After having written my dissertation about modern Chinese historiography between 1890 and 1940 (published in 1997) I was working as Assistant Professor at the University of Heidelberg. In the years to follow I continued doing research on Chinese historiography and added a new focus on modern Chinese conservatism, especially Chinese critique of modern views of history. Between 2000 and 2009 I was Professor of Modern China Studies at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, before accepting a position as chair in Modern Sinology at the University of Göttingen in Germany in 2009. Since 2010 I am also Director of the Centre for Modern East Asian Studies. Currently I am working on two projects: first, a monograph on the Chinese critique of modern views of history (working title: History, ethics and faith) and second, a project on the revival of Buddhism in contemporary China focusing on why intellectuals, especially university intellectuals turn towards Buddhism.