Head of the Department of Philosophy and History of Ideas, Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen, sees the new professors as a great strengthening of the research environment:

"I see the four new professorships as a great recognition of the department's strong academic environment in the history of ideas. All four professors have developed ambitious plans for research and teaching, which the professorships can help to realise."

Academic range strengthens research and teaching

The four new professors represent a broad academic range, both methodologically and thematically, which will contribute to strengthening and nuanced the history of ideas as a research field. Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen emphasizes that this diversity ensures that the profession continues to have a solid foundation:

"Together, the professors represent a wide range of academic disciplines, both in terms of method and focus area, which means that we can also continue to ensure a solid foundation across the entire breadth of the subject."

The future significance of the history of ideas

The history of ideas has long played a central role in the Danish public sphere, and the new professorships will further strengthen the subject's position, both nationally and internationally. According to Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen, the professors will not only contribute with new research, but also strengthen collaboration across disciplines and institutions:

"For many years, the history of ideas in Aarhus has been a clear voice in the Danish public, and the department's researchers are sought-after collaborators. This will only be cemented by these new professorships."

Meet the new professors

Anna Katharina Becker

Which areas will you be employed to promote in your professorship?
-I am an early modern historian who works with the intersection of political thought history, gender history and legal history. In the coming years, my research will focus on four areas in particular: I will continue to think about the body in political thought, look at the role of motherhood in the history of ideas, deal with the history of fashion in the history of ideas, and I will say something new about Danish autocracy.

In what way is it relevant to the surrounding society?
-We still struggle with gender equality in society, but we always believe that we have come a long way compared to previous generations. My research shows that gender equality has always been thought of and often has been demanded – for example, by Plato several thousand years ago.

How did you come to work with your research area?
-I studied history, politics and law in Bonn, Milan and Berlin (where I also worked in the German parliament), and I have always wanted to know the historical reasons why fewer women are in positions of power compared to men. During my PhD dissertation at Cambridge and the following decade and a half of research in Basel and here in Aarhus, I am convinced that the problem is more complex, that the stories we tell are deeply flawed, and that we should instead look at female political inclusion. Having worked in many different countries and environments also contributed to my conviction that the history of ideas must open up to new and interdisciplinary research areas.

Contact
Anna Katharina Becker
School of Culture and Society
Aarhus University
Mail: anna.becker@cas.au.dk
Phone: +45 8716 2246

Casper Andersen

Which area will you be employed to promote in your professorship?
-I conduct research into the history of ideas in science and technology, i.e. in the conceptions, expectations, hopes and concerns that are linked to science and technology, both historically and currently. I have studied this in colonial and post-colonial contexts, within the early UN system and currently around the climate and nuclear threat.  These are research areas that I will promote in my professorship.

In what way is it relevant to the surrounding society?
-The challenges we face in the world today are closely linked to science and technology – think of AI, nuclear weapons and the climate crisis, for example. This situation requires critical and constructive consideration in society at large, and the historical perspectives on science and technology are a crucial resource here. Perspectives on the history of ideas are already included in science diplomacy, business collaboration, and not least in many parts of the education system. We must continue along this path – and more personally, the professorship is a support to contribute further to that development.

How did you come to work with your research area?
-My interest in global issues really took root when I traveled around different parts of Africa as a very young person with a backpack. Academically, the meeting with the environments in the history of ideas and science in Aarhus – in interaction with university environments in England – has been crucial to the way I understand and approach my field of research.

Contact
Casper Andersen
School of Culture and Society
Aarhus University
Mail: ideca@cas.au.dk
Phone: +45 8716 2893

Christian O. Christiansen

Which area will you be employed to promote in your professorship?
-In the very short term, I will follow through on three books, all of which I expect to be published in 2025, namely my two research monographsIn Defense of Economic and Social Human Rights(Cambridge University Press) andDesigning Global Economic Equality(Oxford University Press), as well as my research-disseminating bookWe wash down global inequality with oysters and champagne(Aarhus University Press). With my professorship, I will largely continue my research in the areas I specialize in. I work with the economic, political and legal history of ideas in the 20th century in particular, and have done so in an American, global, and international organizational perspective (UN). I have done research both individually and as a leader of a Major research project. Thematically, my research has dealt with global capitalism, international human rights, and global inequality. In my professorship, I will continue my research in the history of ideas on these topics, and I have an ambition to develop a stronger humanities research focus on global inequality and justice—topics that today are mostly covered by economists and philosophers, respectively—which has a wide range of interfaces with other research fields and areas of practice.

In what way is it relevant to the surrounding society?
-My research on global inequality offers a broader, more holistic and multidimensional perspective on some of society's current challenges. As a historian of ideas, it is possible to become a domain expert on the history of a number of different ideas, in my case especially the history of economic, political, and legal ideas, and more specifically notions of global capitalism, international human rights, and international cooperation. Our present is also history and a product of history. By contextualizing and historicizing these ideas—including in relation to larger historical and political dynamics—we gain a better understanding of where we have moved historically and where we stand today. Research in the history of ideas, like probably all other fields of research, is deeply specialised, but it also offers a unique holistic perspective that places both past and present ideas in a larger context. In this way, it hopefully equips us with a knowledge and a compass that makes us more reflective, energetic, and robust in a present that can be experienced as fragmentary and unpredictable. In addition to this broader relevance to the surrounding society, I am proud that my and my colleagues' research has been cited in the UN's Human Development Report, recognized by leading economists, and applied in the economics curriculum.      

How did you come to work with your research area?
-In relation to my current research interests, it stems from a wonder about questions that I think a lot of other people have also asked themselves: Why is the world as unequal as it is? What are the effects of global capitalism? What is going on with international human rights? The big difference is that I have examined these questions in the history of ideas, and that I have had the enormous privilege of being allowed to work with these questions in my work—and now also given a new, distinguished mandate to do so in the future.

Contact
Christian O. Christiansen
School of Culture and Society
Aarhus University
Mail: idecoc@cas.au.dk
Phone: +45 8716 2278

Louise Fabian

Which area will you be employed to promote in your professorship?
-Among other things, I conduct research into the relationship between the theory development and history of science in different humanities and social sciences, and in addition to contributing to the history of ideas and philosophical research and professional development, my professorship will also contribute to strengthening transdisciplinary research, teaching and collaborations both across Aarhus University and with external actors and fields of practice.  In addition, I look forward to contributing to the strengthening of the global dimensions of the history of ideas and the inclusion of new sources, actors, theories and research questions together with those of my colleagues who have related academic interests.

In what way is it relevant to the surrounding society?
-I am interested in the relationship between knowledge, the ability of knowledge to intervene in and collaborate with fields of practice and the politics of knowledge production. Themes that are highly topical in relation to the ongoing transformations of the ways in which knowledge is created, moves and potentially both democratized and politicized or corrupted. My research on the relationship between different knowledge actors, social movements, and knowledge production is also relevant in relation to a number of current themes related to, for example, climate, environment, gender, diversity, inequality, health, cultural, urban and housing policy, etc.

How did you come to work with your research area?
-I have always had a rather insatiable urge to comprehend and map out various new subject areas, disciplines and theories. Over time, it becomes particularly rewarding to be able to map correspondences and movements across disciplines and professional traditions. In this connection, I am concerned with bringing in my research the critical exploration of the contexts, movements, and transformations of the history of ideas, together with the philosophical inquiry into conceptual implications and the cognition and meaning-making that takes place in our own exploratory writing.

Contact
Louise Fabian
School of Culture and Society
Aarhus University
Mail: idelfl@cas.au.dk
Phone: +45 8716 2658