Phd Student Leo Sedlmair

Leo Sedlmair is a PhD student at the Department of History at the South Asia Institute, working under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Kama Maclean. Their PhD project, Building Modernity: Otto Koenigsberger’s Work in the Tension Between Nehruvian and Global Models of Development, examines the juncture between Indian and global practices and visions of urban planning/development around the time of the Second World War. In doing so, it focuses on the work of the German-Jewish architect and town planner Otto Koenigsberger (1908-1999), who, among others, was independent India’s first and only Director of Housing (Ministry of Health).

Leo completed their MA in Modern Indian Studies from the Centre for Modern Indian Studies at the University of Goettingen, Germany, with a focus in Historical Sociology. They hold a BA in Liberal Arts and Sciences and have worked at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) in Berlin as part of the Modern India in German Archives project as well as at the Max-Weber-Forum for South Asian Studies in Delhi. Leo’s larger research interests include connected histories, histories of nationalism and ethnisation, histories of the state, and their relations to the development of capital(ism).