Research

I am specialized in European and global history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I mainly work on global commodity history with a focus on agricultural goods and food, and the history of knowledge production. In both fields I combine approaches from cultural and economic history and apply a transnational perspective. 

My new book Globalizing the Soybean: Fat, Feed, and Sometimes Food, c1900–1950 has just been published open access with Routledge. It will be available in print in May 2023. The book asks how the soybean conquered the West and analyzes why and how the crop gained entry into agriculture and industry in regions beyond Asia in the first half of the twentieth century.

I currently serve as head of the research group Transnational History, 1750–present, in which we discuss and develop research projects regarding the exchange of goods and services, the movement of people and the transfer of culture and ideas in modern times.

Furthermore, I am a member of AHKR's instituttråd (department council). The council considers and decides on various aspects regarding the department, among others regrding research reports and strategies, budget proposals, significant changes to the study programs, and restructuring or reorganisation plans.

Before joining the University of Bergen in 2018, I spent several years at the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C., and the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich.

Teaching

In teaching I'm specialized on European and global history int he nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I also welcome students working on Norwegian history in this period, but I alsway encourage them to look at questions and phenomena that reach beyond national borders. Students learn how different parts of the world were connected not only in times of a flourishing global economy but also in times of nationalism. I try to broaden my students prespective and actively invite them to look for connections, bridges, and links in the world.

I am course responsible for the lecture "Europe after 1945", which is taught every spring, and I supervise bachelor theses under the umbrella of this topic. Furthermore, I'm coordinating the master's seminar "På tvers av grenser."

EUR103- Europe after 1945: Resources, Demography, Economy

HIS102- Oversyn over nyare historie frå 1750

HIS250 og HIS250L - Bacheloroppgave

På tvers av grenser - Globalisering, kulturutveksling, transnasjonal historie, ca. 1880 til i dag

Publications

Selected Publications

Monographs

Globalizing the Soybean: Fat, Feed, and Sometimes Food, c. 1900–1950. London, New York: Routledge, 2023.

Die Politik des Wissens: Allgemeine deutsche Enzyklopädien zwischen 1928 und 1956. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2011.

Articles 

With Hiromi Mizuno. “Mitsui Bussan and the Manchurian Soybean Trade: Geopolitics and Economic Strategies in China’s Northeast, ca. 1870s–1920s.” Business History, December 1, 2019, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2019.1687688.

"From Dinner to Dynamite: Fats and Oils in World War II." Global Food History 2, no. 1 (2016): 31–50.

"Versatile and Cheap: A Global History of Soy in the First Half of the Twentieth Century." Journal of Global History 8, no. 3 (2013): 461–482.

"Dynamiken globaler Vernetzung: Mandschurische Sojabohnen auf dem Weltmarkt." Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte und Agrarsoziologie 61, no. 2 (2013): 75–89.

"Die ‘Encyclopedia Americana’ und die Crux transnationaler Enzyklopädien." Themenportal Europäische Geschichte (2011).

With Frank Grüner. “Ethnic Ghettos and Transcultural Processes in a Globalised City: New Research on Harbin." Itinerario 35, no. 3 (2011): 17–22. 

"’A miracle bean’: How Soy Conquered the West, 1909-1950." Bulletin of the GermanHistorical Institute, Washington DC 46 (Spring 2010): 111­–129.

With Arndt Engelhardt. “Kaleidoscopic Knowledge: On Jewish and Other Encyclopedias, Introduction." Jahrbuch des Simon Dubnow InstitutsLeipzig 9 (2010): 3–13.

"’Aus denen besten Scribenten’. Zedlers ‘Universal-Lexicon’ im Spannungsfeld zeitgenössischer Lexikonproduktion." Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert 29 (2005): 82–94.

Ines Prodöhl. “Die Usurpation des Wissens. Zivilgesellschaftliche Netzwerke und Enzyklopädien als Transfer-medien im ‘Dritten Reich’." Historische Mitteilungen der Ranke Gesellschaft 17 (2004): 62–73.

Edited volumes and special issues

"Food Commodities in Wartime." Global Food History 2, no. 1 (2016), guest-edited by April Merleaux and Ines Prodöhl.

Entangled Histories: The Transcultural Past of Northeast China, edited by Dan Ben-Canaan, Frank Grüner, and Ines Prodöhl. Springer: Berlin 2014.

"Ethnic Ghettos and Transcultural Processes in a Globalised City: New Research on Harbin." Itinerario 35, no. 3 (2011), guest-edited by Frank Grüner and Ines Prodöhl.

"Kaleidoscopic Knowledge: On Jewish and Other Encyclopedias." Jahrbuch des Simon Dubnow Instituts 9 (2010), guest-edited by Arndt Engelhardt and Ines Prodöhl.

Tutorienheft Neuzeit. Literatur zum Studium der Geschichte, arranged by Ines Prodöhl. Heidelberg: History Department, University of Heidelberg, 2006.

Chapters in edited volumes

"The Curieuses Natur- Kunst- Berg- Gewerck- und Handlungs-Lexcion (1712)." In Specialized Encyclopedias of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, edited by Jeff Loveland and Stéphane Schmitt (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment) Liverpool: University Press (in press; the text is past peer-review and has been accepted for publishing).

Witz Iwan Michelangelo D’April. "Die grenzübergreifende Unterwanderung der Obrigkeit. Politischer Wissenstransfer und liberale Diskurse in Brockhaus’Konversationslexikon.” In Weltwissen. Das Eigene und das Andere in Enzyklopädien und Wörterbüchern des 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhunderts, edited by Ina Ulrike Paul, 277–300, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2020.

With Dan Ben-Canaan and Frank Grüner. Entangled Histories: “The Transcultural Past of Northeast China (Introduction).“ In Entangled Histories: The transcultural past of Northeast China, edited by Dan Ben-Canaan, Frank Grüner, Ines Prodöhl, 1–11. Berlin: Springer 2014.

"Die Aushandlung von Wissen und das Erfolgsmodell des Konversations-Lexikons." In Am Anfang ist das Wort. Lexika in der Schweiz, edited by Marco Jorio and Cindy Eggs, 58–70. Baden: hier + jetzt, 2008.

With Madeleine Herren-Oesch. “Informationspolitik und Geschichtswissenschaft.” In Information und Ethik. Dritter Leipziger Kongress für Information und Bibliothek, edited by Barbara Lison, 404-408. Wiesbaden: Dinges & Frick, 2007.

"’Schlag nach über Polen’. War, Business and Encyclopaedic Idea during World War II in Germany." In Allgemeinwissen und Gesellschaft. Akten des internationalen Kongresses über Wissenstransfer und enzyklopädische Ordnungssysteme, vom 18. bis 21. September 2003 in Prangins, edited by Paul Michel, Madeleine Herren, and Martin Rüesch, 513-527. Aachen: Shaker, 2007.

With Madeleine Herren-Oesch. “Kapern mit Orangenblüten – die globale Welt der Enzyklopädie.” In Seine Welt wissen. Enzyklopädien der Frühen Neuzeit. Katalog zur Ausstellung der Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig und der Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, edited by Ulrich Johannes Schneider, 42–53. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2006.

Academic monograph
Feature article
Reader opinion piece
Book review
Academic chapter/article/Conference paper
Academic article
Interview

See a complete overview of publications in Cristin.