Prof Idesbald Goddeeris

Idesbald Goddeeris is a Slavist and a historian. He teaches courses on colonial history, history of Poland, and history of India, and is also Director of the History Program. His research mainly focuses on the relationship of our society with other cultures and political regimes. He particularly examines this by means of the history of migration, European identities, transnational social movements, East-West and North-South contacts, communist secret services during the Cold War, development aid, and postcolonial memories. He was a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics (2009) and the University of Pennsylvania (2014), and is also senior member of the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies and an Expert in the Commission ‘History and Archaeology’ at the Foundation for Scientific Research (FWO-Vlaanderen). He has published extensively on Western solidarity with Solidarność, on Solidarność’s lobbying abroad, and on Solidarność’s connections with other transnational movements.