Dr. Vibeke Schou Tjalve
I am a Senior Fellow at Queen Mary’s Centre, University of Copenhagen, and a researcher, writer, speaker, and advisor on the ideas and implications of American power.
Over more than two decades, I have studied the American conflicts, technologies, and mythologies that profoundly and increasingly shape our world. American wars. American screens. American visions of progress. American versions of democracy.
In my current work, I explore the utopian visions and geopolitical impact of Silicon Valley, not least in relation to the rapid industrialization of space, and emerging divides over the futures, cultures, and landscapes of the Arctic. Since 2018, I have been a recurring visiting research fellow at the Center For Right Wing Studies (CRWS), University of Berkeley, California.
Vibeke Schou Tjalve | Institute for the Study of Societal Issues
I have an international research profile, with stays and fellowships in both Europe and the US, and am the author of a very wide range of books, book chapters, research articles, and policy reports. I am also an avid public speaker and a long-time contributor to Danish popular media outlets, such as Deadline, Genstart, Weekendavisen, and Ræson.
Employment & Affiliations
Visiting Research Fellow and Affiliate Researcher, University of Berkeley (2017- )
Faculty, DIS, Department of Environment, Politics and Society (2022- )
Senior Researcher, DIIS – the Danish Institute for International Studies (2012-23)
Head of International Security, DIIS (2012-15)
Visiting Research Fellow, London School of Economics and Political Science (2010-11)
Senior Researcher, CAST, University of Copenhagen (2009-12)
Visiting Research Fellow, The National Defence University, Washington D.C. (2009)
Senior Researcher, Centre for Military Studies, University of Copenhagen (2007-10)
Assistant Professor, American Studies, University of Southern Denmark (2005-07)
Education
Ph.D. in Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Denmark (2005)
Summer Fellowship, Amherst College, USA (2005)
Marie Curie Fellow, International Relations, Aberystwyth, University of Wales (2001-2)
MA in Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Denmark (2000)
BA in Political Science, University of Copenhagen (1997)
Erasmus Student, Philosophy, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo (1996)
Selected grants & fellowships
The Velux Foundation
The Carlsberg Foundation
The British Leverhulme Foundation (with Hartmut Behr & Michael C. Williams)
The Danish Research Council (with Karen Lund Petersen)
The Sasakawa Foundation
The Marie Curie Doctoral Grant
Exodus. In the summer of 2022, I left my desk as a visiting researcher at the University of Berkeley, to go hiking on a West Coast scared and scarred by America’s first recorded gigafire. Rivers run dry and the ash of ancient redwoods everywhere. Part of me never returned. I now dedicate more of my time to field work, and to the kind of talks, teaching, podcasts, and dialogues that matter.
Boomerang. The ideas of expansion and invention, which drove European settlers to the Americas for New Worlds, has come back to haunt the Old. My most recent research follows in the trails of an American tech-industry, whose mythologies and technologies, now compete over the landscapes of the North. Spaceports. Satellites. Data-servers.
An Education. I have taught at everything from universities to military academies, and from Denmark, to Britain and the Baltics. It is always a lesson. Since 2022 though, I have taught a course on competing utopias of ecology and technology to American liberal arts students, spending a semester in Europe. Few things have been as meaningful, or provided such a window into the crisis of America, as teaching, and being taught by, the generation which grew up in its shadow.
