About the Project
The Global Library Project (1500–1700) reconstructs the journeys made by Anglo-Scots visitors to libraries across North America, Europe, and the Middle East during the early-modern period. By reconstructing the activities of these scholars, poets, and merchants, the project examines how knowledge- and cultural-exchange were enabled by inter-library travel. Journeys to and between libraries, the hypothesis suggests, served as a kind of epistemological catalyst across the period.
The project, funded through a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, is divided into four work packages: (i) ‘Scholarship Across Borders’, (ii) ‘Library Access’, (iii) ‘The Library in Motion’ and (iv), ‘The Library and Refuge’. While the first three work packages are concerned largely with archival research, ‘The Library and Refuge’ examines how the library has historically been, and continues today, to be a place of sanctuary.
Working closely with our Project Partners, Norfolk Libraries, we aim to establish a model of best practice for libraries in the support and integration of refugee communities at a local level, gathering examples and case studies from a range of sources globally.
We deliver workshops, training, and seminars to international communities accessing public libraries in the UK. The content of these workshops is prompted by interviews with the communities we are hoping to help, responding to the interests and needs that the participants themselves have identified.
At the heart of the project is the idea of a library as a lively place of exchange, both in terms of knowledge but also human experience. The library was, and still is today, a vitally social space.
The Global Library Project (1500–1700) reconstructs the journeys made by Anglo-Scots visitors to libraries across North America, Europe, and the Middle East during the early-modern period. By reconstructing the activities of these scholars, poets, and merchants, the project examines how knowledge- and cultural-exchange were enabled by inter-library travel. Journeys to and between libraries, the hypothesis suggests, served as a kind of epistemological catalyst across the period.
The project, funded through a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, is divided into four work packages: (i) ‘Scholarship Across Borders’, (ii) ‘Library Access’, (iii) ‘The Library in Motion’ and (iv), ‘The Library and Refuge’. While the first three work packages are concerned largely with archival research, ‘The Library and Refuge’ examines how the library has historically been, and continues today, to be a place of sanctuary.
About the Project
Dr John-Mark Philo, Principle Investigator
John-Mark, originally from Glasgow, completed his studies at Oxford. Since then, he has carried on exploring translation, classical reception, and cross-cultural exchange in the early-modern period. This means that he is typically to be found in libraries and archives, examining manuscripts and correspondence and trying his best to decipher early-modern marginalia.
With the Global Library project, John-Mark hopes to shows how libraries have historically been lively social spaces that have facilitated a range of important encounters between different kinds of people. This history of lively interconnectivity, he argues, tells us a lot about how the library functions today.
He has volunteered with several NGOs and grass-roots charities, including the Chios Eastern Shore Response Team, Action for Education, and, most recently, the Dereham Aid Centre.
Dr John-Mark Philo, Principle Investigator
Dr Fariba Alamgir is an anthropologist with research interests in the politics of identity, resource access and governance. Her research primarily focuses on marginalized population groups, including indigenous communities and forced migrants.
Prior to her role as a Senior Research Associate at the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia (UEA), she worked as a Teaching Fellow at the School of Global Development at UEA from 2022 to 2023, and as research fellow at the Centre for Development Studies at the University of Bath from 2018 to 2020. Before starting her PhD studies, she was a lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Dhaka.
Fariba completed her PhD in International Development from the UEA and the University of Copenhagen in 2017. Her PhD research, focusing on land claims of indigenous population groups in the Chittagong Hill Tracts region in Bangladesh, contributed to the highly polarized debate about indigeneity and citizenship within the context of ethnicized land conflict and unsettled land governance. More recently, her work has focused on refugee and forced migration studies. She worked on Rohingyas’ claims and access to varied identities, documentary practices and their negotiation over varied categories used by the Bangladesh state and humanitarian organizations. Additionally, Fariba led a multidisciplinary and multi-sited collaborative research project exploring the factors shaping refugees’ access to mental health service in humanitarian settings in Bangladesh and Uganda.
In our current project, Dr Alamgir is working on ‘The Library and Refuge’. By employing an ethnographic research approach, she is exploring how modern libraries serve/function as spaces of sanctuary, cross-cultural interactivity and knowledge exchange for the refugees and asylum seekers around the world.
Dr Fariba Alamgir, Senior Researcher
Dr Nailya Shamgunova is a historian of early modern travel and encounter, with a particular interest in history of gender and sexuality. She studied at Queens' and Churchill colleges, University of Cambridge. Her graduate studies focused on vernacular English conceptualisations of sexuality and human difference around the world in the early modern period, with a particular focus on English contacts with the Ottoman Empire. Before joining UEA, she worked as a Stipendiary Lecturer at Pembroke College, University of Oxford, and as a Fellow in History of Empire at the London School of Economics and Political Science. At the LSE, Dr Shamgunova led a Master's programme in history of empires and globalisation, taught comparative imperial history and designed and delivered an award-winning module in global early modern queer history. Dr Shamgunova is passionate about outreach and has worked with various NGOs and initiatives over the years, including European Human Rights Advocacy Centre at the University of Middlesex.
Dr Nailya Shamgunova, Senior Researcher
Miram, originally from Sudan, holds an MSc in Climate Change and International Development from the University of East Anglia. With a strong dedication to addressing climate-related challenges, Miram has focused her professional efforts on supporting refugees, particularly those affected by climate change, through her work with international non-governmental organizations such as the International Red Cross.
In addition to her work with refugees, Miram has actively contributed to humanitarian development efforts in Sudan by collaborating with various NGOs. Through her experiences, she has witnessed the resilience and potential of refugee communities, inspiring her to pursue initiatives that promote social positive change and enrich society.
Participating in the Global Library project, Miram aims to leverage her expertise to explore how refugees can contribute to social cohesion and community development, particularly through the utilization of libraries as spaces for learning, empowerment, and integration. Drawing from her own experiences as a refugee, Miram is deeply committed to working closely with refugee communities to build their capacity for integration into society while also providing essential mental health support.
Miram joins the Global Library through a paid internship generously funded by our project partners, The British Centre for Literary Translation.
Miram Azhari,
MSc in Climate Change and International Development
About us
