Isabella Löhr is the Chair of International History of the Twentieth Century at the Friedrich Meinecke Institute and head of the “Globalisations in a Divided World” department at the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History in Potsdam (ZZF). Before joining the faculty at the FU in June 2023, she accrued extensive experience in teaching, research, science management, and interdisciplinary collaboration at various national and international institutions, including as a professeur invité at the Ecole normale supérieure in Paris and as a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York.

She earned her doctorate at the University of Leipzig in 2008 with a dissertation on the global history of intellectual property rights from the 1880s to the 1950s. She subsequently worked as an assistant professor of modern and contemporary history at the University of Heidelberg and at the University of Basel, where she served on the faculty of the Institute for European Global Studies. Later, as a senior researcher at the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe, she worked on a project addressing the history of modern international law in Eastern Europe. At the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (IMIS) at the University of Osnabrück, she headed “The Production of Knowledge on Migration” junior research group. There she also wrote her second book, namely on student mobility from the 1850s to 1930s, which marked the completion of her postdoctoral studies at the Philipps University of Marburg. Most recently, from 2021 to 2023, she was the deputy director of the French-German Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin, an interdisciplinary research centre for the humanities and social sciences.

We live in a complex world characterised by fundamental tensions between nationalisation and internationalisation, as well as by manifold activities that produce a dense network of global interactions and (sometimes violent) divides. In my teaching and research, I seek to understand the mechanisms and dynamics behind these phenomena, which are often clear and present in everyday life, and am interested in finding ways to represent and explain them. To this end, I combine social and cultural history with a praxeological and actor-centred perspective: I investigate the making, rearranging, and breaking of global constellations by concrete actors and ask how border-crossing groups emerge, how internationally relevant thematic fields materialise, and which people or groups are excluded from these processes due to ethnic, social, political, and/or religious categorisations. My research focuses on the period spanning from the late 19th to the early 21st century. In spatial terms, I focus on Germany and Europe – that is, both Western and Eastern Europe – which I examine in their international and global contexts. The major topics of my research are migration and mobility, international law and humanitarian aid, and the history of international movements. My studies are embedded in an epistemic reflection on my own work and always include methodological and conceptual reflections on the challenges and pitfalls of a European perspective on international and global history.

 

Research Interests

German and European history from the 19th to the early 21st century in international and global perspective

• History of international law and intellectual property rights
• Interdisciplinary refugee history, migration and mobility research with particular focus on language, academic mobility, democracy and exile
• History of internationalism and transnational social movements with special attention to international organisations, humanitarianism and the history of ecumenism
• Theories and methods of European and global history

For current research projects please click here.

Books

Globale Bildungsmobilität, 1850–1930. Von der Bekehrung der Welt zur globalen studentischen Gemeinschaft. 2021. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag (Moderne europäische Geschichte 21).

Die Globalisierung geistiger Eigentumsrechte. Neue Strukturen internationaler Zusammenarbeit 1886–1952. 2010. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft 195).

 

Edited Volumes

Rethinking the Production of Knowledge on Migration: A Moral Economies Approach. 2025. Special Issue, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 51 (10), edited with Christiane Reinecke, Philipp Schäfer, Laura Stielike and Inken Bartels.

Umkämpfte Begriffe der Migration. Ein Inventar. 2023. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, edited with Inken Bartels, Christiane Reinecke, Philipp Schäfer and Laura Stielike.

Inventar der Migrationsbegriffe. 2022, edited with Inken Bartels, Christiane Reinecke, Philipp Schäfer and Laura Stielike. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25887/IDMB 

Bessere Welten: Kosmopolitismus in den Geschichtswissenschaften. 2017. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, edited with Bernhard Gißibl.

Global Commons im 20. Jahrhundert: Entwürfe für eine globale Welt. 2014. München: Oldenbourg, edited with Andrea Rehling.

Lives Beyond Borders: A Social History, 1880–1950. 2013. Special Issue, Comparativ 23 (6), edited with Madeleine Herren.

The Nation State and Beyond: Governing Globalization Processes in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries. 2013. Heidelberg: Springer, edited with Roland Wenzlhuemer.

Kultur und Beruf in Europa. 2012. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, edited with Matthias Middell and Hannes Siegrist.

Intellectual Property Rights and Globalization. 2011. Special Issue, Comparativ 21 (2), edited with Hannes Siegrist.

 

Journal Articles and Book Chapters (Selection)

"From Studying Migration to Researching Society. Transcending the Migration-State Nexus as Task and Challenge". 2025. Zeitschrift für Migrationsforschung 5 (1), 65–73. DOI: https://doi.org/10.48439/zmf.383

"A Multi-Fractured Governance: Understanding the Many Pasts and Presents of European Labor Mobility". 2025. Historical Social Research 50 (1), 241–258. DOI: 10.12759/hsr.50.2025.11

"Rethinking the Production of Knowledge on Migration: A Moral Economies Approach". 2025. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 51 (10), 2505–2528 (with Laura Stielike, Christiane Reinecke, Philipp Schäfer, und Inken Bartels). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2025.2461340

"Beyond the Present, the Nation, and Europe: Three Things Reflexive Migration Studies Might Learn from Global History". 2024. Migration Studies 12 (3), article mnae023 (with Christiane Reinecke). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnae023

"Flüchtling". 2024. Inventar der Migrationsbegriffe, edited by Inken Bartels et al., 13.05.2024. Online: www.migrationsbegriffe.de/fluchtling (with Jochen Oltmer). DOI: https://doi.org/10.48693/540

"Refugee Scholars as Employees: Connecting the History of Forced Migration of Scholars with the Global History of Higher Education". 2024. Academics in a Century of Displacement. The Global History and Politics of Protecting Endangered Scholars, edited by Leyla Dakhli, Pascale Laborier, and Frank Wolff. Heidelberg: Springer, 47–71.

