Burschel studied history, philosophy and Latin. After obtaining both a master’s degree and a PhD in Göttingen, he qualified as a professor of historical anthropology at the Universität Freiburg im Breisgau in 2002 and was appointed to a professorship there in 2006. Burschel was appointed to the chair of modern history at the Universität Rostock in 2007 and to the chair of European history of the early modern period at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 2011. From 2007 to 2019 he was head of the Institute of Historical Anthropology in Freiburg im Breisgau. From 2017 to 2019 he was chairman of the Early Modern Working Group of the German association of historians, Verband der Historiker und Historikerinnen Deutschlands. Burschel is a member of numerous research institutes, committees, colleges and academies in Germany and abroad. He is secretary of the journal for universal history Saeculum and co-editor of the journals Historische Anthropologie, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht and Zeitschrift für Ideengeschichte as well as several series. He has been a member of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation, DFG) review board ‘Historical Sciences’ since 2015 and head of the committee for ‘German Inscriptions of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period’ at the Göttingen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Academy of Sciences and Humanities) since 2019. His research interests are in historical anthropology, intercultural encounters and cultural translation. Burschel’s publications include work on the social history of the military and the cultural history of martyrdom; he has studied the history of purity, racism and skin colour; he is interested in the history of utopia as well as that of the sea. His history of the Herzog August Bibliothek ‘in books’ is set to appear in time for the jubilee year, 2022.