Professor of Transnational History – KU Leuven

Research

• Migration History
• History of the Cold War
• Historical Culture in Central and Eastern Europe

Short Bio

Idesbald Goddeeris is a Slavist and a historian. He teaches courses on colonial history, history of Poland, and history of India, and is also Director of the History Program. His research mainly focuses on the relationship of our society with other cultures and political regimes. He particularly examines this by means of the history of migration, European identities, transnational social movements, East-West and North-South contacts, communist secret services during the Cold War, development aid, and postcolonial memories. He was a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics (2009) and the University of Pennsylvania (2014), and recently also lectured at the universities of, inter alia, Delhi, Mumbai, Kinshasa, Krakow, Irkutsk and Kolkata. He is also senior member of the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, where he coordinates the Leuven India Focus, and is an Expert in the Commission ‘History and Archaeology’ at the Foundation for Scientific Research (FWO-Vlaanderen).