Dag Herbjørnsrud (born 1971) is a historian of ideas, author, a former editor-in-chief, and a founder of Center for Global and Comparative History of Ideas ( Senter for global og komparativ idéhistorie, SGOKI) in Oslo. His writings have been published by

Aeon The word aeon , also spelled eon (in American and Australian English), originally meant "life", "vital force" or "being", "generation" or "a period of time", though it tended to be translated as "age" in the sense of "ages", "forever", "timele ...

, the

American Philosophical Association The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarl ...

(APA), ''Dialogue and Universalism'', ''Cosmopolis'', etc., and he was formerly a columnist for

Al Jazeera English Al Jazeera English (AJE; , ) is a 24-hour English-language News broadcasting, news channel operating under Al Jazeera Media Network, which is funded by the government of Qatar. Al Jazeera introduced an English-language division in 2006. It is ...

. Herbjørnsrud was the guest editor of a special issue of the bilingual journal ''Cosmopolis'' (Brussels), on "Decolonizing the Academy"; one of his contributors was the author and Professor

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (; born James Ngugi; 5January 193828May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in Eng ...

. He sits on the Editorial Review Board of the book series Global Epistemics at

Rowman & Littlefield Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group is an American independent academic publishing company founded in 1949. Under several imprints, the company offers scholarly books for the academic market, as well as trade books. The company also owns ...

. In the Norwegian book "Global Knowledge" (''Globalkunnskap'', 2016), and in an essay on the blog of the ''

Journal of the History of Ideas The ''Journal of the History of Ideas'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering intellectual history, conceptual history, and the history of ideas, including the histories of philosophy, literature and the arts, natural and soci ...

'' (JHI), Herbjørnsrud argues for the need of a "global history of ideas" and for the importance of the discipline global intellectual history. His subsequent articles covers topics such as the Hatata of the rational Ethiopian philosopher Zera Yacob and the philosophy of Anton Wilhelm Amo from Ghana ("The African Enlightenment", 2017), the women philosophers of the

Global South Global North and Global South are terms that denote a method of grouping countries based on their defining characteristics with regard to socioeconomics and politics. According to UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Global South broadly com ...

, the Battle of Vienna, the philosophy of ancient Egypt, and the thinking of pre-colonial Mesoamerica ( Nahua/Maya), in addition to the atheist/secular philosophy of India (

Carvaka Charvaka (; IAST: ''Cārvāka''), also known as ''Lokāyata'', is an ancient school of Indian materialism. It's an example of the atheistic schools in the Ancient Indian philosophies. Charvaka holds direct perception, empiricism, and condit ...

/Lokayata) and its influence on Europe from the late 16th century. Herbjørnsrud has delivered lectures on global perspectives,

Eurocentrism Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism) refers to viewing Western world, the West as the center of world events or superior to other cultures. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western world to just the con ...

, and decolonizing the Academy at institutions like the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

Royal Holloway Royal Holloway, University of London (RH), formally incorporated as Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, is a public university, public research university and a constituent college, member institution of the federal University of London. It ...

(University of London),

Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (), also referred to as MLU, is a public research university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg. It is the largest and oldest university in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. MLU offers German and i ...

(Germany), and

Berliner Festspiele The Berliner Festspiele (German language, German for Berlin Festivals) in Berlin organise and stage a large number of independent festivals as well as exhibitions and individual events in the fields of music, theatre, performance, dance, literat ...

. In 2021, he delivered the inaugural lecture ("Redefining the Canon") in the "Decolonizing Knowledge" series by Quantum Bio Lab (QBL) at

Howard University Howard University is a private, historically black, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and accredited by the Mid ...

, and in 2023 the introduction lecture to the new series on African philosophy at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. In May 2019, the paper "Beyond decolonizing: global intellectual history and reconstruction of a comparative method" was published online by the journal ''Global Intellectual History''. Here, Herbjørnsrud proposed a global comparative method for the discipline, based on the three concepts of "context, connection, and comparison." The article became the most read article in the journal, and it is " the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric." In the Winter 2021 issue of '' The Review of Higher Education'' (Johns Hopkins University Press), the Texas State University scholars Z. W. Taylor and Richard J. Reddick cited the paper, and they wrote: "''As higher education has rapidly globalized in the past few decades (Altbach, 2016), institutional leaders of higher education could have their theory of intellectual reconstruction informed by Herbjørnsrud’s (2019) argument for an interconnected, global perspective of cultures, people, and their histories. (...) Extending and synthesizing the work of Crozier (1901), Dewey (1920), W.E.B. Du Bois and Gates Jr. (2010), Hann and Hart (2011) and Herbjørnsrud (2019), the following section will forward a theory of intellectual reconstruction specifically for institutional leaders of higher education and their many educational stakeholders. (...) At the center of the theory is Herbjørnsrud’s (2019) emphasis on adopting a global comparative perspective (...)''" Herbjørnsrud was the

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...

of the Norwegian weekly

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...

news magazine ''

Ny Tid ''Ny Tid'' (English: ''Modern Times Review'') is Norway's largest international quarterly review of non-fiction books – up to 50 in each issue. It is currently owned by Ny Tid & Orientering AS. ''Ny Tid'' is headed by the newspaper founder ...

