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German Studies
Genocide Studies September 21, 2023

Przemysłowa Concentration Camp

The Camp, the Children, the Trials

Katarzyna Person and Johannes-Dieter Steinert

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Katarzyna Person and Johannes-Dieter Steinert's book Przemysłowa Concentration Camp: The Camp, the Children, the Trials (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023) explores one of the most notorious aspects of the German system of oppression …

German Studies

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Interviews with scholars of Germany about their new books.

Military History September 17, 2023

Bismarck's War

The Franco-Prussian War and the Making of Modern Europe

Rachel Chrastil

Hosted by AJ Woodhams
Among the conflicts that convulsed Europe during the nineteenth century, none was more startling and consequential than the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. Deliberately engineered by Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck …
Military History September 14, 2023

To Besiege a City: Leningrad 1941-42

Prit Buttar

Hosted by Stephen Satkiewicz
The city of St. Petersburg held great significance to the Russian Empire when Peter the Great first built the city in 1703. It was intended to be Russia's "window to …
German Studies September 8, 2023

Beyond the Wall

A History of East Germany

Katja Hoyer

Hosted by AJ Woodhams
Listen:
In 1990, a country disappeared. When the Iron Curtain fell, East Germany ceased to be. For over forty years, from the ruin of the Second World War to the cusp …
Genocide Studies September 7, 2023

Framing the Holocaust

Photographs of a Mass Shooting in Latvia, 1941

Valerie Hébert

Hosted by Hallel Yadin
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Framing the Holocaust: Photographs of a Mass Shooting in Latvia, 1941 (University of Wisconsin Press, 2023), edited by Valerie Hébert, compiles essays on the meaning of twelve photographs of a terrible …
Jewish Studies September 6, 2023

Ilse Koch on Trial

Making the “Bitch of Buchenwald”

Tomaz Jardim

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
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On September 1, 1967, one of the Third Reich's most infamous figures hanged herself in her cell after nearly twenty-four years in prison. Known as the "Bitch of Buchenwald," Ilse …
Jewish Studies September 5, 2023

The Twin Children of the Holocaust

Stolen Childhood and the Will to Survive. Photographs from the Twins’ 40th Anniversary Reunion at Auschwitz-Birkenau

Nancy L. Segal

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
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The Twin Children of the Holocaust: Stolen Childhood and the Will to Survive (Academic Studies Press, 2023) is an annotated collection of original, informative, and moving photographs of the twins …
Music August 31, 2023

Singing the News of Death

Execution Ballads in Europe 1500-1900

Una McIlvenna

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
Across Europe, from the dawn of print until the early twentieth century, the news of crime and criminals' public executions was printed in song form on cheap broadsides and pamphlets …
German Studies August 30, 2023

Everyday Denazification in Postwar Germany

The Fragebogen Questionnaire and Political Screening During the Allied Occupation

Mikkel Dack

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin
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In the wake of the Second World War, the victorious Allied armies implemented a radical program to purge Nazism from Germany and preserve peace in Europe. Between 1945 and 1949 …
Jewish Studies August 29, 2023

Resisters

How Ordinary Jews Fought Persecution in Hitler's Germany

Wolf Gruner

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:
Today I talked to Wolf Gruner about his new book Resisters: How Ordinary Jews Fought Persecution in Hitler's Germany (Yale UP, 2023). Drawing on twelve years of research in dozens of archives …
America and Beyond with Paul Starobin August 29, 2023

On “Henry Kissinger and His World”

A Discussion with Barry Gewen

Barry Gewen

Hosted by Paul Starobin
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In my talk with Barry Gewen on his 2020 book, The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World (W. W. Norton, 2020), we explore the disparate influences that shaped Kissinger …
Anthropology August 10, 2023

Subcontractors of Guilt

Holocaust Memory and Muslim Belonging in Postwar Germany

Esra Özyürek

Hosted by Armanc Yildiz
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At the turn of the millennium, Middle Eastern and Muslim Germans had rather unexpectedly become central to the country's Holocaust memory culture—not as welcome participants, but as targets for re-education …
Military History August 9, 2023

Afterlives of War

A Descendants' History

Michael Roper

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
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Afterlives of War: A Descendants' History (Manchester University Press, 2023) by Dr. Michael Roper documents the lives and historical pursuits of the generations who grew up in Australia, Britain and …
Intellectual History August 9, 2023

A History of Nihilism in the Nineteenth Century

Confrontations with Nothingness

Jon Stewart

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
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Nihilism - the belief that life is meaningless - is frequently associated with twentieth-century movements such as existentialism, postmodernism and Dadaism, and thought to result from the shocking experiences of …
German Studies August 8, 2023

Blood and Diamonds

Germany's Imperial Ambitions in Africa

Steven Press

Hosted by Jill Massino
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Since the late 1990s, activists have campaigned to remove "conflict diamonds" from jewelry shops and department stores. But if the problem of conflict diamonds--gems extracted from war zones--has only recently …
Military History August 1, 2023

The War on the Eastern Front

The Soviet Union, 1941-1945 - A Photographic History

Alexander Hill

Hosted by Richard Northrop
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In The War on the Eastern Front: The Soviet Union, 1941-1945 - A Photographic History (Pen & Sword Military, 2021), Professor Alexander Hill has collected photographs from the brutal conflict on …
Early Modern History July 21, 2023

The Malleable Body

Surgeons, Artisans, and Amputees in Early Modern Germany

Heidi Hausse

Hosted by Jana Byars
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Heidi Hausse's book The Malleable Body: Surgeons, Artisans, and Amputees in Early Modern Germany (Manchester University Press, 2023) uses amputation and prostheses to tell a new story about medicine and embodied knowledge-making …
High Theory July 20, 2023

Wirschig

Bombay Talkies B-Side

Debashree Mukherjee

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu
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In this episode of High Theory, we continue our conversation with Debashree Mukherjee about the pioneering film studio Bombay Talkies, founded in 1934 in the city of Bombay (now Mumbai) …
Genocide Studies July 19, 2023

Intimate Violence

Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust

Jeffrey S. Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
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Why do pogroms occur in some localities and not in others? Jeffrey S. Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg examine a particularly brutal wave of violence that occurred across hundreds of predominantly …
Anthropology July 18, 2023

Awkward Archives

Ethnographic Drafts for a Modular Curriculum

Margareta von Oswald and Jonas Tinius

Hosted by Adam Bobeck
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Awkward Archives: Ethnographic Drafts for a Modular Curriculum (Archive Books, 2022) proposes a manual for academic teaching and learning contexts. An ethnographic research approach is confronted with the demands of …