University of Heidelberg

Contact information

Karl Jaspers Centre,
Voßstraße 2, Building 4400
Room 020
69115 Heidelberg
Germany

Email:

meurer@asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de

Phone:

+49 (0) 6221 54 4323

Fax:

+49 (0) 6221 54 4012

About Sebastian Meurer

Dissertation Project (ongoing) 

The Language of Administrative Reform in the British Empire, 1780-1830

Research Interests

European Intellectual History
History of England and the British Empire in the Early Modern Period
History of Historiography
Intellectual History of Public Administration

Projects

• A4 Bureaucracies

Curriculum vitae

Since March 2012: Coordinator for Research A: "Governance and Administration"

Since October 2008:  Research Associate within Project A4: “The Fascination of Efficiency. Migrating Ideas and Emerging Bureaucracies in Europe and Asia since the Early Modern Era” of the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” in Heidelberg.

March/April 2012: Research Scholarship at the German Historical Institute London

Winter Term 2009/10:  Lectureship at the Pädagogische Hochschule (University of Education), Heidelberg. Seminar on the "Invention of the State" in Early Modern Europe

1999-2008:  Studies in History, Religious Studies and Auxiliary Sciences of History at Heidelberg University. Degree: Magister Artium. Master Thesis on “The Idea of a German Origin of Englishmen from the Reformation to the American Revolution” (in German).

2005-2008:  Student Assistant and Tutor at the Department of History, Chair of Early Modern History (Prof. Dr. Thomas Maissen)

March 2003-April 2004:  International Student at the University of Vienna

March 2003 – January 2004:  Student Assistant at the Dokumentationsarchiv des Österreichischen Widerstands (Archive for the Austrian Resistance), Vienna

1998:  Abitur at Gymnasium Philippinum, Marburg

Selected publications

• Die Abdankung Oliver Cromwells in James Harringtons ‚The Commonwealth of Oceana‘ – Konstruktion eines kontrollierten Verfassungswechsels im England des Interregnums, in: Susan Richter/Dirk Dirbach (ed.): Thronverzicht. Die Abdankung in Monarchien vom Mittelalter bis in die Neuzeit, Böhlau-Verlag Köln/Weimar/Wien 2010, p. 175-190.
• „Grade die Begabungen, die für viele Hochschulberufe nötig sind, besitzen die Juden als Rasse im höchsten Maße.“ – Gerta von Ubisch im Kontext von Genetik und Eugenik in Deutschland, in: Zwischen allen Welten. Die Lebenserinnerungen der ersten Heidelberger Professorin Gerta von Ubisch, ed. Susan Richter and Armin Schlechter, with the co-operation of Sebastian Meurer and Michael Roth, Ostfildern 2011, p. 251-273.
• with Susan Richter and Michael Roth: Einleitung: Textversionen, Editionskommentar und Ziel der Edition, in: ibid.

Conference Papers:

• At the Junction of Local and Global Conceptions of Government. Fort William (Calcutta) in the 18th Century. Conference: Early Modern State (Building) in Asia and Europe – Comparison, Transfer and Entanglement (Heidelberg, October 26 to 28, 2009)
• Administrative Reform by Principles. The “Cornwallis-System” of Colonial Rule in the British Imperial Context, 1786-93. Conference: Migrating Ideas of Governance and Bureaucracy in Asia and Europe since the Early Modern Era (Tsinghua University Beijing, September 20 to 22, 2010)
• Founding the Commonwealth of Oceana: The Exemplary Logic of James Harrington’s Quasi-Utopian Framework Plot. Conference: Renaissance Society of America - Annual Meeting 2011 (Montreal, March 24-26, 2011)
• Administrative Knowledge and Crisis Management. The Emergence of the First Civil Service in British India. Conference: Asian Association for Public Administration (AAPA), 3rd Annual Conference (Hong Kong, February 10 to 11, 2012)