Joël Glasman
Prof. Dr. Joël Glasman
Faculty of Cultural Studies
Joël Glasman is a historian and professor at the University of Bayreuth. He works on the colonial and postcolonial state in Africa, the history of humanitarianism, and the theory and methods of global history.
His book Minimal Humanity: Humanitarianism and the Quantification of Human Needs (Routledge Humanitarian Series, 2020) explores the invention of “basic needs” and the history of humanitarian statistics. Another monograph, Les humanités humanitaires: Petit manuel d'autodéfense à l'usage de volontaires (Les Belles Lettres, 2023), provides an introduction to key debates on humanitarian aid and neoliberalism, war, corruption, genocide, refugee camps, epidemics, racism, feminism, statistics, and climate change. This book was awarded the Research Prize of the Fondation of the French Red Cross in 2024.
Further work by Glasman has been published in Journal of Humanitarian Affairs , Humanity , Humanitarian Alternatives , The Journal of Refugee Studies , The Journal of African History , and History in Africa .
- Colonial and postcolonial state
- History of humanitarian action
- Police and security
- Theory and methods of global history
Expertise
- Humanitarian humanities
-
Humanitarian data
-
Colonial state
-
West Africa
Anderson, William; Behrends, Andrea; Dijkzeul, Dennis; Glasman, Joël; Macias, Léa; Taithe, Bertrand, ‘Beyond the Literature. A debate with on Minimal Humanity‘, in: International Review of the Red Cross (2024), 106 (925), 329–349.
Glasman, Joël ‘How to avoid the wrong enemy? Progressive and reactionary critiques of humanitarian action‘, in: Humanitarian Alternatives, 2025, 30, 148–169.
Glasman, Joël & Lawnson, Brendan, ‘Ten things we know about humanitarian numbers’, in: Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, vol. 5, nr.1, 2023, 1-10.
Glasman, Joël, Minimal Humanity. Humanitarianism and the Quantification of Human Needs. London/New York. Routledge. Humanitarian Studies Series, 261 S.
Glasman, Joël, Les humanités humanitaires. Petit manuel d’auto-défense à l’usage des volontaires. Paris. Les Belles Lettres, 2023.