Matthew H. Birkhold is a NOMIS–eikones Fellow at eikones – Center for the Theory and History of the Image at the University of Basel (Switzerland) and associate professor at the Ohio State University (Columbus, US).
Born in the US, Birkhold studied German literature and art history at the Freie Universität Berlin (Germany) and Columbia University (New York, US), earning his BA from the latter in 2008. He earned his JD from Columbia Law School in 2015 and studied law at the Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin (Germany) as a Fulbright recipient. Birkhold completed his PhD in German in 2016 from Princeton University (US). After working as an attorney-adviser for the US Department of State, Birkhold joined Ohio State University in 2016 and was promoted to associate professor in 2020.
Research Focus
Birkhold’s research explores the intersections of law, culture and the humanities, with an emphasis on German literature from 1750–1945, environmental humanities, intellectual property, and Indigenous studies. His first book, Characters before Copyright (Oxford University Press, 2019), analyzes the social, economic and aesthetic changes that led to the proliferation of “fan fiction” after 1750. His second book, Chasing Icebergs, (Pegasus/Simon & Schuster, 2023) investigates the world of iceberg harvesting to learn if the frozen freshwater mountains could be a solution to the global water crisis. Interweaving cultural history, personal interviews and law, it identifies the social, philosophical, legal and environmental hurdles we must clear to equitably make use of this untapped resource.
His current research investigates the role of aesthetics in polar environmental law. By analyzing shifting representations of icebergs from Captain Cook’s 18th-century dairies to Ivinguak Stork Høegh’s contemporary digital photo collages, Birkhold’s book project, The Melting Sublime, seeks to redefine the sublime to articulate a new conception of aesthetics that will endure in the Anthropocene.
Matthew Birkhold portrait by Alessandro Frigerio