Tobias Sperlich has conducted ethnographic research in Oceania since 2001. His dissertation focuses on material culture produced in Samoa and collected by German colonials in the early 1900s. In tracing the "lives" of these objects from their production to their reception,his research explores issues of artistic authenticity, tourism and colonisation, and global heritage. Current projects include a study of the "exoticization" of Samoans in German colonial art, and the influence of theory in Oceanic studies on Classical Archaeology. He teaches courses on the Ethnology of Polynesia, Anthropology of Art, Visual Anthropology, Material Culture and Consumption, and Theory in Anthropology.