Dr. John Freeman (Cambridge)
IFZO Fellow
Topic: "Colonial Space and Transformations: Baltic Interpretations of the Early Modern Atlantic"
Email: jf492[at]cam.ac.uk
John Freeman is a visiting IFZO fellow at the University of Greifswald, working in the Shared Heritage cluster of the Fragmented Transformations research programme. He is a historian of Baltic Sea connections and entanglements with early modern Atlantic colonialism. In Greifswald, John is pursuing a project entitled ‘Colonial Space and Transformations: Baltic Interpretations’, investigating the varied interpretations of Baltic colonial involvement in historiography and public discourse in different parts of the region. The project follows on from the doctoral thesis ‘The Duchy of Courland’s Colonial Networks and Encounters from the Baltic to the Atlantic: 1638-1698’ completed at the University of Cambridge in 2022. In addition to his studies John has also worked as a research assistant on the Baltic programme at the Centre for Geopolitics, Cambridge and is the co-convener of the recently re-launched Baltic States Studies Group supported by the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies.