Areas of research
The Basel Graduate School of History actively contributes to the dynamic environment fostered by the Department of History at the University of Basel. Since the 1990s, Basel has made an international name for itself in the history research community with its historico-cultural, historico-anthropological and gender history research. Swiss history, Eastern European history and African history are particular touchstones. In recent years, the Department of History has focused its research and teaching on two overarching topics: A global perspective on European history and Renaissances. These have been augmented by a series of specific research projects on African history, Eastern European history, images, objects and media, gender history, the history of knowledge, and the history of Basel. Regular research colloquiums organized by the individual research groups offer extensive opportunities to discuss specific research questions.
*These faculty members are not currently available to supervise applicants for starter scholarships.
Prof. Dr. Nadine Amsler*
Professor of Early Modern History
Our research focuses on court and dynastic history, the cultural history of Christianity, and the history of Sino-European relations. We welcome projects with a focus on gender history as well as projects on the European presence in East Asia and especially in China.
Prof. Dr. Caroline Arni*
Professor of Modern History
Professor Arni supervises doctoral projects in the following fields: Social history, historical anthropology (particularly in connection with symmetrical anthropology), women’s and gender history, history of science (particularly the human sciences) and Swiss history.
Prof. Dr. Peter-Paul Bänziger
Titular Professor of Modern General History
Research interests include the history of labor and consumption under capitalism, body and health history, and media history. Individual projects have dealt with labor markets, health product supply, drug trafficking and consumption, HIV/AIDS, sexuality, therapy and counseling, and diaristic media, among others.
Prof. Dr. Lucas Burkart
Professor of the History of the Late Middle Ages and the Italian Renaissance
Research currently focuses on the urban and economic history of the late medieval city, international Renaissance studies, the entangled history of the Early Modern era (micro-global), historical analysis of the material, and on digital history and literacy.
Prof. Dr. Martin Lengwiler
Professor of Modern General History
This professorship and its research group focus on European and global history since the 19th century, economic history, the history of the welfare state, the history of knowledge and digital history.
Prof. Dr. Jan-Friedrich Missfelder*
Professor of the History of the Early Modern Era (SNSF professorship)
Research centers on topics related to the history of media, communication and sensory studies in the Early Modern era, the history of reformation and religious denominations in Early Modern Europe, the political history of ideas, theories of history and the history of historiography.
Prof. Dr. Marie Muschalek
SNSF Professor of African History
The SNSF Professorship focuses on the history of southern Africa from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, drawing on approaches from the history of everyday life, historical anthropology, and more-than-human history. Particular emphasis is placed on the history of violence, as well as on police and military history, and on the history of environmental knowledge and human–animal relations.
Prof. Dr. Olena Palko*
Professor of Eastern European History (SNSF Prima professorship)
Research primarily focuses on minority history and cultural history in Ukraine, the Soviet Union, and East Central Europe in the 20th century. The main subjects are minorities and minority protection in a historical perspective, processes of (de)sovietization, questions about colonialism and decolonization in East Central Europe.
Prof. Dr. Erik Petry
Center for Jewish Studies
Research focuses on the history of the Jews in Germany and Switzerland, Zionism, anti-Semitism, the Middle East, Jewish sports history, oral history and the history of memory.
Prof. Dr. Julia Laura Rischbieter
Professor of History of Capitalism
The professorship for the History of Capitalism deals with the social and economic history of early modern Europe in a global context. The projects mostly analyze global economic processes of longer duration and their effects on individual societies, groups and actors using concrete examples from the early 19th century to the present. We welcome projects that want to be included here or that investigate the history of knowledge of economic concepts and their significance for political fields of action and social conflicts.
Prof. Dr. Corey D. Ross
Professor of European Global Studies
Research focuses primarily on the history of (mainly European) empire in the 19th and 20th centuries from an environmental, cultural, social, and global perspective. Central research topics include the history of resources, commodities, technology, knowledge and science, development, conservation, and infrastructure.
Prof. Dr. Jan Rüdiger
Professor of General History of the Middle Ages
Research primarily focuses on the history of Northern and Western Europe during the Early and High Middle Ages. Current research subjects include the history of England in the 11th-13th centuries, maritime societies ("thalassocracies"), Greater Burgundy, 13th-century Catalonia, medieval political language(s) and regional historical cultures in the 19th-21st centuries.
Prof. Dr. F. Benjamin Schenk
Professor of Russian and Eastern European History
Research focuses on questions of Russian and Eastern European history from a cultural-historical perspective. Special emphasis is placed on the history of Russia, the Soviet Union and East-Central Europe of the 19th and 20th centuries, and particularly on the history of empires, spatial history, the history of memory, the history of infrastructure, migration history and the history of biography and autobiography.
Prof. Dr. Susanne Schmidt
SNSF Professor of Modern General History
The research focus of the SNSF Professorship is the history of science from social and political perspectives, with a particular emphasis on the history of gender, the history of racism, the history of social movements, and the history of education. Special attention is given to the interface between science and the public, as well as to questions of communication and reception, knowledge systems, epistemic hierarchies, and conflicts of knowledge. The temporal focus spans the 19th to the 21st centuries, with a geographical emphasis on the United States and the Caribbean. Research projects that engage with these thematic areas or extend them from a global-historical perspective are particularly welcome.
Prof. Dr. Julia Tischler*
Professor of African History
Research and teaching focus on social and environmental processes in the 19th and 20th centuries, mainly in southern Africa (South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe), but also in East and West Africa. Central research topics include knowledge and science, work and labor, development, agriculture, natural resources, (settler) colonialism, decolonization and race.
Prof. Dr. Moritz von Brescius
SNSF Professor of Global History (Institute for European Global Studies)
As a global historian (Europe/Asia, nineteenth century to the present), Moritz von Brescius is currently completing a monograph entitled Empire of Scarcity: A Global History of Rubber. He also leads an SNSF Consolidator Grant project investigating the drivers of raw material overconsumption in the twentieth century. In addition, he is presently editing two collected volumes: one on the “Long Acceleration” of global human environmental impacts prior to 1950, and another on the temporal regimes of capitalism.