E-mail: dimas(at)ur.de (opens your email program) (secretariat)
Telephone: +49 941 943 5966 (secretariat)
Office Hours (winter semester 2025/26):
16:30 - 17:30 (30-minute sessions can be requested by e-mail)
CV
Academic Positions
| Since 10/2025 | Substitution for the Professorship ?Transregional Cultures of Knowledge at the University of Regensburg? |
07/2021 – 12/2025 | Head of the junior research group ?African Knowledges and the History Public*ation since the 1970s” in the Cluster of Excellence “Africa Multiple” of the German Research Foundation |
| 08/2018 – 07/2021 | Postdoctoral researcher at the Department of History at the University of Basel |
08/2016 – 07/2018 | Marie Heim-V?gtlin -Research Fellowship (Swiss National Science Foundation) at the Department of History at the University of Basel |
08/2012 – 08/2016 | Pre/postdoctoral researcher at the Department of History at the University of Basel |
Academic Education
| 03/2025 | Registered for habilitation in the Department of History at the University of Bayreut |
| 11/2014 | Doctorate (D.Phil.) from the Faculty of History at the University of Oxford |
| 10/2008 – 11/2014 | Doctoral candidate at the Faculty of History of the University of Oxford |
| 04/2008 | Awarded the degree of Master of Arts (M. A.) in International Relations at Florida State University |
| 01/2007 – 04/2008 | Study of International Relations at Florida State University |
| 01/2002 – 08/2005 | Study of Communication Sciences (Bachelor) at Florida State University |
Research
Research Interests
- Transimperial encounters in West Africa
- Interdependencies between Africa (e.g. Liberia, Ghana) and America in the 19th and 20th centuries
- Media history from a postcolonial perspective: television history; the history of academic journals published in Africa; history of the newspaper in Africa
- (Global) Digital History and digital collections from the Global South
- Agricultural history of Africa in a global perspective
- global labor history
- History of knowledge in (and with) Africa
- History of international development cooperation in Africa
- “African agency” and African lifeworlds
- African-American history in Africa: Black internationalism between 1890 and 1960
Current research projects
- Re/winding a Lost Decade: Digital Memory and Moving Images of Military Rule in West Africa (second book project)
- Postindependence History Journals from Africa
Third-Party Funding and Research Fundingng
(Auswahl)
| über 4 Mio. EUR |
| 215.607 EUR |
| 10.308 CHF |
| 2.100 CHF |
| 2.220 CHF |
| 2.000 CHF |
| 1.200 CHF |
| 242.742 CHF |
| 11.000 CHF |
| 2.500 GBP |
| 66.000 CHF |
Research grants
| |
Publications
Monographs
Mediators, Contract Men and Colonial Capital: Mechanized Gold Mining in the Gold Coast Colony, 1879-1909 (New York: University of Rochester Press - Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora, March 2018).
In Vorbereitung: Re/winding a Lost Decade: Digital Memory and Moving Images of Military Rule in West Africa.
Editorship
with Moritz Mihatsch, and Michelle Sikes, The Politics of Historical Memory & Commemoration in Africa (Berlin: Degruyter, Dec. 2021). *open access
Articles (Selection)
Carl Christian Reindorf, The History of Gold Coast and Asante, 1895’ History of the Humanities, October 2024.
‘Black American Agricultural Experts and the Vernacularization of American Science in Liberia prior to Decolonization in Africa’ Journal of West African History, October 2024.
‘Neglected Historiography from Africa: The Case for Postindependence Journals’ Journal of African History, May 2023.
with Moritz Mihatsch, ‘Liberia an(d) Empire: Sovereignty, ‘Civilisation’ and Commerce in Nineteenth-Century West Africa,’ Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 47:5, December 2019: 884–911. Reprinted in Connected Empires, Connected Worlds (2022).
‘Of Vagrants and Volunteers during Liberia’s Operation Production, c. 1963-69,’ Journal of African Economic History, December 2018: 147-172.
‘The “Bargain” of Collaboration: African Intermediaries, Indirect Recruitment, and Indigenous Institutions in the Ghanaian Gold Mining Industry, 1900-1906,’ International Review of Social History, 57, December 2012: 17-28.
Teaching and Science Communication
Universit?t Regensburg |
WiSe 2025 The United States and Africa Decolonization and Intellectuals Global History: Methods, Approaches, Sources Decolonization and the End of European Empires Tips, Tricks and Hacks: Researching and Writing a Project in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Universit?t Bayreuth |
| WiSe 2024 |
Decolonisation and Nationalism in Africa Intertextual Storytelling for the Historical Science – mit Dr. Artemis Ignatidou, Valentine Koppenh?fer (curator) und weitere G?ste. |
| WiSe 2023 |
Introduction to Global History Politics of Memory – Mit Prof. Katharina Schramm African History Research Seminar – mit Vertretungsprofessor für Geschichte Afrikas F. Rueedi |
WiSe 2022 |
German Colonial History (in Africa) – mit Luisa Schneider (Doktorandin) SoSe 2022 Film in Africa: The Lens of (African & Global) History– Teaching assistance, Richard Anyah |
WiSe 2021 African Education and Development Paradigms in the 19th & 20 th Centuries) Universit?t Basel SoSe 2021 Empires in Africa: Histories & Legacies Universit?t Basel WiSe 2020 Explorations in the Writing of West African History pre-1900: Epistemology, Methodology & Practice WiSe 2019 American Philanthropy and African Development in the Twentieth century: a Global History of Capitalism Introduction to History — Africa: A History of Development since 1940 SoSe 2019 Cotton, Cloth and Clothes in Africa: A History of Globalization Contesting Agricultural Design, Operation and Purpose in Colonial Africa WiSe 2018 African Perspectives on Global history, incl. writing workshop – mit Dr. Benjamin Brühwiler Psychology, Psychiatry, and Psychoanalysis in mid-20th century Africa – mit Dr. Benjamin Brühwiler SoSe 2016 Decolonisation and the Cold War in Africa SoSe 2015 Garvey’s or DuBois’s African Diaspora?: Competing Transnational Communities in Liberia SoSe 2014 Introduction to History — Palm Oil, Cocoa, Gold, and Rubber: A Global History of West African Transport and Trade in the 19th and 20th Centuries WiSe 2013 Armut in Africa SoSe 2013 Work and Economy in West Africa |
Science Communication
(Selection)
2022, African-German Leadership Academy, Vortrag: Pluralistic Memory Culture and Social Cohesion.
2022, Organization and co-moderation of the Weing?rtner Afrikagespr?che —Institut für Afrikastudien an der Universit?t Bayreuth & Akademie der Di?zese Rottenburg-Stuttgart
2023, Bayreuther Stadtgespr?che, 5. Juli 2023
Projects and networking
Current research projects
- Re/winding a Lost Decade: Digital Memory and Moving Images of Military Rule in West Africa (second book project)
- Postindependence History Journals from Africa
Organization of workshops to promote young researchers
- African (Digital) Heritage, University of Bayreuth
- On Media and Memory: Liberian Studies Workshop, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill
- History & Heritage on Film, University of Liberia