Carl Arendt studied linguistics at Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin, which is today Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He worked as an interpreter and conducted research and taught as a professor of Chinese at the Seminar for Oriental Languages. Arendt played a decisive role in the German colonial policy in China and in the process or professionalizing sinology in Germany, says Leutner. Using his life and work as an example, Leutner analyzes the interweaving of colonial history and the history of knowledge. "By taking into account social history and family history – Arendt came from a Jewish family that converted to Christianity – it is possible to make history come alive from "the bottom up." With the biographical dimension, new, illustrative perspectives on colonial expansion and the history of sinology are possible," adds Leutner. In her lecture, she will illustrate the short social rise of a Jewish family after the Prussian emancipation laws of 1812 to the social descent and persecution of the descendants of Carl Arendt during National Socialism.

Mechthild Leutner is an internationally recognized sinologist who deals with the history of modern China in its political, social, and cultural dimensions using an innovative methodological-theoretical perspective. She has initiated numerous German-Chinese collaborative projects in research and teaching. She has published many works, including some published in Chinese. Since 1995 she has been editing a monograph series, Berliner China-Studien, and since 1991 the semi-annual sinology journal Berliner China-Hefte / Chinese History and Society as well as the six-volume series Quellen zur Geschichte der deutsch-chinesischen Beziehungen 1897–1995. Leutner is a member of several advisory boards of Chinese journals and international journals dealing with China. She is a visiting professor at Peking University and Nanjing University.