Benjamin Martin
Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor at Department of History of Science and Ideas
- Telephone:
- +46 72 999 96 84
- E-mail:
- benjamin.martin@idehist.uu.se
- Visiting address:
- Engelska parken, Thunbergsvägen 3P
- Postal address:
- Box 629
751 26 UPPSALA
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Short presentation
An American-born and trained historian of twentieth-century Europe, I am senior lecturer (associate professor) in Uppsala's Department of History of Science and Ideas. My current research, financed by the Swedish Research Council, uses digital text analysis to explore the development of "international ideas" at UNESCO, 1945-2015.
Earlier work includes the book The Nazi-Fascist New Order for European Culture, published by Harvard in 2016.
More on me and my work at: benjamingmartin.com
Biography
A graduate of Columbia University (PhD, 2006), Benjamin Martin is a historian of twentieth-century international cultural relations. He is the author of The Nazi-Fascist New Order for European Culture (Harvard University Press, 2016), a study of how the German-Italian Axis sought to create a "New Order" in European cultural life in the late 1930s and during WWII. His current research, pursued in close collaboration with Humlab at Umeå University, uses methods from the digital humanities to explore the political and intellectual history of the role of culture in international relations: first in a project exploring the history of bilateral cultural agreements, and now in a project on the development of "international ideas" at UNESCO.
At Uppsala University, Martin is senior lecturer (associate professor) in the Department of History of Science and Ideas, where he teaches several courses in intellectual and cultural history, including co-teaching a course on narrative and the uses of history. From 2010 to early 2017 he was director of the Euroculture Program, an Erasmus Mundus MA program in European studies, where he led the planning of Euroculture’s 2014 summer Intensive Program, which linked European studies to the environmental humanities through a week-long program on “How a New Climate is Changing the Old World.” Martin was likewise involved in the undergraduate Liberal Arts Program at Uppsala’s Campus Gotland, where he helped develop (and co-taught) the course "Människan och miljön" ("Humans and the environment").
Martin has presented on culture and politics in non-academic contexts, including presentations on Italian futurism at SFMOMA, on fascism and intellectuals at the Bard Music Festival, and in historical presentations for the cast and crew of Uppsala Stadsteater's productions of Sound of Music (2012) and Cabaret (2014), for which he also wrote program notes.
Prior to coming to Uppsala, Martin was Assistant Professor of History at San Francisco State University from 2008 to 2010, where he taught on the political and cultural history of twentieth-century Europe.
Please visit also www.benjamingmartin.com. Some publications and papers are available at Ben Martin’s page at academia.edu.
Research
My current research, financed by the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences, explores how European states' cultural treaties helped create a global concept of culture in the twentieth century.
For more on this and other ongoing projects please visit benjamingmartin.com

Publications
Recent publications
Part of Scandia, p. 137-139, 2024
A Righteous Smokescreen: Postwar America and the Politics of Cultural Globalization. By Sam Lebovic
Part of Journal of American History, p. 183-184, 2024
The Curated UNESCO Courier 1.0: Annotated Corpora for Digital Research in the Global Humanities
Part of JOURNAL OF OPEN HUMANITIES DATA, 2024
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Part of Digital Humanities in the Nordic and Baltic Countries Publications, p. 274-286, 2023
- DOI for Nature and Culture in the Age of Environmental Crisis: Digital Analysis of a Global Debate in The UNESCO Courier, 1948-2020
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Part of International History Review, p. 1327-1346, 2022
- DOI for The Rise of the Cultural Treaty: Diplomatic Agreements and the International Politics of Culture in the Age of Three Worlds
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All publications
Articles in journal
The Curated UNESCO Courier 1.0: Annotated Corpora for Digital Research in the Global Humanities
Part of JOURNAL OF OPEN HUMANITIES DATA, 2024
- DOI for The Curated UNESCO Courier 1.0: Annotated Corpora for Digital Research in the Global Humanities
- Download full text (pdf) of The Curated UNESCO Courier 1.0: Annotated Corpora for Digital Research in the Global Humanities
Part of Digital Humanities in the Nordic and Baltic Countries Publications, p. 274-286, 2023
- DOI for Nature and Culture in the Age of Environmental Crisis: Digital Analysis of a Global Debate in The UNESCO Courier, 1948-2020
- Download full text (pdf) of Nature and Culture in the Age of Environmental Crisis: Digital Analysis of a Global Debate in The UNESCO Courier, 1948-2020
Part of International History Review, p. 1327-1346, 2022
- DOI for The Rise of the Cultural Treaty: Diplomatic Agreements and the International Politics of Culture in the Age of Three Worlds
- Download full text (pdf) of The Rise of the Cultural Treaty: Diplomatic Agreements and the International Politics of Culture in the Age of Three Worlds
Cultural Diplomacy and Europe's Twenty Years' Crisis, 1919-1939: Introduction
Part of Contemporary European History, p. 149-163, 2021
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The Birth of the Cultural Treaty in Europe's Age of Crisis
Part of Contemporary European History, p. 301-317, 2021
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International legal cooperation in the Nazi-fascist New Order
Part of International Politics, p. 870-887, 2018
Zarah Leander and the Dream of a (Nazi) European Cinema
Part of International Association for Media and History, blog, 2017
‘European culture’ is an invented tradition
Part of Aeon (online), 2017
Part of Journal of contemporary history, p. 486-508, 2013
Books
The Nazi-Fascist New Order for European Culture
Harvard University Press, 2016
Chapters in book
Part of Intellectual Collaboration with the Third Reich, p. 37-54, Routledge, 2019
Fascist Italy’s Illiberal Cultural Networks: Culture, Corporatism and International Relations
Part of Genealogie e geografie dell’anti-democrazia nella crisi europea degli anni Trenta, p. 137-158, Edizioni Ca'Foscari: Filologie medievali e moderne, 2019
- DOI for Fascist Italy’s Illiberal Cultural Networks: Culture, Corporatism and International Relations
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Svensk film i Hitlers Europa: Nationell filmindustri och internationella nätverk
Part of De intellektuellas förräderi?, Arkiv förlag & tidskrift, 2016
‘European Cinema for Europe!’ The International Film Chamber, 1935-42
Part of Cinema and the Swastika , p. 25-41, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011
Part of Donatello Among the Blackshirts, p. 187-202, Cornell University Press, 2005
Conference papers
Keeping it Simple: Word Trend Analysis for the Intellectual History of International Relations
Part of Proceedings of the Digital Humanities in the Nordic Countries 5th Conference: Riga, Latvia, October 21-23, 2020, 2020
2018
2017
2017
Fascist Italy’s Illiberal Cultural Networks: Culture, Corporatism and International Relations
2017
Sveriges plats i Hitlers kulturella ’Neuordnung’
2017
2017
Fascist Italy’s ‘Soft Power’ in a Latin Perspective
2017
Manuscripts (preprints)
Other
Part of Scandia, p. 137-139, 2024
A Righteous Smokescreen: Postwar America and the Politics of Cultural Globalization. By Sam Lebovic
Part of Journal of American History, p. 183-184, 2024
Part of Journal of Modern Italian Studies, p. 231-234, 2021
[Review of:] Culture in Nazi Germany / Michael H. Kater
Part of German History, p. 158-160, 2020
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Part of American Historical Review, p. 1700-1701, 2017
Alessio Ponzio. Shaping the New Man: Youth Training Regimes in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany
Part of American Historical Review, p. 1700-1701, 2017
2014