Irina Saladin

Dr. Irina Saladin serves as a full-time Associate Professor and Academic Councillor for Special Tasks in the Department of Early Modern History at the Institute of History, University of Koblenz, a position she has held since July 2022. Her role encompasses teaching responsibilities and academic advising for history students within the department.

Her scholarly foundation stems from her doctoral research at Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, where she defended her dissertation "Maps and Mission: The Jesuit Construction of the Amazon Region in the 17th and 18th Centuries" in December 2018. This work emerged from her broader engagement with the DFG Priority Programme 2130 "Translation Cultures of the Early Modern Period" (2018-2022) and the Graduate School 1662 "Religious Knowledge" (2014-2017).

Dr. Saladin's research critically examines the intersection of cartographic production, religious expansion, and colonial knowledge systems during the early modern Atlantic world. Her expertise spans Colonial Latin American History with specific focus on Jesuit missionary networks, the political geography of Amazonia, cross-cultural translation practices, and the material culture of religious knowledge transmission. This multidisciplinary approach bridges historical geography, religious studies, and postcolonial theory.

Her significant contributions have been recognized through prestigious awards including:

• Hedwig Hintze Prize from the Association of German Historians (2021)
• Geisteswissenschaften International Translation Promotion Prize (2021)
• Doctoral Prize from Tübingen's Faculty of Philosophy (2019)
• Multiple research fellowships at the German Historical Institute in Rome (2013, 2018)
• DAAD-funded archival research in Madrid (2014)
• Visiting researcher position at Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar in Quito (2015)

As an academic advisor, she guides undergraduate and graduate students in Early Modern History while maintaining active research collaborations with institutions across Germany, Italy, Spain, and Ecuador. Her scholarly work has received substantial support from the German Research Foundation (DFG), Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD), and international humanities funding bodies.

Dr. Saladin continues to advance research on the epistemological frameworks of early modern colonial encounters, with particular emphasis on visual culture and knowledge exchange in Iberian America. Her current projects extend her dissertation work into comparative studies of missionary cartography and indigenous spatial representations.