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Dr. Bernhard Gißibl

Member of the academic staff, Department of History, spokesperson of Research Area 2 "Sacralisation and Desacralisation"
Room: 02 301
Phone: +49 6131 39 39361
Fax: +49 6131 39 21050

E-Mail


Personal Details:

Bernhard Gissibl (born in 1976) is a member of the academic staff in the Section for Universal History. His PhD dissertation (Mannheim University, 2009) explored the politics of hunting and wildlife conservation in Tanzania during the German colonial period. His current research project analyses the role and development of the foreign correspondents network of West Germany’s public service broadcasting organizations during the Cold War.
Before joining the IEG, Bernhard lectured on Modern and Contemporary History at the universities of Munich (2002/2003) and Mannheim (2006-2012). Between 2003 and 2006, he was a PhD researcher at Jacobs University in Bremen, holding a PhD scholarship from the Cusanuswerk, the scholarship organization of the Catholic church in Germany. In April 2013, he was a visiting fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich.

Memberships:

European Society for Environmental History (ESEH)
European Network in Universal and Global History (ENIUGH)
German History Society

Research Interests:

Bernhard’s research interests focus on German and European history in global contexts. They include the history of transnational communication and media during the Cold War, the history of nature conservation and European imperialism in general, particularly in its environmental dimensions. Currently, he is also co-editing a volume that investigates the utility of cosmopolitanism as an analytical concept for global historical studies.

Selected Publications:

(ed., with Katharina Niederau) Imperiale Weltläufigkeit und ihre Inszenierungen. Theodor Bumiller, Mannheim und der deutsche Kolonialismus um 1900. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2021, URL (Open Access): https://www.vr-elibrary.de/doi/book/10.13109/9783666101571
(ed., with Gregor Feindt and Johannes Paulmann) Cultural Sovereignty beyond the Modern State. Space, Objects, and Media (= Jahrbuch für Europäische Geschichte 21/2021), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110679151
Der erste Transnationalpark Deutschlands. Die Geburt des Nationalparks Bayerischer Wald aus dem Geiste internationaler Rückständigkeit, in: Marco Heurich, Christof Mauch (Hg.), Der Urwald der Bayern. Geschichte, Politik und Natur im Nationalpark Bayerischer Wald. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2020, S. 47-65, DOI https://doi.org/10.13109/9783666360954.47
The Nature of German Imperialism. Conservation and the Politics of Wildlife in colonial East Africa. New York/Oxford: Berghahn 2016 (Paperback 2019).
(ed., with Isabella Löhr) Bessere Welten. Kosmopolitismus in den Geschichtswissenschaften. Frankfurt/M., New York: Campus 2017.

Research projects:

Leibniz Research Alliance "Value of the Past"

The Leibniz Research Alliance "The Value of the Past" started its work on September 1st, 2021. Over a period of four years it will investigate the significance of the past for societies in the past and present.

Man and Animal at the Serengeti Research Institute: Management and Sciences of Sacralized Nature in the Second Half of the 20th Century

World squared: Mannheim and German colonialism

As the largest inland port in southern Germany and the industrial heart of Baden, the city of Mannheim became a hub of transcontinental connections with the colonial world of the southern hemisphere in the 19th century. Mannheim's economy processed colonial raw materials, and in the stacks of the Reiß-Engelhorn Museums thousands of objects of colonial provenance bear witness to the long-cherished dream of establishing the Colonial Museum of the German Southwest here.

Zoologische Humandifferenzierung. Verhaltensforschung im Kontext von Dekolonisierung und wissenschaftlicher Disziplinbildung

Das Projekt begreift die vergleichende Verhaltensforschung als zentrale Instanz der Bearbeitung der Leitdifferenz zwischen Mensch und Tier im 20. Jahrhundert. Am Beispiel des 1965 gegründeten Serengeti Research Institute im ostafrikanischen Tansania untersucht es Wissensproduktion, Praxis und Politik verhaltensbiologischer Forschung an freilebenden Großsäugetieren.