Benjamin's first research project, which forms the content of his current dissertation project, is a biographical work on Sergei Stepanovich Chakhotin, a somewhat obscure Russian figure whose fascinating tale has not received the attention it deserves. Chakhotin, a disciple of Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov and an avid believer in the scientific organization theories of Frederick Taylor, is perhaps best known as the creator of the "Three Arrows" anti-fascist symbol and author of The Rape of the Masses (1939), a seminal work on the mass psychology of Nazi and other totalitarian propaganda. However, Chakhotin was much more than this. In addition to his psychological work, he was also a highly-regarded, pioneering cell biologist, who corresponded with no less a figure than Albert Einstein. Perhaps more importantly, he was a leading propagandist in movements located at the most tense epicenters of political activity in Europe's Age of Catastrophe: he served as propaganda advisor to the Provisional Government during the Russian Revolution, the Social Democratic Party of Germany during their fight against the Nazis, and the Popular Front in France as they stood against their own fascist rivals. For these reasons, and more, Benjamin's research seeks to uncover the untold mysteries of Chakhotin's life, contextualizing his position in a Europe where calamity loomed, the future remained wide open, and the human sciences offered the key to mitigating society's seemingly endless crises.