Historians of the universities have not always belonged to the avantgarde of historical research. On the contrary, many studies of the universities have tended to be rather traditional and narrow-minded. In recent years, however, the surge in the history of knowledge has opened up novel perspectives and given new impulses to how to write the history of the universities. In this presentation, Johan Östling, director of the Lund Centre for the History of Knowledge (LUCK), will highlight some of these new trends and approaches. Among other things, he will show how global history, media history and the history of the humanities can enrich the history of universities.