diff --git a/HISTORY.md b/HISTORY.md
index a0f91a494..46d84fe8a 100644
--- a/HISTORY.md
+++ b/HISTORY.md
@@ -1,5 +1,9 @@
 # DynamicPPL Changelog
 
+## 0.36.12
+
+Added an unexported method, `DynamicPPL.show_context_stack`, for minimalistic printing of context stacks (which is useful when debugging e.g. submodels).
+
 ## 0.36.11
 
 Make `ThreadSafeVarInfo` hold a total of `Threads.nthreads() * 2` logp values, instead of just `Threads.nthreads()`.
diff --git a/Project.toml b/Project.toml
index 362035eb7..5108d9aa9 100644
--- a/Project.toml
+++ b/Project.toml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 name = "DynamicPPL"
 uuid = "366bfd00-2699-11ea-058f-f148b4cae6d8"
-version = "0.36.11"
+version = "0.36.12"
 
 [deps]
 ADTypes = "47edcb42-4c32-4615-8424-f2b9edc5f35b"
diff --git a/src/contexts.jl b/src/contexts.jl
index 8ac085663..5badd8a2a 100644
--- a/src/contexts.jl
+++ b/src/contexts.jl
@@ -817,3 +817,33 @@ function prefix_cond_and_fixed_variables(
         context, prefix_cond_and_fixed_variables(childcontext(context), prefix)
     )
 end
+
+## Pretty-printing context stacks
+
+# splitting on the dot gets rid of module prefixes
+_pretty_context(ctx::AbstractContext) = split(split(string(ctx), "Context")[1], ".")[end]
+
+"""
+    show_context_stack(ctx::AbstractContext)
+
+Return a minimalistic string representation of the context stack `ctx`. Useful
+for debugging complicated context problems, e.g. with submodels.
+
+For example, `SamplingContext(ConditionContext(..., DefaultContext())` will
+print as `Sampling->Condition->Default`.
+
+```jldoctest
+julia> using DynamicPPL: @varname, show_context_stack, ConditionContext, PrefixContext
+
+julia> c1 = ConditionContext((a=1, )); show_context_stack(c1)
+"Condition->Default"
+
+julia> p1 = PrefixContext(@varname(y), c1); show_context_stack(p1)
+"Prefix->Condition->Default"
+```
+"""
+show_context_stack(ctx::AbstractContext) = show_context_stack(NodeTrait(ctx), ctx)
+show_context_stack(::IsLeaf, ctx) = _pretty_context(ctx)
+function show_context_stack(::IsParent, ctx)
+    return _pretty_context(ctx) * "->" * show_context_stack(childcontext(ctx))
+end