Dr. Daniel Allemann
Senior Teaching and Research Fellow (Oberassistent)
Medieval and Renaissance History
T +41 41 229 55 42
daniel.allemann@unilu.ch
Frohburgstrasse 3, Room 3.A13
CV
Daniel Allemann read History and Anglophone Linguistics and Literature at the University of Basel. He subsequently completed the MPhil in Political Thought and Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge, where he received his PhD in 2020 with a thesis on slavery, labor coercion, and imperial rule in the early modern Iberian world. At the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance History in Lucerne, Daniel is developing his second book project (Habilitation), which explores the transfer of secret knowledge between Baghdad and Basel in the later Middle Ages.
In 2016, Daniel was a fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory in Frankfurt. During his studies, he was a student assistant at the Chair of North American and General Literature, an assistant teacher at a high school in Michigan (USA), and worked in the Basel Mission Archives.
Daniel serves as a representative of non-professorial research and teaching staff within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Lucerne.
Research
Research Areas
- Late medieval and early modern global history
- History of political thought
- History of slavery
- Information transfer between the Arabic and the Latin world
- History of the Iberian empires
- History of international law
- History of Switzerland
Research Projects
Current Projects
Daniel’s second book project (Habilitation), provisionally titled «From Baghdad to Basel: Secret Knowledge in the Global Middle Ages», explores the circulation and reception of Islamic ideas of politics, medical science, and secret knowledge between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. A key source base for this research project are German-language manuscript compilations (Sammelhandschriften) in Swiss archives and libraries.
Completed Projects
In his doctoral thesis, entitled «Slavery and Empire in Iberian Scholastic Thought, c. 1539-1682» (Cambridge 2020), Daniel reconstructed Iberian visions of slavery, labor coercion, and imperial rule in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It explored how scholastic theologians, jurists, and missionaries conceived the intricate status of enslaved humans between object and agent, and how debates about slavery shed new light on broader questions about political protection, the interface of inter-individual and vertical power, the boundary between private and public, and early modern race.
Publications
- Allemann, D. S. ‘Empire and the Right to Preach the Gospel in the School of Salamanca, 1535-1560’. The Historical Journal 62, no. 1 (2019): 33–55. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/282777.
- Allemann, D. S., Anton Jäger, and Valentina Mann. ‘Introduction: Approaching Space in Intellectual History’. Global Intellectual History 3, no. 2 (2018): 127–36. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/277501.
- Allemann, Daniel, Jäger, Anton, and Mann, Valentina, eds. Conceptions of Space in Intellectual History. London: Routledge, 2020. https://www.routledge.com/Conceptions-of-Space-in-Intellectual-History-1st-Edition/Allemann-Jager-Mann/p/book/9780367405496.
- Allemann, D. S., Jäger, Anton, and Mann, Valentina, eds. Conceptions of Space in Intellectual History. special issue of Global Intellectual History Vol. 3.2, 2018. https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rgih20/3/2.
- Allemann, Daniel S. ‘Re-Reading Vitoria’. Rechtsgeschichte - Legal History, no. 27 (2 January 2020): 338–40. doi:10.5281/zenodo.3560017.
- Allemann, Daniel S. ‘Eine Genealogie spanischen Rechtsdenkens’. Rechtsgeschichte - Legal History 27 (2019): 308–10. doi:10.5281/zenodo.3560015.
- Allemann, D. S. ‘Review of Brian P. Owensby und Richard J. Ross (eds), Justice in a New World’. Journal of the History of International Law 21, no. 4 (2019): 595–99. doi:10.5281/zenodo.3581166.
- Allemann, D. S. ‘Revisiting the Early History of International Law’. History of European Ideas 44, no. 1 (2018): 143–46. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/280432.
- Allemann, D. S. ‘Intellectual Histories of Empire’. H-Soz-Kult, 2016. doi:10.5281/zenodo.3600453.
- Allemann, D. S., Alicia Mavor, and Anna Becker. Gender and Political Thought – episode of ‘Interventions: The Intellectual History Podcast’, 2019. https://anchor.fm/theihpodcast/episodes/Gender-and-Political-Thought-Dr-Anna-Becker-e3mr32.
- Allemann, D. S., Charlotte Johann, and Annabel S. Brett. Politics, Language, and Nature – episode of ‘Interventions: The Intellectual History Podcast’, 2018. https://anchor.fm/theihpodcast/episodes/Politics--Language--and-Nature-Dr-Annabel-Brett-e2g2lc.
