CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — University of Illinois history professor Harry Liebersohn has been chosen to receive the prestigious Humboldt Research Award honoring a career of research achievements. This follows news earlier this spring that he had been named as a fellow at the American Academy in Berlin – the first U. of I. history professor, and perhaps the first Illinois professor in any field, to receive that honor.
The Humboldt award is presented by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Bonn, Germany, honoring up to 100 researchers annually. Recipients are “academics whose fundamental discoveries, new theories or insights have had a significant impact on their own discipline and who are expected to continue producing cutting-edge academic achievements in the future,” according to the foundation website.
Liebersohn’s other award, the American Academy fellowship, goes to only a dozen recipients per academic semester, from higher education as well as fields of public policy, the arts, law and journalism, and representing a range of disciplines. The fellows spend their semester at the academy in Berlin, where they have the opportunity to establish close working affiliations with institutions related to their fields and to meet with prominent visitors, both American and German. The fellows also present their work to the German public through publications, lectures and media contacts.
Liebersohn is a professor of modern European history whose research has focused on European travel and cultural encounter since Columbus, especially in North America and the Pacific. His books and other writing have covered topics ranging from religion, the arts and social theory to travel writing and gift exchange.
Liebersohn’s current project is a book on how the globalization of music since the 1870s is part of a new phase in the history of cultural encounters. He is looking at how music has alternated between expanding horizons and intensified local loyalties, and at how musical innovators have created a new global culture. His research takes in both popular and high cultures, and locations ranging from Kolkata, India and Shanghai to London and Berlin.
The Humboldt award includes a prize of 60,000 euros (about $69,000 at current exchange rates), and the recipient is invited to spend up to a year cooperating on a long-term research project with specialist colleagues at a research institution in Germany.
Liebersohn plans to use his award to work with Jürgen Osterhammel of the University of Konstanz on their shared interests in globalization and its specific impact on music around the world. He will also work with Lars Koch, the director of the Phonogram Archive in Berlin, a repository of thousands of musical recordings made before 1914. The timing on those research collaborations has yet to be set, he said.
His semester at the American Academy in Berlin will come in spring 2017.
Liebersohn said the two awards will be significant for his work. “Germany is a world leader in historical research,” he said. “I’ll have access to archival materials in Germany, but more important, I’ll be able to work closely with scholars whom I’ve known for years. There is no substitute for face-to-face cooperation. I’ll also make fresh connections, meeting other scholars working on related issues.”
Liebersohn earned his doctorate in history in 1979 at Princeton University and joined the Illinois faculty in 1990. He has held appointments as a fellow or guest at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, among others. In May 2015, he was a visiting professor at Central European University and Eötvös University in Budapest.
Editor’s note: To reach Harry Liebersohn, call 217-693-1804; email hliebers@illinois.edu.
