Prof. Dr. Nadin Heé

Fellow during the winter term 2020/21

Nadin Heé is Associate Professor (Juniorprofessor) for Global History of Knowledge at the Freie Universität Berlin and at the Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science after a visiting professorship at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin and teaching at Zurich University.

Nadin has a background in Empire Studies and a focus on East Asia, and her critical engagement with postcolonial theory and theories of violence and trans-imperial aspects of colonial history has been published as Imperiales Wissen und koloniale Gewalt. Japans Herrschaft in Taiwan 1895-1945, (Campus Verlag, 2012), which was awarded the JaDe-Prize.

Currently she is interested in global exploration and exploitation of marine resources, particularly from a history of knowledge and environmental historical perspective. She is working on a second monograph that deals with the question how tuna became a global commons.

During Nadin's fellowship at LMU's Global History Center she continues working on this book project in which she follows tuna on three levels, first, as a migratory species, second, tracing how human labor, knowledge production, and resource extraction, and not least imperialism and international politics have been shaped by its migration and environmental factors. Second, she follows tuna and its commodification, such as in form of tinned tuna or sashimi, and thirdly on the level of discourse, mainly, how the fish has been appropriated on an imperial and national level.