Dr. Valeska Huber

In her talk, Dr. Valeska Huber revisits the Suez Canal as a connection and boundary between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. Through the analysis of diverse mobilities intersecting at this global crossroads, such as tourists, troops, workers, pilgrims, caravan travellers, dhow skippers and others, she shows how in the Canal Zone, certain kinds of movements were facilitated while others were subject to stricter controls. Taking the management of epidemic diseases as an example, she highlights how the Canal became a crucial site of various forms of global communication, for instance the communication of news and information, as much as —that of microbes.

Dr. Valeska Huber is head of the Emmy Noether Research Group „Reaching the People: Communication and Global Orders in the Twentieth Century“. She joined the Freie Universität Berlin in October 2017 after working as Research Fellow in Colonial and Global History at the German Historical Institute London and as Assistant Professor at the University of Konstanz. Her book Channelling Mobilities: Migration and Globalisation in the Suez Canal Region and Beyond 1869-1914 was published by Cambridge University Press in 2013 (paperback 2015). She has also written articles on the history of mobility and migration more generally, on epidemics and international health policies and on the history of development and education.

This public lecture is jointly organized with the DFG-supported academic network „A Modern Mediterranean: Dynamics of a World Region, 1800-2000“ under the directorship of Prof. Manuel Borutta, Professor for Cultural History of the Modern Mediterranean Area at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, & Dr. Malte Fuhrmann of the European Institute of Istanbul Bilgi University.