Get to know us - Our team about postcards

On this page you can learn more about the people involved in the project and their interest in postcards.

PD Dr. Victoria Hegner, photo by (c) Sandra Eckardt
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"The most fascinating aspect of postcards for me is their analytical stubbornness. When you sit in an archive and you look at a lovely, a strange, a funny or glorifying picture of a postcard and you read the greetings that might come along with it: you surely get a glimpse into the everydayness of media practice, but often the context, the small and big details about the postcard, that make it culturally significant seem to be lost: for instance: why did the person chose this postcard and not another, what is the authors social background, who exactly is the person, he_she* wrote to and why. The postcard does not easily give this information away – one needs to activate all possible analytical tools to find out and dive into the history of this one postcard: into its historically sedimented (material) layers or facets in order capture its significance. Indeed, the postcard is a stubborn artefact, and yet ever so beautiful."

Dr. Dani Schrire
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"I am interested in modernity and the "modern tribe" in general and I cannot think of an object that is as emblematic of modernity as the postcard. At the same time, it is an object that is both mundane and profound, cutting between different levels of the spectrum of private-public. I cannot deny that there is also a personal aspect of a child who received postcards in the early 1980s or as a backpacker who sent them in the late 1990s. As a researcher I am absolutely fascinated by postcards that are the least plausible - those that make you wonder how they became a postcard to begin with... "

Florian Grundmüller, Ph.D. student
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"Postcards seem to be much more than impressions from our vacation. As means of communication they reinforce or challenge notions of everydayness and stability. Working with archival ethnography and visual anthropology I am, therefore, interested in the postcards' visual and intermedia representation of mundane life in times of social change and political upheavals."

Noa Miro, Ph.D. student

"Postcards encapsulate fragments of everyday life, moments in time, places visited, memories, and experiences shared with others. These traveling, mobile, material objects provide us with a glimpse into different cultural phenomena. At first glance, postcards may seem banal and insignificant objects. However, once you take a closer look, you can discover a network of connections, sometimes unexpected. I'm interested in exploring these connections in the context of everyday lives in times of upheaval and sociocultural shifts."

Seline Bezen, former M.A. student assistant

"You can read so much out of a postcard: There is not only the text but the persons handwriting that can tell a lot. Then, there is the picture, the design that was chosen not only by the photographer but also by the person, that sent the postcard to someone they thought of. The stamps and the traces of use could tell a story about the postcards way and usage. But the way of a postcard doesn't end after it was received by someone. Where does it go? On a shelf as decoration? Which side does it show? Does it hang on a board next to a desk? Or is it stored in a drawer? So, to me postcards are multidirectional eyewitnesses and therefore really fascinating."

Yovel Lotan, former M.A. student assistant

"A single postcard contains a vast amount of information. When researching several postcards, information quadruples. While I was manually searching a large postcard collection, I realized how abundance of information can be overwhelming. However, by using Digital Humanities' methods, sifting through archives becomes easier. Also, Digital Humanities' research methods, like Machine Learning, provide additional perspectives to better understand postcards and the people who use them."

Louise Trümner, former B.A. student assistant

"The first look at a postcards can be a great starting point. As you get to the bottom of initial associations, there's so much to learn about where people place themselves between dynamism and supposed stasis. The process by which the different levels of meaning unfold never fails to excite me!"