This paper addresses the German Maritime Museum/ Leibniz-Institute for Maritime History which represents all the major research hubs for Maritime History in Germany. It is responsible for formulating a research program connecting the sea with recent major trends in historical research. For some years now it has undertaken a major shift from purely technologically orientated ships' histories to a more general perspective on humankind and its relation to the sea. In my lecture I would like to bring into discussion how this shift can contribute to a more general and fundamental re-positioning of the sea in historical analysis.

Speaker:

Professor Dr Ruth Schilling has been the managing director of the German Maritime Museum since 2022. She started working there in 2014 as a Chief Curator and as Research, as well as Exhibition, Director. Before that, she built up a research profile in early modern history. From 2012-2014, she worked as a senior researcher at the Institute for the History of Medicine at the Charité-University Medicine (Berlin) as well as a research associate at the Institute for Early Modern History at the Humboldt-University (Berlin). She has also been a visiting fellow at the German Historical Institute in Paris as well as Trinity Hall (Cambridge, UK).