Dr. Alexander van Wickeren has managed the Research Coordination at the Faculty of Cultural Studies since April 2022 and supports the Faculty’s institutes CICS and KISD with research proposals.

Alexander van Wickeren studied Modern and Medieval History, German Studies, and Philosophy at the University of Cologne and Jagiellonian University in Krakow. In November 2017, he received his doctorate in Modern History from the University of Cologne and École doctoral of the Centre d’histoire de Sciences Po with a study on the history of knowledge and space. Subsequently, as a research associate at the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities at the University of Cologne, he was responsible for the internationalization of doctoral training, an interdisciplinary Research Master’s program, and the acquisition of external funding. In addition, he has been holding regular teaching positions at Sciences Po’s Campus franco allemand européen Nancy since 2015.

In Progress

With Jean Stubbs and William Clarence-Smith (eds.), Tobacco and Empire from a Global Perspective, 1780-1960 (working title).

Tobacco Cultivation, Agricultural Enlightenment and Modern State Building in the Napoleonic Empire (working title), in: Matheus Alves Duarte da Silva / Thomás A. S. Haddad / Kapil Raj (eds.), Knowing Empires: Construction and Circulation of Knowledge in a Global Imperial Age (1700-1914), London: Routledge.

Bourbonising the French Empire? Humboldt, Bonpland and the Global Commercialisation of Tobacco Cultivation in the Early 19th Century (working title), in: Jakob Vogel and Helge Wendt (eds.), Alexander von Humboldt – A Transatlantic Perspective. The Circulation of State Knowledge in the 18th and 19th Centuries.

2020

Wissensräume im Wandel. Eine Geschichte der deutsch-französischen Tabakforschung (1780-1870), Köln / Weimar / Wien: Böhlau 2020 (Peripherien. Beiträge zur Europäischen und Globalgeschichte).

Reviews

Denise Phillips, in: Central European History, 54 (2021) S. 704-705, URL: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008938921001618

Helge Wendt, in: Historische Zeitschrift, 312 (2021) 3, S.809–811, URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/hzhz-2021-1188

Daniel Mollenhauer, in: sehepunkte 21 (2021), Nr. 4, URL: http://www.sehepunkte.de/2021/04/33974.html

Frank Jacob, in: H-Soz-Kult, 24.11.2020, URL: http://www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/reb-29417

2020

The Transformation of an Ecological Policy. Acclimatization of Cuban Tobacco Varieties and Public Scandalization in the French Empire, c. 1860-1880, in: Brett Bennett and Ulrike Kirchberger (eds.), Environments of Empire. Networks and Agents of Ecological Change, Chapel Hill 2020, 19–38.

2019

Territorializing Atlantic Knowledge: The French State Tobacco Monopoly and the Globalization of the Havana Cigar around Mid-19th Century, in: Lothar Schilling and Jakob Vogel (eds.), Transnational Cultures of Expertise. Knowledge and the Rise of the Modern State, Berlin 2019, 181–191.

2015

With Pascal Schillings, Towards a Material and Spatial History of Knowledge Production. An Introduction, in: Pascal Schillings and Alexander van Wickeren (eds.), Spaces – Objects – Knowledge. An Integrative Perspective on Recent Turns in Historical Research, in: Historical Social Research, 40 (2015) 1, 203–218.

With Pascal Schillings (eds.), Spaces – Objects – Knowledge. An Integrative Perspective on Recent Turns in Historical Research, in: Historical Social Research, 40 (2015) 1.

2012

Die Zirkulation staatsrelevanten Wissens (savoir d’État) über den Tabakanbau in Baden und im Elsass um 1800, in: Christine Lebeau (ed.), Der Staat: Akteure, Praktiken, Wissen (16.–19. Jahrhundert), URL: https://www.perspectivia.net/publikationen/discussions/10-2015/van wickeren_zirkulation.

2022

Reform Movements and the Color Line: „Natural Life“ and Segregation in Colonial South Africa in the late 19th and early 20th Century, Workshop: Laboratories of the Social: Utopian Settlements and Reform Movements in the Long 19th Century, DHI Washington / Universität Konstanz, 27-28 January.