- Allemann, D. S., Eloise Davies, and Valentina Arena. Rome, Liberty, and Rhetoric – episode of ‘Interventions: The Intellectual History Podcast’, 2018. https://anchor.fm/theihpodcast/episodes/Rome--Liberty--and-Rhetoric-Dr-Valentina-Arena-e2g2li.
- Allemann, D. S., Hester van Hensbergen, and Banu Turnaoğlu. Turkish Republicanism – episode of ‘Interventions: The Intellectual History Podcast’, 2018. https://anchor.fm/theihpodcast/episodes/Turkish-Republicanism-Dr-Banu-Turnaolu-e2g2l0.
- Allemann, D. S., Anton Jäger, and Sophie Smith. History and Theories of Politics – episode of ‘Interventions: The Intellectual History Podcast’, 2017. https://anchor.fm/theihpodcast/episodes/History-and-Theories-of-Politics-Prof--Sophie-Smith-e2g2k3.
- Allemann, D. S., Charlotte Johann, and Duncan Bell. Liberalism, Empire, and Utopianism – episode of ‘Interventions: The Intellectual History Podcast’, 2017. https://anchor.fm/theihpodcast/episodes/Liberalism--Empire--and-Utopianism-Dr-Duncan-Bell-e2g2ki.
- Allemann, D. S. Power, Republicanism, and Scholasticism – episode of ‘Interventions: The Intellectual History Podcast’, 2017. https://anchor.fm/theihpodcast/episodes/Power--Republicanism--and-Scholastic-Thought-Dr-Ben-Slingo-e2g2kp.
Achievements
- Distance Learning – Lektionen aus der Pandemie. Podiumsdiskussion, infoclio.ch-Tagung 2021: Out of Office. Mobiles Arbeiten und Geschichtswissenschaften, infoclio.ch, Bern, 2021
- Speaking of Slavery in the Early Modern Iberian World. Lecture, Doktorierenden-Retraite des Historischen Seminars Luzern, Historisches Seminar Luzern, Luzern, 2021
- A Composite Commonwealth: Andean Mining and the Spanish Empire in America. (Panel) contribution, Annual Conference of the Renaissance Society of America, Renaissance Society of America, Virtuell, 2021
- Moriscos rebeldes y Mapuches refractarios: Justificaciones de la esclavitud de Molina a Avendaño. (Panel) contribution, XX Congreso del Instituto Internacional de Historia del Derecho Indiano, Instituto Internacional de Historia del Derecho Indiano, Huelva, 2019
- Punishment, Household Power, and the Body of the Slave. (Panel) contribution, The Body and Politics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, 2019
- Slavery, Marriage, and “Human Rights” in Early Modern Spanish Scholastic Thought. (Panel) contribution, Histories of Human Rights, Università degli Studi di Palermo, Palermo, 2018
- Natural Slavery Revisited: Spanish Scholastic Justifications of Forced Native Labor in Colonial Peru. Lecture, The Changing Frontiers of Political History, Sciences Po Paris, Paris, 2017
- Slavery in the Fractured State of Castile: Luis de Molina on the Morisco Rebellion in Granada. (Panel) contribution, Fractured States in the History of Political Thought, University College London, London, 2017
- Postkoloniale Ideengeschichte: Die Theologen der Spanischen Spätscholastik als imperiale Akteure. (Panel) contribution, Jahrestatung der Basel Graduate School of History, Universität Basel, Basel, 2016
- Slavery and Empire in Early Modern Iberian Thought. Legal Histories beyond the State, Cambridge, 2021
- Sklaverei, Herrschaft und "race" in der iberischen Welt im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert. Forschungskolloquium Geschichte der Frühen Neuzeit, Tübingen, 2021
- Kommentar zu Francisco Cuena Boy: 'El infierno y las buenas intenciones. Derecho de gentes y esclavitud (siglos XVI y XVII).’. Salamanca-Kolloquium, Frankfurt am Main, 2021
- Wohin mit der Ideengeschichte? Kolloquium: Wohin mit der Geschichte? Neue Ansätze in der Geschichtsschreibung, Zürich, 2019
- Slavery, Power, and Human Rights in Spanish Scholastic Thought. Early Career Seminar in the History of Political Ideas, London, 2018
Vested interests
- Graduate Assistant, The Historical Journal, Cambridge University Press, 2018–2020