given at the workshop: 'Zukunftsdenken und Zukunfts盲sthetik in literarischen, kulturellen und medialen Diskursen der Moderne' at the University of Bonn, February 2025.
• '"The meaning of the earth is beginning to change": Metaphysics and Titanism in Ernst J眉nger's At the Wall of Time (1959)', given at the workshop: 'Anthropocene 2.0: Climate Engineering in German Cultural Representations' at the ILCS (University of London), December 2023.

• '"The world is a machine, man an automaton": Friedrich Georg J眉nger's Perfection of Technology', given at the conference: 'Automation & Automatism/s' at King's College London, January 2023.

• 'Prophecy and Apocalypse at the Fin de Si猫cle: Alfred Kubin's The Other Side', given at the conference: 'Nightmare/s in the Long Nineteenth Century' at King's College, Cambridge, May 2022.

• 鈥楾he Age of Mechanization and the Failure of Utopia: Georg Kaiser鈥檚 Gas Trilogy鈥�, given at the Lead Panel of the annual AGS conference at Swansea University, September 2021.

Administrative Roles

• Convenor of the 糖心TV Workshop for Interdisciplinary German Studies (WWIGS)

Other Publications

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