The first trilateral edition of a longstanding academic exchange

As the Spring 2025 semester drew to a close, the History Department at the University of Notre Dame hosted the Transatlantic Workshop by welcoming professors, postdoctoral researchers, PhD candidates, and graduate students from institutional counterparts in Germany and Ukraine. Generous funding from the Nanovic Institute and the History Department made the workshop possible. While the workshop follows a tradition of academic exchange with Bielefeld University since 2010, this year’s iteration welcomed, for the first time, participants from the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in Lviv. All of this to promote academic exchange and professional networking between Notre Dame’s sister institutions, organized by Professor Alexander Martin and his Bielefeld colleagues, Bettina Brandt and Professor Frank Grüner.

Beneficial interdisciplinary dialogue between peers

Over the course of four days, from May 2 to May 5, thirteen PhD candidates and graduate students from all three universities presented and workshopped research papers within seven sessions, including two lectures on current research projects by Professor Volodymyr Sklokin (UCU) and postdoctoral researcher Gion Wallmeyer (Bielefeld). Topics ranged from ancient and medieval histories to contemporary history, shedding new light on actors and historical events from the Roman and Hellenistic empires, Eastern European borderlands, and historical processes in the Americas from the early colonial period to the 20^th century. By employing diverse analytical lenses from various fields, such as environmental, gender, religious, and borderlands history, as well as perspectives from law, warfare, the arts, and violence studies, participants’ papers provided each other with a fruitful space to give and receive feedback. The resulting thematical variety encompassed research projects on the socio-political status of an ethnographer in late antiquity, on similarities between Basilian iconographies and their devout in eighteenth century Ruthenia, as well as on the role of the kudzu vine in the US state of Georgia, from a profitable soil-rescuing and aesthetic plant to an invasive non-indigenous weed in the mid twentieth century.

The subject-specific depth and thematic range of the contributions discussed, as well as the dialogue between three academic cultures and different disciplinary approaches, was perceived by the participants as very beneficial for their work, as Nataliia Fedyshyn, a PhD candidate in History at UCU summarized: “The workshop offered a valuable opportunity to reflect on how my research, rooted in Ukrainian material, resonates within broader historiographical and methodological discussions. It was especially helpful to hear feedback on the clarity of my research question and the relevance of my methodological approach from colleagues with diverse academic backgrounds.”

In particular, the underlying idea of the workshop format—dedicating a whole session to each participant’s research and having a designated discussant open the dialogue with individuals providing perspectives from different academic career levels—ensured a constructive working atmosphere, which both organizers and participants perceived as mutually beneficial. Additionally, Marthe Becker, a PhD candidate at Bielefeld and participant of previous Transatlantic Workshops, felt that the extension of this year’s edition to three universities was an enriching asset. Marirose Osborne, a rising second-year PhD student at Notre Dame, also agreed with this, adding: “It gave me an opportunity to learn a lot—both about advanced degree programs in Germany and Ukraine, and about life as an advanced PhD student at Notre Dame.”

Beyond the program and scheduled activities, the visiting participants had the opportunity to engage with Notre-Dame-based scholars in their respective fields and gain insight into the US university system and life on campus by conversing with their peers between workshop sessions. These discussions were facilitated by time away from a strictly academic setting during lunch at the South and North dining halls on campus, as well as during a guided tour where participants were introduced to Notre Dame’s history by the current Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of History, Alex Martin.

Exploring new sites and learning about the global within local history

As part of the workshop experience, participants had the opportunity to take a day trip to Chicago, allowing them to gain insights into the Midwest’s geographic and environmental characteristics, as well as its historical development from the onset of French and British colonization. They learned about Chicago’s rapid ascent as a juncture of national commodity transport flows between the East and West coasts during the nineteenth century, and the role of industrial growth and decline in key cities like Gary and South Bend. In Chicago, the participants visited one of

Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic houses, currently located within the University of Chicago Campus, a milestone in global architectural history. The participants traced the city’s status as an international hub for urban development from above, admiring the skyline and the shores of Lake Michigan from the Hancock Tower in downtown Chicago. The tour concluded with a meal at a local restaurant and a short stroll through Millennium Park.

The 2025 edition of the Transatlantic Workshop ended with a visit to South Bend’s The History Museum and the Oliver Mansion, where participants learned about the lifestyle of the city’s industrial aristocracy dating to the late 19^th century. Many students found this introduction to South Bend’s local history instructive for their understanding of the city’s development beyond the Notre Dame campus. For example, Wenzheng Fang, a PhD candidate at Notre Dame, said about the experience of learning about South Bend’s history: “Having been to the Bielefeld side of the workshop, I did not expect the experience of the workshop in my home department to match the excitement of visiting another country, but it did!...I also, surprisingly, got more interested in the local history of The Oliver Plow Works as an agricultural historian through our well-organized excursion!”

The workshop concluded with many heartfelt and collegial goodbyes with local Irish food, music, and conversation at Fiddler’s Hearth in downtown South Bend. This included a productive exchange of ideas, feedback, and networking among graduate students from Bielefeld, Lviv, and Notre Dame, fostering professional relationships among historians at different stages of their academic careers. Many participants expressed in their reflections how they will carry forward what they learned at the workshop as they complete their studies in the coming years, especially as it served as an instructive experience for younger academics on what it takes to set up functional international cooperation with colleagues from around the world.

Originally published by Jakob Krusche and Victoria Basulto at history.nd.edu on June 16, 2025.