History of Knowledge

The history of knowledge analyzes the production and circulation of knowledge, taking into consideration a broad spectrum of actors, practices, and social contexts. It seeks to understand the creation of knowledge orders and systems along with the power relationships upon which they rest. The development of the field has taken different paths in Europe and North America. Consequently, a central objective of the GHI’s program in the history of knowledge is to spur transatlantic exchange on research methodologies. The history of knowledge also serves as vehicle for collaboration across the GHI’s core research fields and other subfields of history. Notably, the GHI’s Pacific Regional Office in Berkeley “Migrant Knowledge” initiative is supporting research at the intersection of migration history and the history of knowledge.

Photo Credit: The Wealth of the Nation, 1938. Seymour Fogel, Social Security Building (Voice of America).

Team


Projects


Innovation through Tradition? Jewish Educational Media and Cultural Transformation in the Face of Modernity Religion, Knowledge, and Education as Key Elements of Socio-Cultural Transformation

German-Israeli cooperative research project bringing that investigates the transformation of Jewish daily life through the prism of its central spaces of teaching, learning and knowledge.

Interaction and Knowledge in the Pacific Region: Entanglements and Disentanglements

A project funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research (March 2019 – February 2022)

Events & Conferences


Apr 14, 2024

Music, Knowledge, and Global Migration, ca. 1700−1900

Symposium at the University of California, Berkeley | Conveners: Tina Frühauf (Columbia University/The CUNY Graduate Center, New York), Simone Lässig (German Historical Institute Washington), and Francesco Spagnolo (The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, UC Berkeley)

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May 20, 2024

Fugitive Histories and Migrant Knowledge in Latin America and the Caribbean

Workshop at the University of California, Irvine | Conveners: Kevan Antonio Aguilar (University of California, Irvine), Amy Kerner (University of California, Berkeley & GHI Washington | Pacific Office), Fabio Santos (University of California, Berkeley & GHI Washington | Pacific Office), and Chelsea Schields (University of California, Irvine)

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Jun 28, 2024

Archives in/of Transit: Historical Perspectives from the 1930s to the Present

Workshop at University of Southern California, Los Angeles | Conveners: Einstein Papers Project / California Institute of Technology (Jennifer Rodgers); German Historical Institute Washington and its Pacific Office at UC Berkeley (Simone Lässig, Anna-Carolin Augustin, Swen Steinberg); Holocaust Research Institute, Royal Holloway, University of London (Dan Stone); Queen Mary, University of London (Jane Freeland); Wiener Holocaust Library, London (Toby Simpson, Christine Schmidt) as part of the Holocaust and Genocide Research Partnership (HGRP); USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research (Wolf Gruner)

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Jul 14, 2024

Making a World of Many Worlds: Identities, Activisms, and Comparisons

Summer School | Pacific Office, Berkeley | organized by The Maria Sibylla Merian Center for Advanced Latin American Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences (CALAS), the Pacific Office of the German Historical Institute Washington (GHI) at UC Berkeley, and the Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 1288 “Practices of Comparing” at Bielefeld University

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Sep 05, 2024

Science and Democracy in Political Crises, 1900-2024

Conference at GHI Washington | Conveners: Axel Jansen (GHI), Alexander Bogner (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna), Carsten Reinhardt (Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – German National Academy of Sciences, Halle), Heidi Tworek (University of British Columbia, Vancouver)

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Publications


Bulletin 70 (Fall 2022)

Forum: Rethinking Cross-Border Connections

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Anna Corsten

Unbequeme Erinnerer: Emigrierte Historiker in der westdeutschen und US-amerikanischen NS- und Holocaust-Forschung, 1945–1998

Transatlantische Historische Studien. Band 62. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2022.

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Bulletin 69 (Fall 2021 & Spring 2022)

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Simone Lässig, ed.

Digital History

Special Issue, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 47.1 (2021)

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Sophia Dafinger

Die Lehren des Luftkriegs: Sozialwissenschaftliche Expertise in den USA vom Zweiten Weltkrieg bis Vietnam

Transatlantische Historische Studien. Band 59. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2020.

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Das Pazifikbüro des DHI Washington. Aufbauphase 2017-2019

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Latest News


Fellowship

Doctoral and Postdoctoral Research Fellowships

Deadline: October 1, 2023 | The GHI awards short-term fellowships to European and North American doctoral students as well as postdoctoral scholars to…

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Call for Papers

Science and Democracy in Political Crises, 1900-2024

Deadline: January 7, 2024 | Conference at GHI Washington

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GHI in the Media

Transatlantische Historische Studien "Unbequeme Erinnerer" by Anna Corsten reviewed in Süddeutsche Zeitung

Anna Corsten's book "Unbequeme Erinnerer" on the reception in Germany of emigre scholars' research on the Holocaust was reviewed in Süddeutsche…

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Call for Papers

Making a World of Many Worlds: Identities, Activisms, and Comparisons

Deadline: October 1, 2023 | Summer School | Pacific Office, Berkeley | July 14–18, 2024

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Call for Papers

Music, Knowledge, and Global Migration, ca. 1700−1900

Deadline: October 1, 2023 | Symposium at the University of California, Berkeley | April 15−16, 2024

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