Olivia Durand
Olivia Durand is a historian of the nineteenth century and global history, working in the field of comparative settler studies. Her previous research partakes in the wider history of settler colonialism and diaspora studies in the long nineteenth century, by setting New Orleans and Odessa in the context of the wider historiography on booming settler cities. Durand is a recipient of the joint fellowship program between FU Berlin and St Petersburg State University. Durand has a DPhil in Global and Imperial History from the University of Oxford (Pembroke College), where she remains a postdoctoral associate.
She is the co-founder and director of Uncomfortable Oxford, a public engagement with research organization, which has been running public lectures, walking tours, workshops, and publishing podcasts and articles since 2018, with international partnerships in New York and Kolkata.
Durand is also on the steering committee of the 'Colonial Ports and Global History' (CPAGH) interdisciplinary research network, as well as a researcher for the Institute of Historical Justice and Reconciliation (Contested Histories), and a convener of the Oxford-based Transnational and Global History Seminar. She is an alumna of the Fulbright Program (2015-2016).
