91ÒùĸÊÓƵ

The Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Dominique Kirchner Reill as its next Director. Her term will officially begin on July 1, 2025. On that date, she will also join the 91ÒùĸÊÓƵ as Professor in the Department of History, Classics, and Religion.

Dr. Reill is an accomplished historian of modern Europe, with particular expertise in nationalism, regionalism, and identity in the Habsburg Empire and its successor states. Before coming to the 91ÒùĸÊÓƵ, she served as a Professor at the University of Miami and recently completed two prestigious year-long research fellowships at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg (HWK) Institute for Advanced Study in northern Germany and at Iméra, the Institute for Advanced Studies of Aix Marseille Université in France.

An engaged leader in the field, Dr. Reill currently serves as President of the Central European History Society and is co-founder and co-organizer of the inaugural Central European History Convention, which will take place in Vienna from July 15–17, 2025. She is also an active board member of the Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies and serves on the editorial boards of Contemporary European History, Journal of Austrian-American History, and Journal of Modern Italian Studies.

Dr. Reill’s scholarship has been widely recognized. Her first book, Nationalists Who Feared the Nation: Adriatic Multi-Nationalism in Habsburg Dalmatia, Trieste, and Venice (Stanford University Press, 2012), received the Center for Austrian Studies Book Award and an Honorable Mention from the Smith Award. Her second book, The Fiume Crisis: Life in the Wake of the Habsburg Empire (Harvard University’s Belknap Press, 2020), was awarded an Honorable Mention from the Jelavich Book Prize and was translated into Croatian in 2024 and published by Ljevak. She is currently completing her third book manuscript, The Habsburg Mayor of New York: Fiorello LaGuardia.

Dr. Reill, who joins us in Edmonton later this summer, will become the first female Director of the Wirth Institute since its founding. Her appointment marks a significant milestone for the Institute as it launches a new thematic focus: the future is Central Europe. At a time when the region’s global relevance is increasingly evident, the Institute looks forward to this new chapter and to continuing to advance our mission as a premiere Central European centre for research, dialogue, and international collaboration.

Please join us in warmly welcoming Dr. Dominique Kirchner Reill to the 91ÒùĸÊÓƵ and to the Wirth Institute community.