Mats Fridlund

Mats Fridlund is a historian of science, technology, and industrialization currently affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Berlin. He holds professorial positions established as the first in their fields in Denmark and Finland, reflecting his pioneering contributions to the history of technology and industrialization.

His research focuses on the cultural and political dimensions of technology, materiality, and industrialization. Key areas include:

• Historical evolution of electric power technologies and state-industry collaboration
• The role of material artifacts in the emergence and globalization of terrorism since the 19th century
• Digital humanities and semi-automatic methods in historical research
• The conceptualization of technology-in-use through artifact-centered analysis

His recent work centers on the book project The Uses and Abuses of Things, which develops historical frameworks for understanding how technologies are used and misused in societal contexts. His publications and presentations reflect a strong interdisciplinary approach combining history, material culture studies, and digital methodologies.

Notable contributions include:

• "Bollards, Buckets and Bombs" (2011)
• "Affording Terrorism" (2012)
• Leadership in institutionalizing digital humanities in Nordic countries
• Kone Foundation-funded research projects on digital history in Finland

Fridlund has held academic positions at leading institutions globally, including MIT, Imperial College London, University of Manchester, and Aalto University. He has taught graduate courses on industrial change and the role of science and media in global terrorism. His methodological innovations in digital history, particularly "Digital History 1.5," emphasize semi-automatic and hybrid research practices bridging traditional and computational approaches.

He has been active in organizing and presenting at international workshops and conferences, with recent engagements in Helsinki, Beijing, and Turku, focusing on digital history, materiality, and cross-cultural technological representations.