'' from 2005 to 2015; formerly (1995-2005) a reporter and op-ed-writer for the conservative newspaper

Aftenposten (; ; stylized as in the masthead) is Norway's largest printed newspaper by circulation as well as Norway's newspaper of record. It is based in Oslo. It sold 211,769 daily copies in 2015 (172,029 printed copies according to University of Bergen ...

. As an editor of Ny Tid and responsible for its "Without Borders" ("Uten grenser") column, Herbjørnsrud was responsible for contacting the paper's columnists; like

Anna Politkovskaya Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya (; 30 August 1958 – 7 October 2006) was a Russians, Russian investigative journalist who reported on political and social events in Russia, in particular, the Second Chechen War (1999–2005). It was her repor ...

(Russia),

Nawal El Saadawi Nawal El Saadawi (, , 22 October 1931 – 21 March 2021) was an Egyptian feminist writer, activist and physician. She wrote numerous books on the subject of women in Islam, focusing on the concerns of third-world women pertaining to sexuality, p ...

(Egypt), Irshad Manji (Canada), Elena Milashina (Russia), Marta Beatrize Roque (Cuba), Parvin Ardalan (Iran), Tsering Woeser (Tibet) and Ethel Kabwato (Zimbabwe). Herbjørnsrud contributed to the production of the TV and Netflix thriller Occupied (2015), in which he ("editor Dag") was played by the actor Øystein Røger. He is the son of writer Hans Herbjørnsrud and historian Anna Tranberg. Herbjørnsrud is a cand. philol. of history of ideas on an

English-language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

thesis on

Robert Nozick Robert Nozick (; November 16, 1938 – January 23, 2002) was an American philosopher. He held the Joseph Pellegrino Harvard University Professor, University Professorship at Harvard University, In the thesis, and in an interview with the

liberal-conservative Liberal conservatism is a political ideology combining conservative policies with liberal stances, especially on economic issues but also on social and ethical matters, representing a brand of political conservatism strongly influenced by libe ...

periodical ''

Minerva Minerva (; ; ) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. She is also a goddess of warfare, though with a focus on strategic warfare, rather than the violence of gods such as Mars. Be ...

'', Herbjørnsrud stated that Nozick advocated the

welfare state A welfare state is a form of government in which the State (polity), state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal oppor ...

, and that ''

Anarchy, State, and Utopia ''Anarchy, State, and Utopia'' is a 1974 book by the American political philosopher Robert Nozick. It won the 1975 US National Book Award in category Philosophy and Religion, has been translated into 11 languages, and was named one of the "100 m ...

'' is not representative of Nozick's philosophy. In 2004–05, he was a columnist for Al-Jazeera's English website.

Selected works

*"Preface", in: ''The Hatata Inquiries: Two Texts of Seventeenth-Century African Philosophy from Ethiopia about Reason, the Creator, and Our Ethical Responsibilities'' (Transl./Eds. Ralph Lee , Mehari Worku , Wendy Laura Belcher, and Jeremy R. Brown)
De Gruyter, 2023
*"The Quest for a Global Age of Reason. Part I: Asia, Africa, the Greeks, and the Enlightenment Roots" and "The Quest for a Global Age of Reason. Part II: Cultural Appropriation and Racism in the Name of Enlightenment''" (Dialogue and Universalism'', 3/2021): https://philpapers.org/rec/HERTQF-2 *"Beyond decolonizing: global intellectual history and reconstruction of a comparative method", ''Global Intellectual History'' (Vol. 6, Issue 5, 2021, pp 614–640. Online since May 10, 2019). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/23801883.2019.1616310 * ''Gå inn i din tid. Thomas Hylland Eriksen i samtale med Dag Herbjørnsrud'' (Res Publica, 2019) ("Engaging with the World: Thomas Hylland Eriksen in Conversation with Dag Herbjørnsrud") *
Globalkunnskap. Renessanse for en ny opplysningstid
' (Scandinavian Academic Press, 2016) ("Global Knowledge. Renaissance for a New Enlightenment"). *"The Hate and Fear of America", in:
Global Perspectives on the United States. Issues and Ideas Shaping U. S. International Relations
' (v. 3). (Berkshire Publishing Group, MA, USA, 2007). *
Leaving Libertarianism: Social Ties in Robert Nozick's New Philosophy
' (UiO, 2002). In cooperation with Stian Bromark he has written three non-fiction books in Norwegian: *''Blanke løgner, skitne sannheter'' (''Blatant Lies, Dirty Truths'') (Tiden, 2002) *''Frykten for Amerika'' (''The Fear of America'') (Tiden, 2003) (Nominated for the Brage prize) *''Norge - et lite stykke verdenshistorie'' (''Norway - A Small Piece of World History'') (Cappelen, 2005)

References

External links

Center for Global and Comparative History of Ideas (SGOKI), English Page

Aeon essays.

Texts for Blog of the American Philosophical Association (APA).
* Selected academic works: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1356-0368 {{DEFAULTSORT:Herbjoernsrud, Dag 1971 births Living people 21st-century Norwegian historians University of Oslo alumni Norwegian journalists Norwegian columnists Oslo University College alumni Intellectual historians