Global History – Center for Intercultural Dialogue

Global Histories Ambassador and Research Fellow, SS Great Britain, Brunel Institute, Brunel, UK. Deadline: 19 December 2022.

The Global Histories Ambassador and Research Fellow will become part of the Brunel Institute team of innovative experts, each of whom holds particular skillset that crosses the boundaries of the normal museum, academic and heritage roles, and will actively collaborate to engage with people locally, regionally and internationally.

The postholder will play a key role in the development of the Trust by researching and making relevant for modern audiences the global histories and interconnections pioneered in particular by the revolutionary ships Great Western and Great Britain. The candidate will enjoy researching with historical materials and have the ability to link people and stories together, while working to unlock the barriers that diverse audiences can face when visiting and engaging with heritage sites. The most tangible outcome of this work will be the ‘Global Messdeck’ a multi-use story space and flexible gallery situated in the proposed new Albion dockyard site, and through which the Trust will engage visitors from all backgrounds and places to welcome, introduce, explore, publish and curate stories and histories of mobility, communication and globalization as they relate to Brunel’s historic vessels and to all our lives and communities today.

Inspired by and supporting the development of the Trust’s Albion Dock and Brunel Country project the postholder will play a key role in supporting primary research, interpretation, and education work, and in sharing learning across the sector. The expanded Brunel Institute team will be part of the programme to increase access to, and understanding of, the SS Great Britain, PS Great Western, science, engineering and conservation, maritime migration and the legacy of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s life and work.

Call for applications: Junior Fellowships in Global History, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Freiburg, Germany, and International Balzan Prize Foundation. Deadline: March 31, 2020.

Available: up to four six-month fellowships. The fellowships are funded from the Balzan Prize for Global History awarded to Professor Jürgen Osterhammel by the Fondazione Internationale Premio Balzan. They are addressed to scholars preparing a post-doctoral research monograph (‘second book’) on a global history topic, preferably focused on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. ‘Global history’ is to be understood in a broad sense including the study of cross-cultural connectivity, comparative approaches and the history of global thought and imaginaries. An additional interest in the theory and methodology of global (and/or transnational) history is welcome and should be specified in the application.

Fellows will join the multidisciplinary – and mainly English-speaking – community at FRIAS and will have full access to the facilities and activities of the Institute as well as to the rich academic life at Freiburg University. They have no formal obligations apart from presenting their work to the FRIAS Humanities and Social Sciences Colloquium and joining Jürgen Osterhammel and the co-director of the Balzan-FRIAS Project in Global History, Professor Stefanie Gänger (Heidelberg), in occasional workshops and informal discussions on conceptual issues of global history. Full-time presence at FRIAS is expected as the main purpose of the fellowship is to provide time for undisturbed work on a book project.