Universität Hamburg - der Forschung, der Lehre, der Bildung, zur Homepage
Public History

Foto: Atlantica (1679)

Dr. Bernhard Schirg

schirg-180x240

Freigeist-Fellow der Volkswagen-Stiftung

Public History

Anschrift

Universität Hamburg
Fakultät für Geisteswissenschaften
Geschichte
Von-Melle-Park 6, #5
20146 Hamburg

Büro

Phil-Turm
Raum: B13007

Kontakt

Tel.: +49 40 42838 4877

The man and the mission

Bernhard is the Freigeist-scholar leading Team "Reaching for Atlantis”, a project about one of the greatest visions to see and value the world around us. He is a writer, traveler, and storyteller, a path that has taken him from the texts and manuscripts of Renaissance Italy to the nature of the high North.

At ‘Reaching for Atlantis’, we value the sense of leaving a mark on people over printed paper with our names on it. All you can find here is a team effort, creating and living a vision of what university can mean and provide in the 21st century.

As a team that brings together scholars, creatives, and explorers from Germany and Sweden, we venture towards something that does not have a name yet in the academic landscape, located somewhere in the borderlands of art and literature, photography and storytelling, public history, environmental humanities and activism.

With the stories that we mine from libraries and pursue outdoors, we move where our audience long has moved. Much of our energy flows into formats and events that allow us to connect with the public, to leave a mark and inspire. We create online platforms and wunderkammern. We write illustrated travel stories to express what moved us on our ways. We produce audio features and cut films about encounters, things, and places that left us inspired.

We are “Reaching for Atlantis”.

We strive for wonder.

Curriculum Vitae

  • June 2021 – current: Leader of the Freigeist-Project project ‘Reaching for Atlantis’ at the Dept of Public History, Hamburg University
  • October 2019 – May 2020: Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford
  • May 2018 – October 2020: Start of the Freigeist-project ‘Reaching for Atlantis’ at the Gotha Research Centre of the University of Erfurt
  • July 2013 – December 2016:Researcher at the Dept of Medieval and Neo-Latin Philology, Freie Universität Berlin (with Bernd Roling and Stefan Bauhaus as part of the project “Der Rudbeckianismus als Wissenschaftsparadigma im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert”)
  • October 2014: Ph.D. viva in Medieval and Neo-Latin Philology, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
  • April 2010 – March 2012: Researcher at the Dept of Medieval and Neo-Latin Philology, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
  • March 2010: Magister Artium in Latin Philology, Greek Philology, and Medieval and Neo-Latin Philology, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
  • 2004 – 2010: Magister’s studies (Latin Philology, Greek Philology, Medieval and Neo-Latin Philology, and History of Art) at the universities of Freiburg, Rome (“La Sapienza“), Basel and Göttingen

Short time fellowships and research stays

  • Department of History of Science and Ideas, Uppsala (August – October 2020, June – September 2019)
  • Ludwig-Boltzmann-Institute, Innsbruck (August – September 2017)
  • Gotha Research Centre of the University of Erfurt (May – July 2017)
  • Warburg Institute, London (May – July 2016)
  • University of Uppsala (June 2014 – July 2014)
  • Università di Napoli “Federico II” (September – October 2014)
  • Università Cattolica, Milan (February – June 2013)
  • German Historical Institute, Rome (April – June 2012, March – April 2017)
  • University of Oxford, Lincoln College / Summer School in Greek Palaeography (July – August 2008)

