Flagler Guest Professor Nicolas B. Miller

We welcome Prof. Dr. Nicholas B. Miller to the Philosophical Faculty of Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg as the Flagler Guest Professor for Winter Term 2025/2026.

During his stay in Würzburg, Professor Miller will work on a book offering a global history of the rise of Hawai‘i’s plantation economy in the nineteenth century, linking Indigenous state-building with European migration and trans-imperial knowledge networks. Bridging accounts that foreground Indigenous agency in the making of a modern state with labor-focused histories of plantation development, the book examines policy debates over depopulation, immigration, and capitalist agriculture; traces overlooked policy transfers between Hawai‘i, Europe, and European-ruled colonies; and analyzes scientific collaborations brokered by European experts. It also highlights the central role of European labor migration in the demographic transformation of the archipelago in the 1880s. Moving beyond US missionary-centered narratives, the study situates Hawai‘i at the crossroads of Indigenous leadership, European expertise, and inter-imperial exchange, reframing the kingdom as a pivotal site in the comparative history of nineteenth-century plantations, colonialism, and global science.

In connection with his research, Professor Miller will also teach a course in American Studies on Hawaii.

Professor Miller’s work and perspectives will be featured in two public formats that the JMU and wider Würzburg communities are warmly invited to:

"Knowing the Plantation: Global Forms, Local Variations and the Elasticity of Exploitation." A guest lecture organized by the American Studies Würzburg (AmWü) and Environmental Humanities (EH) Würzburg on Monday, 3 November 2025, 16:15–17:45 in Room (ÜR) 15 of the Philosophy Building, Hubland Campus. The presentation and discussion will be in English. The event is free of charge.

Additionally, Professor Miller will be joining Professor Philipp Gassert (Contemporary and Transatlantic History – University Mannheim), Professor Heike Schäfer (North American Literature and Culture – Goethe-Universität Frankfurt), and moderator Professor Catrin Gersdorf (JMU Chair of American Studies) for a panel discussion on "Freiheit? Über den Zustand der Demokratie in America" on Monday, 17 November 2025, 19:15–20:45 in the Practice Rooms (Proberäume) of the Dommusik Würzburg (Am Brüderhof 1, 97070 Würzburg). The panel discussion is organized by American Studies Würzburg (AmWü) in cooperation with the Domschule Würzburg as well as the Kolleg Moderne und Gegenwart (KMG) at JMU. The panel discussion will be in German. The event is free of charge.

Professional Biography

Prof. Dr. Nicholas B. Miller earned his Ph.D. in History at Universität Potsdam as a Marie Curie Doctoral Fellow, following an M.St. in History at Oxford University and a B.A. in History at Durham University.

A transnational historian of Europe and the Pacific, Miller has contributed widely to the fields of intellectual history of the European Enlightenment and the social and political history of plantations in the nineteenth century. He is the author of John Millar and the Scottish Enlightenment: Family Life and World History (Oxford, 2017) and co-editor of three volumes, including, most recently, Plantation Knowledge: Agricultural Colonization, Exploitation, and Exchange Since 1500 (Albany, 2025).

Miller has taught a wide range of history courses at Flagler College, including on migration, early modern empires, the Enlightenment, the Age of Revolutions, colonialism and imperialism, the history of Portugal, and Britain and the world.

Prior to his appointment to the faculty at Flagler College in 2020, he was a researcher at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen and the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon. From 2021 to 2023, he held a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Universität zu Köln.