Welcome to the New Zealand Association of von Humboldt Fellows.

Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was a nature researcher and explorer, universal genius and cosmopolitan, scientist and patron. His lengthy Latin American journey from 1799 to 1804 was celebrated as the second scientific discovery of South America. Members of natural science disciplines such as physical geography, climatology, ecology or oceanography see Humboldt as their founder. The masterpiece of his advanced years, the five-volume “Cosmos. Draft of a Physical Description of the World,” has remained unique in its comprehensive approach.

The foundation

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation was established in 1953 by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany to promote international co-operation between German institutes of higher education and leading academics from around the world. The foundation sponsors a number of competitive fellowships, ranging from postdoctoral to senior visiting professors, for foreign academics from the areas of humanities, sciences and engineering. Its fellowships fund research visits to Germany usually for a period of 6–24 months. It also offers long-term support to its Humboldt Fellows to develop and strengthen their cooperation with German scientists. It also offers fellowships to post-doctoral fellows and other researchers based in Germany to visit foreign academic institutes as a guest of a Humboldt Fellow.

The association

The New Zealand Association of von Humboldt Fellows is open to all current and former Humboldt Fellows. It aims to assist and promote the work of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in various ways.

Nancy November elected Ngā Ahurei Fellow

Posted on March 19, 2023 by Jörg Frauendiener

NZ AvHF vice president Nancy November was elected as a Fellow to the Academy of the Royal Society Te Apārangi in this year’s selection. Congratulations, Nancy.

Nancy November is among the most innovative and eminent figures in the field of musicology. Combining interdisciplinarity and cultural history, her research centres on chamber music of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, probing questions of historiography, canonisation, and genre. Her work in historical musicology achieves impact through deepening knowledge, critical thinking, and challenging the traditional view of music and its context. Through her work in critical pedagogy, she continually strives to help develop other peoples’ historical perspectives, skills and awareness—not just for the maximum impact of her own research, but to develop tomorrow’s ‘critical beings’. Her scholarship is based on an expansion and critique of the western classical musical canon, by means of multiple lenses: historiography, theory, gender studies, performance practice and aesthetics. Her work is recognised for challenging traditional pedagogies, grounded in western worldviews, with new, culturally-sustaining ways of teaching and learning history that are empowering, especially for Indigenous students.

The foundation

The association

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