2021

Limits of Globalisation: Processing the Havana Cigar in the Second Half of the 19th Century / Workshop: The Raw and the Refined: Commodities, Processing and Power in Global Perspective, University of London, 2-3 September.

2020

Book presentation on Wissensräume im Wandel. Eine Geschichte der deutsch-französischen Tabakforschung, 1780-1870 / Forschungskolloquium Wissensgeschichte, Universität Konstanz, 17 December.

2019

Die Globalisierung des Oberrheins. Eine Wissensgeschichte des Tabakanbaus (1780-1870) / Arbeitsgemeinschaft für geschichtliche Landeskunde am Oberrhein, Karlsruhe, 18 October.

From the Spanish to the Napoleonic Empire? Alexander von Humboldt, Agricultural Enlightenment and Tobacco Cultivation around 1800 / Conference: Redes sociales y poder colonial en el Sistema Atlántico del Tabaco: Cultures polítiques I pràctiques colonials, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, 16-18 September.

2018

Imperial Markets and Agricultural Science: Global Imaginations, Tobacco Cultivation and Expert Cultures in the Upper Rhine Region around mid-19th Century / Conference: Imaginations and Processes of Spatialization under the Global Condition, Universität Leipzig, 4-6 October.

Ignorance and Knowledge: Agronomic Tobacco Science and the Atlantic Space of Circulation around Mid-19th Century / Conference: European Society for the History of Science Biennial Conference 2018, London, 14-17 September.

2016

Kontinentalsperre, Tabakmonopol und Wissenszirkulation. Die Genese einer rheinischen Tabakforschung im frühen 19. Jahrhundert / Exhibition: „Der blaue Dunst. Zur Kulturgeschichte des Rauchens“, Landesmuseum Koblenz, 3 August.

Humboldt, Bonpland and Tobacco: Globalizing Knowledge on Agricultural Resources during the First Half of the 19th Century / Congress: Sciences, Savoirs et Politique. Alexander von Humboldt et Aimé Bonpland entre Europe et Amérique Latine, Sciences Po / IHEAL, Paris, 4-7 July.

2015

Cubanizing Tobacco Cultivation. Ecological and Interimperial Networks in the French State Tobacco Monopoly, ca. 1850-1870 / Conference: Ecological Networks and Transfers in Colonial Contexts, c. 1850-1920, Universität Kassel, 26-27 June.

2014

Cuba in Paraguay? The Changing Margins of Europe and French Interest in Tobacco Knowledge, 1820–1840 / Conference: Les Marges changeantes de l’Europe. Frontières et Démarcations d’un Continent du XVIIIe au XXe Siècle, SciencesPo / EHESS, Paris, 5-6 December.

2021

With Jean Stubbs and William Clarence-Smith, Rethinking Tobacco History: Commodities, Empire and Agency in Global Perspective, 1780-1960, Universität zu Köln / British Academy Research Project Commodities of Empire, 2-4 December 2021.

2017

With Camille Buat and Aude-Cécile Monnot, The Production of Imperial Space. Empire and Circulations (18th-20th Centuries), Sciences Po Paris / CIERA, Paris, 23-24 November.

2013

With Pascal Schillings, Die Dinge des Wissens und ihre Räume, 1750-2000. Europäische und außereuropäische Perspektiven, 19 October.

Since 2021 British Academy Research Project Commodities of Empire.

Since 2013 Graduate Network for Interdisciplinary European Studies.

Since 04/2022

Research Coordinator at the Faculty of Cultural Studies of the University of Applied Sciences

Since 09/2015

Lectureships at Sciences Po Nancy, Campus  européen franco-allemand

10/2017-04/2022

Research associate at the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne at the University of Cologne

04/2013-11/2017

Doctorate in Modern History at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Cologne and the École doctorale of the Centre d’histoire de Sciences Po

10/2006-05/2012

Magister Artium of German Studies (minor subject) and Philosophy (minor subject), as of summer semester 2007 also of Medieval and Modern History (major subject) at the University of Cologne

 

Contact

Köln International School of Design
Ubierring 40
D-50678 Köln
Room 220a
alexander.van_wickeren@th-koeln.de
+49(0)221 | 8275-5368