Biography
Sebastian James Rose is a historian of technology with a focus on empire, infrastructure, and communication in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. At KWI, he works as a Postdoctoral Researcher on the European Research Council project CryoCultures, conducting archival research into the history of cooling technologies during the Cold War.
Before joining KWI, Sebastian worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Loughborough University London on the AHRC-funded project Coloniality and Communications: British Telecommunications in Mesopotamia in the Early 20th Century. In 2024, he was the recipient of the Society for the History of Technology’s Brooke Hindle Postdoctoral Fellowship for his research on British imperial telegraph networks in the Middle East.
He earned his PhD in 2024 at the University of Greenwich, where he was the recipient of the John Charles Maynard Scholarship. His thesis focused on the Indo-European Telegraph Department (IETD) in Iran and the Persian Gulf and examined the role of workers, officials, and infrastructure in the maintenance of empire. In 2024, he held a position as a Research Fellow at Linda Hall Library in Kansas City, researching US telegraph worker movements and trade journals. In 2021, he was shortlisted for the Olivette Otele Prize for his paper exploring the organisation and racialisation of telegraph workers.
Research interests
History of empire, history of technology, Science & Technology Studies, labour history, critical communication studies, military history, Global history, Middle East
Selected publications
De Boer, Tessa, et al, Diplomatica, Provincializing ‘New’ Diplomatic History: An Interdisciplinary Manifesto, 7:2 Autumn, 30 April, 2025
History Workshop Journal, The telegraph from below: Race, labour and the Indo-European Telegraph Department 1862-1919, Volume 97, Spring 2024, Pages 126–148,
Contagion, Technology, and Law at the Limits, 11 July, 2024 ‘British Quarantine and Telegraph Stations in the Persian Gulf, 1864–1928: Governing Through Contagion, Entanglements and Enclaves’,
The Telegraph From Below, 28 June 2024, History Workshop Online, https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/labour/the-telegraph-from-below/