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About Michael O'Sullivan

Michael E. O’Sullivan is Professor of History at Marist College where he teaches courses about Modern Europe. He published Disruptive Power: Catholic Women, Miracles, and Politics in Modern Germany, 1918-1965 with University of Toronto Press in 2018. It was recently awarded the Waterloo Centre for German Studies Book Prize for 2018.
Professor of History, Marist College
Michael's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Michael:

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 …
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 September 7, 2020

Germany

A Nation in its Time

Helmut Walser Smith

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
In his groundbreaking 500-year history entitled Germany: A Nation in its Time (Liveright, 2020), Helmut Walser Smith challenges traditional perceptions of Germany’s conflicted past, revealing a nation far more thematically …
German Studies August 26, 2020

The Struggle for the Streets of Berlin

Politics, Consumption, and Urban Space, 1914-1945

Molly Loberg

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
Who owns the street? This is the question that animates The Struggle for the Streets of Berlin: Politics, Consumption, and Urban Space, 1914-1945 (Cambridge University Press) by Molly Loberg. Interwar …
German Studies June 3, 2020

The Seduction of Youth

Print Culture and Homosexual Rights in the Weimar Republic

Javier Samper Vendrell

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
The Weimar Republic is well-known for its gay rights movement and recent scholarship has demonstrated some of its contradictory elements. In his recent book entitled The Seduction of Youth: Print …
German Studies January 3, 2020

Memory, Politics, and Yugoslav Migrations to Postwar Germany

Christopher A. Molnar

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
During Europe’s 2015 refugee crisis, more than a hundred thousand asylum seekers from the western Balkans sought refuge in Germany. This was nothing new, however; immigrants from the Balkans have …
German Studies December 17, 2019

The Rise and Fall of Comradeship

Hitler’s Soldiers, Male Bonding and Mass Violence in the Twentieth Century

Thomas Kühne

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
In The Rise and Fall of Comradeship: Hitler’s Soldiers, Male Bonding and Mass Violence in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Professor Thomas Kühne writes an innovative account of …
German Studies December 2, 2019

History after Hitler

A Transatlantic Enterprise

Philipp Stelzel

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
The decades following the end of World War II witnessed the establishment of a large and diverse German-American scholarly community studying modern German history. As West Germany's formerly deeply nationalist …
German Studies October 25, 2019

Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS

Amy Carney

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
From 1931 to 1945, leaders of the SS sought to transform their organization into a racially-elite family community that would serve as the Third Reich’s new aristocracy. They utilized the …
German Studies September 30, 2019

Teaching Migrant Children in West Germany and Europe, 1945-1992

Brittany Lehman

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
In her new book, Teaching Migrant Children in West Germany and Europe, 1945-1992 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), Brittany Lehman examines the right to education for migrant children in Europe between 194 …
German Studies July 3, 2019

Rethinking Black German Studies

Approaches, Interventions, and Histories

Tiffany Florvil and Vanessa Plumly

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
Black German Studies is an interdisciplinary field that has experienced significant growth over the past three decades, integrating subjects such as gender studies, diaspora studies, history, and media and performance …
German Studies June 25, 2019

Reading and Rebellion in Catholic Germany, 1770-1914

Jeffrey Zalar

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
Popular conceptions of Catholic censorship, symbolized above all by the Index of Forbidden Books, figure prominently in secular definitions of freedom. To be intellectually free is to enjoy access to …
German Studies June 18, 2019

“Trash,” Censorship, and National Identity in Early Twentieth-Century Germany

Kara Ritzheimer

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
Convinced that sexual immorality and unstable gender norms were endangering national recovery after World War One, German lawmakers drafted a constitution in 1919 legalizing the censorship of movies and pulp …
German Studies May 23, 2019

The Hirschfeld Archives

Violence, Death, and Modern Queer Culture

Heike Bauer

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
Influential sexologist and activist Magnus Hirschfeld founded Berlin's Institute of Sexual Sciences in 1919 as a home and workplace to study homosexual rights activism and support transgender people. It was …
German Studies May 8, 2019

Queer Identities and Politics in Germany

A History, 1880-1945

Clayton Whisnant

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
Germany in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed key developments in LGBT history, including the growth of the world's first homosexual organizations and gay and lesbian magazines, as …
German Studies January 25, 2019

Unlearning Eugenics

Sexuality, Reproduction, and Disability in Post-Nazi Europe

Dagmar Herzog

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
In her new book, Unlearning Eugenics: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Disability in Post-Nazi Europe (University of Wisconsin Press, 2018), Dagmar Herzog examines the relationship between reproductive rights and disability rights in …
German Studies January 14, 2019

Turkish Germans in the Federal Republic of Germany

Immigration, Space, and Belonging, 1961-1990

Sarah Thomsen Vierra

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
After years of being overlooked, there has been a growing interest among academic historians in the history of Turkish Guest Workers in West Germany. In her new book, Turkish Germans …
German Studies October 8, 2018

Hitler versus Hindenburg

The 1932 Presidential Elections and the End of the Weimar Republic

Larry E. Jones

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
The failure of democracy during the Weimar Republic is currently at the center of public discussion due to the global populist wave of the last few years. In his new …
German Studies September 11, 2018

The Death of Democracy

Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic

Benjamin Carter Hett

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
The downfall of the Weimar Republic in Germany has long fascinated historians, but this catastrophe gained increasing prominence as a touchstone for contemporary political commentators in recent years. In his …
German Studies July 4, 2018

Turkish Guest Workers in Germany

Hidden Lives and Contested Borders, 1960s to 1980s

Jennifer A. Miller

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
During the 1960s, West Germany eagerly courted workers from Turkey to manage a labor shortage during the country’s Economic Miracle. This program caused one of the most consequential migrations in …
German Studies June 22, 2018

Sexual Treason in Germany during the First World War

Lisa M. Todd

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
The First World War is usually associated with Trench Warfare, industrial mobilization, and the Lost Generation. In her recent book, Sexual Treason in Germany during the First World War (Palgrave …
German Studies March 19, 2018

Sex and the Weimar Republic

German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis

Laurie Marhoefer

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
The Weimar Republic was home to the first gay rights movement, led by well-known sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld. It also inspired many literary and cinematic representations of sexual liberation in legendary …
German Studies February 21, 2018

The Battle for the Catholic Past in Germany, 1945-1980

Mark Edward Ruff

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
Historical debates about the actions of the Roman Catholic Church in relationship to the Third Reich have never been restricted to academic presses and journals like so many other topics …