Nina Vollenbröker’s research focuses on matters of domesticity and rootedness on one hand and on mobility and the transgression of spatial boundaries on the other. It investigates the role of movement, shift and change in stable spatial, cultural and political concepts by highlighting that – and considering how – these are created, enacted, questioned and revised by ongoing spatial practice.  

Nina has experience with the interpretation of a wide range of historic sources. She has worked extensively with nineteenth-century manuscript diaries, quilts and photographs at renowned American archives such as the Henry E. Huntington Library, California; The Beinecke Library at Yale University, Connecticut, the Bancroft Library at The University of California at Berkeley,  and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Nina has received seed funding from The British Academy and presented her research internationally (including Columbia University, New York,; The Heidelberg Center for American Studies, Germany and The University of Notre Dame, Indiana). Her work recently won the Pioneer America Society’s Wilhelm Award for outstanding research in the field of material cultures studies.