Presentation of the new CES-Fellows:

This Wednesday, October 29, 2025, the two new fellows at the Centre for Empire Studies, Hayley Roy and Mario Graña Taborelli, will give a lecture on their current research project as part of the Modern and Contemporary History Colloquium. The lectures will begin at 6:15 p.m. in Room F3 (Fürstenberghaus, Domplatz 20-22). Both speakers will present in English.

The two lectures are briefly presented below:

Hayley Roy (Emory University (USA))
"Networks of Nurses: Debating Nursing Practice in the German Overseas Empire, 1890 - 1907"

What is the role of nursing in German colonialism, and what is the role of colonialism in the development of the nursing occupation in Germany? This presentation sets the groundwork for answering these questions by outlining the activities of nurses working in German overseas territories around 1900. It begins with a brief history and overview of the historiography of nursing in German history, then discusses how the colonial project made secular nursing not only possible, but encouraged, which marks a significant and understudied departure from this tradition. Women’s presence in overseas territories did not go uncontested. The talk will explain tensions and debates about the role of the nurse that resulted in a more professionalized version of nursing in the colonies than would have been possible in Germany proper at that time.


Mario Graña Taborelli (UCL (London))
"Building Political Density, "Equipping the Land": Entangled Jurisdictions, Political Cultures, and Law in the Construction of a Frontier in the Early Modern Iberian Worlds"

Mario Graña Taborelli’s presentation is a review of his ongoing research on the political construction of a frontier space of the Early Modern Iberian Worlds. It suggests a periodisation for the process of territorialisation of the borderlands of the east of Charcas (colonial Bolivia) in the sixteenth century, exploring key concepts, and the vocabulary that reflects such process. It also informs of the findings in this research so far and of potential directions of this research moving forward. Finally, it discusses the idea of frontiers.