Rebecca Adler-Nissen on the Hayseed Scholar

18 09 2021

Professor Rebecca Adler-Nissen joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Professor Adler-Nissen is a proflic scholar known for her work on diplomacy, integration, practice theory, and her deep knowledge and use of social theory.

She talks to Brent about growing up in Denmark, but also Israel and the United States. Before going to uni, Rebecca spent some time working on boats, sailing at one point to the Canary Islands where she looked for more work at the age of 18. She eventually returned to Europe, attending both the University of Copenhagen and Sciences Po. Rebecca went to Copenhagen as well for her Master’s and PhD, at a time when the ‘Copenhagen school’ was gaining momentum and the lectures and conversations in her program were filled with excitement.

She talks to Brent about writing her PhD at Copenhagen, how she got into the topic of European integration to ‘update’ her grandmother who had fought in the resistance against the Germans, on the possibilities of Germans being the ones after the Berlin Wall fell who were building a peaceful order.  Rebecca reflects on her visiting position at the EUI in Florence, before defending her thesis and going on the market in 2009-2010. It was in the 2010s when Rebecca burst onto the scene with a flurry of now iconic publications, and she talks about what went into that. She shares her perspective on writing, how she decompresses with her family and through running, her approach to reviewing manuscript, and more!