Verena Krebs

German historian

University of Konstanz
University of York
Mekelle University

Academic workNotable worksMedieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe

Verena Krebs FRHistS (born 1984 in Marburg) is a German historian who specialises in medieval European and African history. She was appointed a professor at the Historical Institute of the University of Bochum in 2017.

Research

Krebs' first monograph, "Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe", received widespread attention upon its publication in 2021 and was very positively reviewed in both academic journals (including by Peter Brown and David Abulafia)^[1]^[2] and popular media (BBC History Podcast, Smithsonian Magazine, Al Jazeera China).^[3]^[4]^[5]

Education and career

Krebs studied at the University of Konstanz and graduated with a Master of Arts in History in 2010. In 2014, she was awarded a bi-national doctorate in Medieval History by the University of Konstanz, Germany, and Mekelle University, Ethiopia, for her PhD research on the medieval history of Solomonic Ethiopia, citing Ethiopian historian Taddesse Tamrat as a significant influence on her research.^[6] She was a postdoctoral research fellow of the Martin Buber Society in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 2014 to 2017^[7] before being appointed to a non-permanent professorship (Juniorprofessur) at the University of Bochum in 2017.

In 2021, Krebs was named a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS). In March 2022, she was awarded the Dan David Prize, which "recognizes outstanding scholarship that illuminates the past and seeks to anchor public discourse in a deeper understanding of history" for “overturning traditional narratives of African-European relations and cultural exchange, and painting a vivid picture of the role of art, artisans and relics in state-building and diplomacy in medieval Ethiopia”.^[8]^[9]^[10]

Krebs is spending the academic year 2022/23 as a Member of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.^[11]

Works

"Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe", Palgrave Macmillian 2021. ISBN 978-3-030-64934-0
"Windows onto the world: culture contact and western Christian art in Ethiopia, 1402–1543." PhD thesis, University of Konstanz: KOPS – The Institutional Repository of the University of Konstanz, 2014.

References

^ Brown, Peter (2021-07-10). "The Glories of Aksum". The New York Review of Books.
^ Abulafia, David (2022). "Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe". Al-Masāq. 34: 93–95. doi:10.1080/09503110.2022.2049037. S2CID 247826901.
^ "Medieval Ethiopia's diplomatic missions".
^ "A New History Changes the Balance of Power Between Ethiopia and Medieval Europe".
^ "改变中世纪埃塞俄比亚与欧洲力量平衡的新历史" [A new history that changed the balance of power between medieval Ethiopia and Europe]. Al Jazeera (in Chinese). July 5, 2021.
^ "የዓለማችን ከፍተኛ የታሪክ ሽልማት ያገኙት ጀርመናዊት ተመራማሪ" [The German researcher who won the world's highest history award]. Deutsche Welle (in Amharic). 17 March 2022.
^ "Verena Krebs".
^ "Verena Krebs". March 2022.
^ "Verena Krebs erhält den Dan David Prize".
^ "Q&A with Verena Krebs".
^ "IAS Scholars — Verena Krebs, Gerda Henkel Stiftung Member".