New Books Network
German Studies
German Studies February 23, 2021

Diagnosing Dissent

Hysterics, Deserters, and Conscientious Objectors in Germany During World War One

Rebecca Ayako Bennette

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
Although physicians during World War I, and scholars since, have addressed the idea of disorders such as shell shock as inchoate flights into sickness by men unwilling to cope with …

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German Studies February 11, 2021

Berlin

Jason Lutes

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
In his pathbreaking graphic novel, Berlin (Drawn and Quarterly, 2018), Jason Lutes creates a multifaceted exploration of urban life during the Weimar Republic.  The book contains a variety of mostly fictional …
German Studies February 3, 2021

Mobilizing Black Germany

Afro-German Women and the Making of a Transnational Movement

Tiffany N. Florvil

Hosted by Steven Seegel
In the 1980s and 1990s, Black German women began to play significant roles in challenging the discrimination in their own nation and abroad. Their grassroots organizing, writings, and political and …
History February 2, 2021

Rogue Empires

Contracts and Conmen in Europe's Scramble for Africa

Steven Press

Hosted by Vladislav Lilic
Steven Press is an Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University. His marvelous first book, Rogue Empires: Contracts and Conmen in Europe’s Scramble for Africa (Harvard University Press, 2017), is …
History January 29, 2021

Archeologies of Confession

Writing the German Reformation, 1517-2017

C. L. Johnson, D. M. Luebke, M. E. Plummer, and J. Spohnholz

Hosted by Krzysztof Odyniec
Carina Johnson is coeditor -- with David Luebke, Marjorie Elizabeth Plummer, and Jesse Spohnholz -- of Archeologies of Confession: Writing the German Reformation, 1517-2017 (Berghahn, 2019) and she is also the author …
Critical Theory January 26, 2021

Migrants in the Profane

Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization

Peter E. Gordon

Hosted by Ryan Tripp
A beautifully written exploration of religion's role in a secular, modern politics, by an accomplished scholar of critical theory, Migrants in the Profane: Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization (Yale University …
Genocide Studies January 22, 2021

Spain, the Second World War, and the Holocaust

History and Representation

Sara J. Brenneis and Gina Herrmann

Hosted by Kelly McFall
Spain has for too long been considered peripheral to the human catastrophes of World War II and the Holocaust. This volume is the first broadly interdisciplinary, scholarly collection to situate …
Eastern European Studies January 20, 2021

Colonial Fantasies, Imperial Realities

Race Science and the Making of Polishness on the Fringes of the German Empire, 1840-1920

Lenny A. Ureña Valerio

Hosted by Steven Seegel
In Colonial Fantasies, Imperial Realities: Race Science and the Making of Polishness on the Fringes of the German Empire, 1840-1920 (Ohio University Press, 2019), Lenny Ureña Valerio offers a transnational approach to …
Genocide Studies January 18, 2021

Understanding and Teaching the Holocaust

Laura Hilton and Avinoam Patt

Hosted by Kelly McFall
I wish I had seen Laura Hilton and Avinoam Patt's Understanding and Teaching the Holocaust (University of Wisconsin Press, 2020) six months ago. I taught a course in the fall titled …
Genocide Studies January 14, 2021

Advancing Holocaust Studies

Carol Rittner and John K. Roth

Hosted by Kelly McFall
I think this is the fifth time I've interviewed John K. Roth for the podcast (and the second for Carol Rittner).  He has always been relentlessly realistic about the challenges, intellectual …
History January 4, 2021

The Convent of Wesel

The Event that Never was and the Invention of Tradition

Jesse Spohnholz

Hosted by Jana Byars
We are here today with Jesse Spohnholz, Professor of History and Director of The Roots of Contemporary Issues World History Program at Washington State University in beautiful Pullman, Washington, to …
Eastern European Studies December 31, 2020

Borders on the Move

Territorial Change and Forced Migration in the Hungarian-Slovak Borderlands, 1938-1948

Leslie Waters

Hosted by Steven Seegel
The movement of borders and people was a remarkably common experience for mid-twentieth-century Central and Eastern Europeans. Such was the case along the border between Czechoslovakia and Hungary, where territory …
German Studies December 29, 2020

A Demon-Haunted Land

Witches, Wonder Doctors, and the Ghosts of the Past in Post–WWII Germany

Monica Black

Hosted by Steven Seegel
In the aftermath of World War II, a succession of mass supernatural events swept through a war-torn Germany. As millions were afflicted by a host of seemingly incurable maladies (including …
European Studies December 15, 2020

Project Europe

A History

Kiran Klaus Patel

Hosted by Tim Jones
Project Europe made waves when it was published in German in 2018 (CH Beck) and was soon translated into English as Project Europe: A History (Cambridge UP, 2020). A clue to …
Biography December 14, 2020

Legal Sabotage

Ernst Fraenkel in Hitler's Germany

Douglas Morris

Hosted by Mark Klobas
During the mid-1930s, Germans opposed to Adolf Hitler had only a limited range of options available to them for resisting the Nazi regime. One of the most creative and successful …
German Studies November 30, 2020

Empire of Law

Nazi Germany, Exile Scholars and the Battle for the Future of Europe

Kaius Tuori

Hosted by Craig Sorvillo
In his new book Empire of Law: Nazi Germany, Exile Scholars, and the Battle for the Future of Europe (Cambridge UP, 2020),  Kaius Tuori examines the inherent unity of European legal traditions that …
Genocide Studies November 19, 2020

The Failures of Ethics

Confronting the Holocaust, Genocide, and Other Mass Atrocities

John K. Roth

Hosted by Jeff Bachman
In the Failures of Ethics: Confronting the Holocaust, Genocide and Other Mass Atrocities (Oxford University Press, 2018), John K. Roth concentrates on the multiple shortfalls and shortcomings of thought, decision …
Intellectual History November 18, 2020

Heidegger's Poietic Writings

From Contributions to Philosophy to the Event

Daniela Vallega-Neu

Hosted by Stephen Dozeman
Scholarship on the German philosopher Martin Heidegger has traditionally focused on his magnum opus Being and Time and related earlier work, his later essays and lectures often relegated to an …
Eastern European Studies November 3, 2020

Communist Pigs

An Animal History of East Germany's Rise and Fall

Thomas Fleischman

Hosted by Steven Seegel
The pig played a fundamental role in the German Democratic Republic's attempts to create and sustain a modern, industrial food system built on communist principles. By the mid-1980s, East Germany …
German Studies November 2, 2020

Lutheran Theology and Contract Law in Early Modern Germany (ca. 1520-1720)

Paolo Astorri

Hosted by Krzysztof Odyniec
In Lutheran Theology and Contract Law in Early Modern Germany (ca. 1520-1720) (Verlag Ferdinand Schoningh, 2019), Paolo Astorri shows how the Protestant Reformation influence European law. Martin Luther and his …