Dr David Motadel is awarded German Historical Institute for his PhD thesis.
A Gates alumnus has been awarded two prestigious prizes for his doctoral dissertation on Germany’s policy towards Islam during the 1940s.
Dr David Motadel [2006], who is a Research Fellow in History at Gonville and Caius College, was awarded the 2011 Prize of the German Historical Institute.
The Prize is awarded annually for an outstanding PhD thesis on German history (submitted to a British or Irish university), British history (submitted to a German university), Anglo-German relations, or an Anglo-German comparative topic. The Prize, worth 1,000 Euros, will be presented at the Institute’s Annual Lecture on 11 November 2011.
Earlier this year, he was awarded the 2011 Prize of the British International History Group for his doctoral dissertation ‘Germany’s Policy towards Islam, 1941-1945’, completed in 2010.
The Prize of the British International History Group is awarded annually to the best doctoral thesis on any aspect and any period of International History which has been awarded a degree by a British University or a British University College or College of Higher Education during the calendar year.
The prize is worth £300 and Dr Motadel has been invited to present a paper on an aspect of his thesis to the Group’s annual conference next year.
Dr Motadel works on nineteenth and twentieth century international and imperial history. His current research projects deal with the European tours of Qajar shahs in the era of high imperialism; Islam and empire; and Muslim mobilisation during the world wars. His research has brought him to more than thirty archives on three continents. His articles were published or are forthcoming in a number of academic journals, including Past & Present,The Journal of Contemporary History,The Historical JournalandIranian Studies.
In addition, he regularly writes on history and international affairs for newspapers and magazines, including The Times Literary Supplement,Der SpiegelandLe Monde Diplomatique. From 2005 to 2010, he also acted as an advisor on Middle East affairs forDer Spiegel.
He studied history at the University of Freiburg (2002-5) and completed his MPhil (2006)and PhD (2010) in history at the University of Cambridge, where he was a Gates Scholar. This is not his first prize. He was awarded the 2007 Essay Prize of the German History Society and the Royal Historical Society. He held research fellowships at Harvard (2007-8) and Yale (2009-2010).