Presentations and conferences

  • "Off the deep end. Landscape, depression and the first mission of the HMS Beagle". Anniversary lecture on the launch of Darwin’s ship (11 May 1820). Oxford University Museum of Natural History [postponed to 2022]
  • “The stories that drive us. Gunther Plueschow, the Beagle, and the end of myth in Southern Patagonia”.  Paper given as part of the Southern Lives Network Workshop, Wolfson College, University of Oxford, 6–7 December 2021.
  • “Dag Hammarskjöld”. Conversation about the stories behind objects from the UN-Secretary General’s collection, held between Karin und Kristina Erlandsson (curators at Dag Hammarskjölds Backåkra) and Bernhard Schirg (host) as part of the Nordische Literaturtage 2021. Literaturhaus Hamburg, 25 November 2021.
  • “Atlantis in the Anthropocene”. Presentation given in the seminar “Environmental Visual Practice – Extended Ways of Telling” of Tyrone Martinsson. Högskolan för konst och design Valand (Academy of Art and Design Valand) Gothenburg, 18 November 2021.
  • "Waymarks. Orientations on Swedish glaciers in the Anthropocene". STREAMS - Transformative Environmental Humanities. International Environmental Humanities Conference, Environmental Humanities Laboratory, Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH), Stockholm, August 3–7 2021.
  • "Project presentation of Too long, didn't read". Southern Lives Network, Wolfson College, University of Oxford, 8 December 2020.
  • "Paths into Public History". Session taught for "Public Humanities"-PhD course at the Department of History of Science and Ideas, University of Uppsala, 28 October 2020.
  • "Cloudlands: Tracing the Ends of Worlds under the Skies of Southern Patagonia". Environmental Humanities Seminar, Somerville College, University of Oxford, 18 February 2020.
  • "'Late on earth': Re-enchanting travel writing — 21st-century dialogues with Darwin, Chatwin, and others". Bodleian Fellows Seminar, University of Oxford, 3 December 2019.
  • "Clitoris Monologues. Beverland, antiquarianism and the male construction of Lesbian sexuality". Symposium "Niet zomaar een zondaar. 340 Jaar Hadriaan Beverland", University of Leiden, 25 October 2019.
  • "Faking Swedish antiquity. Forgeries in the service of the Swedish Empire (1650–1720)". International conference "Faking It. Forgery and Fabrication in Early Modern and Late Medieval Culture", University of Gothenburg, 15–17 August 2019.
  • "Atlantis at your fingertips. Fashioning antiquities for royal dedication, or: an antiquarian's hunt for patronage under the Swedish Empire (1680–1700)". Guest lecture, Department of History of Science and Ideas, Uppsala, 13 June 2019.
  • "Reaching for Atlantis. The appropriation of classical mythology in 17th-century Sweden and its material basis". Guest lecture, Max-Weber-Kolleg Erfurt, 15 April 2019.
  • "The world was his oyster. Johann Daniel Major's studies of shells and the autumn of the emblematic age". Workshop "Johann Daniel Major – Study Day", Warburg Haus Hamburg, 27 March 2019.
  • "Antiquarismus und archäologische Praxis zur schwedischen Großmachtzeit – der Fall von Olof Rudbecks Atlantica (1679 -1702)". International conference "Konstruktion von Geschichte und 'erfundene Traditionen'", University of Basel, 3–4 December 2018.
  • "The continuity of mediaeval poetic traditions in the Italian Renaissance – a case study from Pavia", Workshop "Querelle(s) - poetologisch und epistemologisch", Freie Universität Berlin, 23–24 April 2018.
  • "Die moralischen Abgründe des fürstlichen Sekretärs. Liebesdichtung, Sex und Rufmord am Hofe von Isabella d'Este (1474-1539)", Research Colloquium, Institute of Latin Philology, Freie Universität Berlin, 21 December 2017.
  • "Mario Equicola’s Neither by hope nor fear (1506/1513) and the author’s fight for a white vest", Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies, Innsbruck, 18 September 2017.
  • "Convenient discoveries – Forgeries of manuscripts and artifacts in the service of the Swedish Empire (c. 1650–1720)", International Conference "Falsche Prinzessinnen, Scharlatane und selbsternannte Experten. Hochstapler in neuzeitlichen Gesellschaften", Gotha Research Centre, 10–12 July 2017.
  • "The Daphnic fate of Camerarius, or: Olof Rudbeck the Younger’s botanical dissertation (1686) revealed as Sweden’s first printed emblem book", Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies, Innsbruck, 15 December 2016.
  • "Die Verkürbissung des Joachim Camerarius (1534–1598) – Adaptationen des Emblembuchs in der schwedischen Botanik des 17. Jahrhunderts", Neo-Latin Colloquium, University of Münster, 2 November 2016.
  • "The Nordic Face of January". International conference "Baroque Antiquarianism and the search for identity around the Baltic Sea", Finland-Institute Berlin, 19–20 May 2016.
  • "Spamming the Council of Milan. Pietro Lazzaroni (c.1420–c.1497) spreading his poems to Lombardian patricians". International Conference “Economics of Poetry. Efficient techniques of producing neo-Latin verse“, The American University of Rome, 28–30 April 2016.
  • "Art and Magnificence in Giovambattista Cantalicio’s Poems to the Rebellious Cardinal Bernardino de Carvajal (1511)". 62nd Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Boston, 31 March – 2 April 2016.
  • Organizer of the panel “Readers of the Lost Art. Neo-Latin Poetic Descriptions of Lost Renaissance Art“ (Speakers: Kathleen Christian, Paul Gwynne, Bernhard Schirg). 62nd Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Boston, 31 March – 2 April 2016.
  • “Il volto settentrionale di Giano. La fortuna di un mito da Giulio Romano al barocco svedese“. The Finnish Institute in Rome, Villa Lante al Gianicolo, Rome, 18 November 2015 (cf. L'osservatore italiano, 20 November 2015, p. 3).
  • “Visualising kairos. Leonardo da Vinci's rebus on opportunity and its interpretation in early Cinquecento humanism”. Workshop "The Opportune Moment and the Early Modern Theatre of Politics" organized by the Grasping Kairos Research Network, 12 November 2015, Birkbeck, University of London.
  • “Johann Daniel Major's emblematic reading of Olof Rudbeck's Atlantica, or: How to condense an unreadable book to fit on the royal coffee table.” University of Uppsala, 7 October 2015.
  • “Olof Rudbeck (1630–1702) and the Fate of Atlantis” (contribution to the session “Swedish Neo-Latin“). 16th International Congress of the International Association of Neo-Latin Studies, Vienna, 2–7 August 2015.
     

Scholarships and awards

  • September 2017: Freigeist-Fellowship awarded by the VolkswagenFoundation (five years, initial funding sum: 961.800 EUR)
  • November 2015: Society of Neo-Latin Studies Early-Career Essay Prize 2015, awarded at the Annual Meeting of the SNLS (London, 27 November 2015)
  • 2012 – 2013: PhD-scholarship awarded by the German National Academic Foundation (“Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes”)
  • 2005 – 2010: Scholarship awarded by the German National Academic Foundation (“Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes”)
  • 2003: ”Humanismus heute”-award for best exam in Latin