In the news

Fritz's new book on experience meets a warm reception

Fritz's new book on first-time and transformative experience, Einmal, Zweimal, Keinmal: Wie wir Erfahrungen machen (Suhrkamp), has been warmly received in Germany and Switzerland. The book investigates how experiences shape us. Robert Habeck, Germany's former vice chancellor, introduced it officially in Hamburg.

You can also watch Fritz discuss the book on television (in German, with English subtitles available).

Event · law-school.de →
Book discussion · YouTube →
TV conversation (with subtitles) · YouTube →

The lab moves to the University of Pennsylvania

After more than a dozen years at Indiana University, Fritz Breithaupt brought the Experimental Humanities Lab to Penn, joining the MindCORE community of researchers studying interconnected minds. As he puts it, human beings are not locked inside their own brains — we can share our experiences with others.

The Narrative Brain appears in English

Yale University Press publishes The Narrative Brain: The Stories Our Neurons Tell, bringing the lab's retelling research — and its case for humans as narrative beings — to English-language readers.

Science Book of the Year, Austria

Das narrative Gehirn is chosen as Non-Fiction Book of the Year in the category Medicine/Biology — the audience prize of the Austrian Ministry of Education, Science and Research. The jury highlighted the book's central experimental finding: in retold stories, what people remember above all are emotions — not the ones described, but the ones evoked.

Die dunklen Seiten der Empathie enters the bestseller list

The German edition of The Dark Sides of Empathy appears on the official bestseller list, sparking a public debate about empathy's role in polarization.

Writing and media

Fritz Breithaupt writes regularly for Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, and Philosophie Magazin, and appears across radio, podcasts, and public events in the US and Europe.

"An important book to temper the accepted and a bit naïve view that empathy is the solution to our social ailments."

Jean Decety, University of Chicago — on The Dark Sides of Empathy