Public History Doctoral Graduate Accepts Postdoctoral Research Position in Digital History

Public History Doctoral Graduate Petros Apostolopoulos accepted an appointment as Postdoctoral Researcher at the Luxembourg Center for Contemporary and Digital History at the University of Luxembourg. He will be working with Prof. Sean Takats, who is noted for his work on Zotero and Tropy at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Dr. Apostolopoulos will work on LuxTIME, a project about the environmental history of Luxembourg that uses digital technologies and big data from multiple disciplines. 

Dr. Apostolopoulos successfully defended his dissertation in April of 2022. Titled Discussing the Past: The Production of Historical Knowledge on Wikipedia, the work employed diverse methods from network analysis and oral history interviews to media analysis and memory theory to explore history wiki as a discursive forum. He found significant differences in epistemology between what is published and what is explored in the back channels, differences he analyzes to demonstrate the importance of breaking down traditional dichotomies between historical producers and consumers.  His committee included Tammy Gordon (chair), Frederico Freitas, Ross Bassett and scholar of rhetoric and digital communication Andrew Johnston.

During his time at NC State University, Dr. Apostolopoulos demonstrated both scholarly breadth and depth as well as a diverse technical skill set. This came out clearly in his internship at the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA) at  Stanford University. He worked on the project “Mapping Ottoman Epirus: Region, Power and Empire” coordinated by Ali Yaycioglu and Antonis Hadjikyriacou, using skills in Optical Character Recognition as well as Geographic Information Systems.

His work at the Luxembourg Center for Digital and Contemporary History begins in August of 2022.