Christoph Kühberger

Christoph Kühberger, University of Salzburg

The epistemic struggle with the unwritten past – Artefacts, mo' olelo and first written accounts in history lessons in Hawai'i

Hosted by Dr. Patricia Espiritu Halagao and Dr. Amber Strong Makaiau at the Department of Curriculum Studies (CS) from February 2, 2023 to July 30, 2023.

Academic Background:

Christoph is Full-Professor for History Education and Civic Education at the Department of History and Head of Department, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Salzburg (Austria).

He holds a Master of History, Italian Studies and Pedagogy (1998) and a PhD of New Cultural History and Gender History (2003) both from the University of Salzburg. He earned with his second book, which is formally accepted as “Habilitation” (2009), a venia docendi for teaching the 19th to the 21st century and for History Education at the Department of History at the University of Hildesheim (Germany).

Research interests:

  • Decolonization of historical thinking
  • Diversity and inclusion in history/social studies classrooms
  • Ethnographical research
  • Digital humanities

Talk-story event: [coming soon…]

Christoph Kühberger

Christoph Kühberger was born and raised in Salzburg, Austria. He will be staying with his wife Claudia in Hawai’i for 6 months. He is deeply interested in the integration of kanaka philosophy into history education, the teaching of Ancient Hawaiian History, and the use of Hawaiian heritage as a source for historical learning.

He is a trained historian and had worked as a high school teacher (grade 5 to 13) before he started his career as researcher in history education. After posts at the University of Salzburg (Austria), the University of Greifswald (Germany) and the University of Hildesheim (Germany), he ended up at the University of Salzburg as Full-Professor for History Education and Civic Education.

About his stay Christoph states: “It is an incredible opportunity here in Hawai’i to explore the dealing with the past in schools. The Pacific is far away from Central Europe and not many Europeans get into contact with issues of native history; but interest and attention are growing – not least because in Austria many artefacts from James Cook’s last voyage are stored in the ‘Weltmuseum’ at Vienna. The questions on how to deal adequately with the past arise again and again. I am particularly interested in how many different forms of historical thinking should be used in history lessons in order to satisfy the demands of a decolonial way of thinking.”

COE Affiliation

Curriculum Studies