CV
Education
2015 – 2019
PhD at the Chair of History of the Modern World, Institute of History, ETH Zürich, supervised by Prof. Dr. Harald Fischer-Tiné
Thesis: Soldiers, Sikhs and Scientists: Localizing Modernity at Khalsa College, Amritsar, c. 1890-1950
2012-14
Master of Arts in history and science of religion, University of Bern
2008 – 2012
Bachelor of Arts in history and science of religion, University of Bern
Positions
since 2021
Postdoctoral research fellow in the scientific management of the Centre for Religion and Modernity
2020–2021
Early Postdoc Mobility fellow of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) und visiting scholar at Tufts University, Medford/Boston
2018, 2019–2020
Scientific employee, Swiss National Museum, Zürich, and Cantonal Museum Aargau, Lenzburg
2015–2019
Research associate, Chair of History of the Modern World, Institute of History, ETH ZürichResearch areas
Research areas
- Global history
- Global history of religion
- Colonial history, 19th & 20th century
- History of South Asia, 19th & 20th century
- Colonialism and mission
- Sikhism and Punjab, 19th & 20th century
Research project
Protestant Internationalism, American mission, and Asian Christianity between Imperialism and Decolonization, ca. 1920-1950
M. Brunner currently works on Protestant Internationalism, American missionaries, and Asian Christianity, ca. 1920-1950. His research project looks at the shape, structure and effects of an American-dominated internationalist and missionary network in a late colonial period as well as the agency and strategies of Asian participants in a milieu that was significantly shaped by processes of secularization, indigenization, and decolonization.
The interwar era (1918-1939) was characterized by numerous internationalist endeavors that also showed in the religious sphere, such as in numerous (inter)religious conferences. At the same time, US missionaries and Protestant internationalists increased their engagement in Asia in the first half of the 20th century and launched in countries like India, Japan, and China, cooperative, often considerably ‘secular’ schemes. This drew from a missiology that had departed from reaching its goals not necessarily through a conversion of religious convictions but rather through an improvement of economic and social conditions in non-Christian societies. Simultaneously, Asian Christians in the 1920s and 1930s had to navigate between efforts to decouple Asian Christianity from its missionary roots and the uncertainties of fundamental political, social and economic transformations in their respective societies.
As the analytical focal point of the study figures the International Missionary Council and especially its world missionary conference held in 1928 in Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, Protestant internationalists from diverse countries met, and the Council proved to be a crucial platform for the development and negotiation of global and local schemes in areas such as education, social work, rural improvement, or peace work.
Publications
Monograph
Brunner, Michael Philipp, Education and Modernity in Colonial Punjab. Khalsa College, the Sikh Tradition and the Webs of Knowledge, 1880-1947 (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).
Articles
Brunner, Michael Philipp, ‘Diverging in Peace: (Inter)Religious Internationalism, Interwar Pacifism, and a World Conference that Never Happened,’ Journal of World History 34:4 (2023): 585–615. doi: https://doi.org/10.1353/jwh.2023.a912771.
Brunner, Michael Philipp, ‘Schooling the Subcontinent: State, Space and Society, and the Dynamics of Education in Colonial South Asia,’ in Routledge Handbook of the History of Colonialism in South Asia, edited by Harald Fischer-Tiné and Maria Framke (London: Routledge, 2021), 252–265.
Brunner, Michael Philipp, ‘From converts to cooperation: Protestant internationalism, US missionaries and Indian Christians and ‘Professional’ social work between Boston and Bombay (c. 1920–1950),’ Journal of Global History 16:3 (2021): 1–20. doi: 10.1017/s1740022821000103.
Brunner, Michael Philipp, ‘Teaching development: Debates on ‘scientific agriculture’ and ‘rural reconstruction’ at Khalsa College, Amritsar, c. 1915–47,’ Indian Economic and Social History Review 55:1 (2018): 77–132. doi: 10.1177/0019464617745924.
Brunner, Michael Philipp, ‘Manly Sikhs and Loyal Citizens: Physical Education and Sport in Khalsa College, Amritsar, 1914-47,’ South Asia: Journal of South Asia Studies 41:1 (2018): 33–50. doi: 10.1080/00856401.2018.1389235.
Book reviews
Brunner, Michael Philipp, Review of: Roger D. Long and Ian Talbot (eds.), India and World War I, A Centennial Assessment (New York: Routledge, 2018, in: H-Soz-Kult, 2019.
Brunner, Michael Philipp, Review of: Mark Condos, The Insecurity State: Punjab and the Making of Colonial Power in British India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2017)’ in: Reviews in History, 2018.
Brunner, Michael Philipp, Review of: Elija Horn, Indien als Erzieher. Orientalismus in der deutschen Reformpädagogik und Jugendbewegung 1918-1932 (Bad Heilbrunn: Julius Klinkhardt, 2018), in: H-Soz-Kult, 2018.
Brunner, Michael Philipp, Review of: Ute Schüren, Daniel Marc Segesser und Thomas Späth (ed.), Globalized Antiquity. Uses and Perceptions of the Past in South Asia, Mesoamerica, and Europe (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 2015), in: Internationales Asienforum 47, Nr. 1-2 (2016): 129–132.
Other contributions
Brunner, Michael Philipp, Report of: »Transcending Boundaries. The Religious, the Secular, and Negotiations of Cultural Hierarchies in Turn-of-the Century Counter-Cultural Contexts between Europe, Asia, and Africa«, Section at the 51st Deutscher Historikertag, 20-23 September 2016, Hamburg, in: H-Soz-Kult, 2016.
Teaching
Summer semester 2024
Kolonialismus ohne Kolonien: Die Schweiz im Zeitalter der europäischen Expansion, 18.-20. Jahrhundert [Colonialism without colonies: Switzerland in the age of European expansion, 18th-20th century]
Winter semester 2022/23
(Post-)Kolonialismus und globale Religionsgeschichte im 19. u. 20. Jhd. [(Post-Colonialism and global religious history in the 19th and 20th century]
Geschichte der Mission: Zwischen europäischem Kolonialismus und globalem Christentum [History of missions: Between European colonialism and global Christianity]
Summer semester 2022
Religion und Kolonialismus in Britisch-Indien im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert in globaler und lokaler Perspektive [Religion and colonialism in British India in the 19th and 20th century in global and local perspective]