Skip to content
Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino
Visiting Fellowship 2026/27

Laura Meneghello, PhD

PD, University of Siegen, Germany; Lecturer, Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Austria.

Laura Meneghello is currently lecturing in History at Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Austria. Her expertise draws on a combination of history of technology and environmental history, urban history and history of knowledge, history of science and cultural studies. She has written her Habilitation thesis on the transnational history of a local infrastructure, pneumatic mail tubes (ca. 1850 until today) (University of Siegen, 2025). The book will be published by Brill in the series Geschichte der technischen Kultur. In 2026, she held her Habilitation lecture on (post)colonial botanic gardens, 1750-1900. Besides, she edited a special issue on “Visions of Sustainability” for the journal Global Environment. A Journal of Transdisciplinary History (2025). She received a PhD scholarship from the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) and wrote her dissertation at Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen on the transnational history of science (Jacob Moleschott: A Transnational Biography. Science, Politics, and Popularization in Nineteenth-century Europe, transcript 2017). Previously, she had graduated in Philosophy from the University of Venice (BA) and Utrecht University (Research MA). She is particularly interested in historical futures, moral economies and visions of sustainability, as well as cultures of translation and travelling knowledge in the history of science and technology. Together with colleagues from Johannes Kepler University of Linz, she has recently developed an interdisciplinary project on sustainability and outer space. In addition, she has been lecturing and working on the transimperial history of botany, a research strain she will further develop at INZ in Ljubljana.

Statement of interest:

I am developing a new research project on botanic knowledge in the Habsburg Empire and its global entanglements. Through the lens of global, transimperial and entangled history, the project shall focus on the exchanges of scientists with each other and with plant collectors. “Translation” and “travelling knowledge” are used as analytical concepts in order to uncover the multiple processes of transnational and transimperial circulation underlying the making of botanic gardens as imperial spaces. Moreover, the project will enlighten processes of space-making and place-making through knowledge networks as well as through the establishment, changing spatial organization and use of experimental gardens. Specifically, it is asked how their spatial order entailed the definition of plants, regions and people(s) as “native” or “foreign”, “indigenous” or “exotic”, thus contributing to processes of self-definition, appropriation, demarcation and othering. Concerning the historical sources to be analysed, the project will trace the circulation of knowledge about plants as documented in archival material, publications on botany and the correspondence between botanists. During my research stay at INZ, I will focus on local institutions such as the botanic garden of Ljubljana, established in 1810, and consult collections relating to the botanic garden, in particular local archives and the university library (for both research literature and published sources). At INZ, the project is embedded in the Department of Economic, Social and Environmental History and profits from the exchange with the project Discourses and Practices of the In-Between in the Alpine-Adriatic Region, 1815-1914.

 Selected List of Publications: 

  • Meneghello. Rohrpostnetze: Eine Schicht in der (Medien-)Archäologie der Moderne, 2025 (University of Siegen, Habilitation thesis, to be published with the series Geschichte der technischen Kultur, Brill Schöningh, 2028).
  • Meneghello (Ed.). Special issue “Visions of Sustainability”. Global Environment 18.1 (2025). https://liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/toc/whpge/18/1
  • Meneghello. Imagining Materialist Pasts. Inventing Scientific Tradition in Nineteenth-Century Physiology. Jahrbuch des italienisch-deutschen historischen Instituts in Trient 50.1 (2024): 117-143.
  • Meneghello. Innovation durch Technik? Rohrpostsysteme als Medientechnologien der Verwaltung im 20. Jahrhundert. Administory 6 (2021): 131-150. https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/adhi-2022-0003
  • Meneghello. Jacob Moleschott: A Transnational Biography. Science, Politics, and Popularization in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag 2017, 488 pages (Dissertation, JLU Giessen, 2016).