"Coping with a Post-war World: Protestant Student Internationalism, Humanitarianism and Educational Mobility in the 1920s". 2023. Social History 48 (1), 43–64. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2023.2146899

"The Moral Economies of ‚Research in Exile’: Rethinking a Field from the Perspective of Reflexive Migration Research". 2023. Research in Exile: Networks, Knowledge Exchange and New Venues for Internationalization in Academia, edited by Vera Axyonova, Florian Kohstall, and Carola Richter. Bielefeld: transcript, 81–100.

"'The International Law of the Future': The Carnegie Endowment and the Sovereign Limits of International Jurisdiction, 1910s–1960s". 2022. Philanthropy, Conflict Management, and International Law: The Carnegie Report on the Balkan Wars of 1912/1913, edited by Dietmar Müller, and Stefan Troebst. Budapest: Central European University Press, 61–91.

"Deutschland im Völkerbund". 2020. Weimar und die Welt, edited by Christoph Cornelißen, and Dirk van Laak. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 275–311.

"Being International in Times of War: Arthur Sweetser and the Shifting of the League of Nations to the United Nations". 2018. European Review of History: Revue Européene d’Histoire 25 (3-4), 535–552. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13507486.2018.1439890

"Die Geschichtswissenschaften vor der kosmopolitischen Herausforderung". 2017. Bessere Welten: Kosmopolitismus in den Geschichtswissenschaften, edited by Bernhard Gißibl, and Isabella Löhr. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 9–47 (with Bernhard Gißibl).

"Seltsam, weiblich, aus bescheidenem Haus: Gabriela Mistral und die Herausforderungen eines kosmopolitischen Lebens". 2017. Bessere Welten: Kosmopolitismus in den Geschichtswissenschaften, edited by Bernhard Gißibl, and Isabella Löhr. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 247–274 (with Corinne Pernet).

"Geschichte staatlicher-rechtlicher und politscher Einflussnahmen auf das Lesen". 2016. Lesen – Ein Handbuch, edited by Ursula Rautenberg, and Ursula Schneider. Berlin: De Gruyter 2016, 493–508.

"Gipfeltreffen im Schatten der Weltpolitik: Arthur Sweetser und die Pressepolitik des Völkerbunds". 2014. Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 62 (5), 411–424 (with Madeleine Herren).

"Solidarity and the Academic Community: The Support Networks for Refugee Scholars in the 1930s". 2014. Journal of Modern European History 12 (2), 231–246. DOI https://doi.org/10.17104/1611-8944_2014_2_231

"'Governing the Commons': Die global commons und das Erbe der Menschheit im 20. Jahrhundert". 2014. Global Commons im 20. Jahrhundert: Entwürfe für eine globale Welt, edited by Isabella Löhr, and Andrea Rehling. München: Oldenbourg, 3–30 (with Andrea Rehling). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110278149.3

"Wem gehört die Kultur? Die UNESCO zwischen geistigem Eigentum, Folklore und kulturellem Erbe in den 1960er und 1970er Jahren". 2014. Global Commons im 20. Jahrhundert: Entwürfe für eine globale Welt, edited by Isabella Löhr, and Andrea Rehling. München: Oldenbourg, 135–162. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110278149.139

"Lives Beyond Borders, or: How to Trace Global Biographies, 1880–1950". 2013. Comparativ 23 (6), 6–20. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26014/j.comp.2013.06.01 

"Transnational Cooperation in Wartime: The International Protection of Intellectual Properzy Rights During World War I". 2013. The Foundations of Worldwide Economic Integration: Powers, Institutions, and Global Markets, 1850–1930, edited by Niels P. Petersson, and Christoph Dejung. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 205–227.

"Le droit d’auteur et la première guerre mondiale : un exemple de coopération transnationale européenne". 2013. Le mouvement social 244, 67–80.

"Intellectual Property Rights between Nationalization and Globalization. Introduction". Comparativ 21 (2), 7–28 (with Hannes Siegrist). DOI: https://doi.org/10.26014/j.comp.2011.02.01 

"La Société des Nations et la mondialisation du droit d'auteur entre les deux guerres". 2011. La diplomatie par le livre: réseaux et circulation internationale de l'imprimerie de 1880 à nos jours, edited by Claude Hauser et al. Paris: Éditions Nouveau Monde, 181–196.

"'Zum Schutze der Geistesschöpfungen auf der ganzen Welt': Die Geschichte der internationalen Verrechtlichung des Autorenschutzes 1850–1952". 2009. Zeitschrift für Geistiges Eigentum 1 (3), 292–323. DOI: 10.1628/186723709789863952

"Wozu Globalgeschichte? Eine akteurs- und organisationsgeschichtliche Perspektive". 2009. Historische Mitteilungen der Ranke-Gesellschaft 21, 122–127.

"Intellectual Cooperation in Transnational Networks: The League of Nations and the Globalization of Intellectual Property Rights". 2009. Transnational Political Spaces. Agents, Structures, Encounters, edited by Mathias Albert et al. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 58–88.

"Intellectual Property Rights". 2009. Palgrave Encyclopedia of Transnational History, edited by Akira Iriye, and Pierre-Yves Saunie. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 551–554 (with Hannes Siegrist).

"Europäischer, amerikanischer oder weltweiter Schutz geistigen Eigentums? Die Berner Übereinkunft zum Schutz von Urheberrechten und das amerikanische Copyright in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts". 2007. In Themenportal Europäische Geschichte, 01.01.2007. Online www.europa.clio-online.de/searching/id/fdae-1407