Jun.-Prof. Dr. Megan Marie Maruschke

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Megan Marie Maruschke

Junior Professor

Global Studies (JP)
Institutsgebäude
Emil-Fuchs-Straße 1, Room 3.10
04105 Leipzig

Phone: +49 341 97-30235

Abstract

My jump into the field of global studies began as a BA student at the pilot program at the University of California Santa Barbara. While I started off firmly in the social sciences, I became a historian over time, focusing on comparative and transregional perspectives. My first book traces the debates on free trade zones and special economic zones in Mumbai, India, from the 1830s until today. I do so to explored the ways that various elite actors try to connect the city to the world while also fostering national and regional integration. My second book project is concerned with Philadelphia as a border town in the Early Republic US, which focuses on the intersections of boundary production, mobility control, and refugees from 1780-1830. My main areas of interest include:

Global History

Border Studies since the 18th century

Free Ports and Special Economic Zones (19th–21st Centuries)

French and American Imperial Histories

Age of Revolutions

Migration and Refugee History


Professional career

  • since 06/2022
    Junior Professor for Global Studies, Global and European Studies Institute, Leipzig University
  • 05/2021 - 06/2022
    Postdoctoral Researcher, Research Division "Global Mobility from the 18th to the 20th Century," in the ERC Grant Project "Atlantic Exiles: Revolution and Refugees in the Atlantic World, 1780s–1820," History Department, University of Duisburg-Essen
  • 02/2021 - 04/2021
    Visiting Fellow, European University Institute, Department of History
  • 03/2016 - 04/2021
    Senior Researcher, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB 1199) “Processes of Spatialization under the Global Condition,” Leipzig University
  • 03/2015 - 02/2016
    Junior Researcher, Centre for Area Studies, Leipzig University
  • 03/2012 - 02/2015
    Junior Researcher, Research Training Group (GK 1261), “Critical Junctures of Globalization,” Centre for Area Studies, Leipzig University

Education

  • 03/2012 - 11/2016
    Dr. Phil. summa cum laude Global Studies, Leipzig University
  • 10/2009 - 08/2011
    M.A. Global Studies, Wrocław University and Leipzig University
  • 09/2005 - 06/2009
    B.A. Global Studies and Italian Studies, University of California Santa Barbara
  • 09/2007 - 06/2008
    International Relations, University of Padua (study abroad)

Panel Memberships

  • since 09/2023
    Representative of Leipzig University on the Program Committee of the International Max Planck Research School "Global Multiplicity. A Social Anthropology for the Now“
  • since 09/2022
    Vice President of the International Commission for the History of the French Revolution (Commission internationale d’histoire de la Révolution française)
  • since 06/2023
    Member of the scientific network America 2026

American Boundaries and Refugee Mobilities at the Heart of the Republic and the Edge of Empire (1780-1830)

This book investigates the role of Atlantic exile mobilities in the formation of the early American republic and how the transboundary movement of people fleeing revolution, warfare, and slavery contributed to both the production of boundaries as well as their shifting meaning in a transimperial context during the Age of Revolutions (1770s–1830s). How did the massive movements of refugees during the Age of Revolutions impact the delineations of mobilities and new meanings contemporaries attributed to boundaries?

To explore this question, I situate Philadelphia as a border town in four respects: as a city at the boundary of “free soil” in North America; as an international port city where refugees and migrants arrived; as a place from which arriving refugees planned borderland filibusters, settlement schemes, or Black emigration projects; and as the capital of the US (between 1790 and 1800) where international boundary lines were debated and negotiated. From Philadelphia, this book also looks at places along the US’s boundaries with Britain and Spain, where many exiles and mobile populations had also settled, to ask how shifting boundaries between empires impacted questions of status such as citizenship, freedom, and exile and conversely, how these questions impacted the changing placement and meaning of these boundaries.

  • SFB 1199/B01: The Respatialization of the World during the Formation of the Global Condition, 1820–1914: The Americas and the French Empire
    Middell, Matthias
    Duration: 01/2020 – 12/2023
    Funded by: DFG Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
    Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Leipzig Research Centre Global Dynamics (ReCentGlobe); Global and European Studies Institute; SFB 1199: Verräumlichungsprozesse unter Globalisierungsbedingungen
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  • Between Reforming the Empire and Nation State Territorialization: The Transatlantic Cycle of Revolution 1770–1830
    Middell, Matthias
    Duration: 01/2016 – 12/2019
    Funded by: DFG Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
    Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Centre for Area Studies; Global and European Studies Institute; SFB 1199: Verräumlichungsprozesse unter Globalisierungsbedingungen
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more projects

  • Maruschke, M. M.
    Spatial Frameworks of Comparison: Planning Western India’s Free Ports and Free Trade Zones, 1830s–1980s
    Global Intellectual History. 2023. 8 (6). pp. 868–889.
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  • Maruschke, M. M.; Covo, M.
    The French Revolution as an Imperial Revolution
    French Historical Studies. 2021. 44 (3). pp. 371–397.
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  • Maruschke, M. M.
    The French Revolution and the New Spatial Format for Empire
    French Historical Studies. 2021. 44 (3). pp. 499–528.
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  • Maruschke, M. M.
    Portals of Globalization: Repositioning Mumbai’s Ports and Zones, 1833-2014
    Berlin: De Gruyter. 2019.
    show details
  • Maruschke, M. M.
    Zones of Reterritorialization: India’s Free Trade Zones in Comparative Perspective, 1947 to the 1980s
    Journal of Global History . 2017. 12 (3). pp. 410–432.
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more publications

  • The Early Age of Revolutions (1776-1804) in Global History and Global Studies

    Winter 2019/2020

  • Portals of Globalization: A Perspective in Global History

    Winter 2018/2019; Winter 2017/2018

  • Portals of Globalization: Histories of Places and People that Provincialize Europe

    with Katja Naumann and Geert Castryck; Winter 2016/2017

  • Portals of Globalization: Examples from India

    Summer 2016

  • Transregional Transport: Ports, Enclaves, and Trade Agreements

    Winter School, 2015

  • Entangled Spaces of the Global Economy: Export Processing Zones in Asia

    Summer 2015; Winter 2014/2015; Summer 2014; Summer 2013

Research fields

History, US, Global studies

Specializations

Border Studies seit dem 18. Jahrhundert Migration und Flüchtlingsgeschichte (Frei-)Häfen; Sonderwirtschaftszonen (19.–21. Jahrhundert) Globalgeschichte Transimperiale Geschichte (insb. Frankreichs und Nordamerikas) Zeitalter der Revolutionen (1770s-1830s)

Contact for media inquiries

Phone: +49 341 97-30235