Using research carried out at the Historical Archives of the European Union, Vibeke Sørensen Grant recipient Marie-Gabrielle Verbergt takes a look at how European institutions have shaped European historiography.
How does Europe represent its past?
Marie-Gabrielle Verbergt, a PhD candidate in history at Ghent University, has taken on this question in her dissertation project Sponsoring a European historical culture: Representations of the past promoted by the European Union, 1970-today.
More specifically, Marie-Gabrielle is examining what EU funding for historical projects in the past reveals about how people have thought about the value of historical research for European integration and society at large, how decisions about “good” and “bad” research have changed over time, and what kinds of historical topics and themes have been promoted above others.
To inform her research, this summer she spent five weeks at the EUI’s Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU), supported by a Vibeke Sørensen grant, one of the post-graduate research grants the HAEU offers to early career scholars.
The HAEU holds the archives of all EU institutions, such as the European Parliament and the European Commission, but also of several European organisations and movements.
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