Conference Group for Central European History
Newsletter
Fall 2000


Conference Group for Central European History at the AHA 2001

 Dear Colleagues,

We look forward to seeing you at the next business meeting of the AHA’s Conference Group for Central European History and the Bierabend that traditionally follows.  As most of you know, the CGCEH brings together Central Europeanists who attend the AHA, awards prizes to books and articles on the history of Central Europe, and publishes Central European History.  The next AHA annual meeting will be held in Boston, from Thursday, January 4 to Sunday, January 7, 2001. We are very pleased to be co-sponsoring a large number of sessions on Central Europe at this year’s meeting.  Below you will find links to these and other sessions of interest. The Conference Group’s business meeting will convene Saturday, January 6, 2001, at 5:00 p.m. in the Beacon Room A, Sheraton.

Business to be conducted includes the election of new officers of the Conference Group (current officers are listed below) and the announcement of the winner of this year’s book prize. In 2002, the Conference Group will once again award its article prize. We will also begin a discussion of a process for finding a new editor and home for CEH since the current editor, Ken Barkin, will be completing his term in 2004.

Immediately following the business meeting is the Bierabend, at 6:00 p.m. in the adjacent Beacon Rooms B/C, Sheraton. We hope many of you will attend and look forward to seeing you in Boston.

Kees Gispen, Executive Secretary, Treasurer, and Newsletter editor
M.J. Maynes, President 



Contents
2001 AHA meeting
    Seven joint sessions of the CGCEH and the AHA
    Joint session of the CGCEH and the SAHH
    Other AHA sessions with Central European Themes
Conference Group for Central European History
    Current Officers
    Archives Committee
    Nominations Committee
    Recommendation for naming the CGCEH Book Prize
    Editorship of Central European History to become vacant
Announcements
    Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar
    Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize winners
    University of Minnesota Summer Institute in German Studies


Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association

Seven Joint Sessions of the CGCEH and the AHA

The Conference Group is pleased to announce it is the co-sponsor of the following, joint sessions with the American Historical Association.  (Session 120 is also co-sponsored by the Society for Austrian and Habsburg History, and session 140 by the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies.)

Session 8.  Germans and Others in the Twentieth Century
Friday, January 5, 9:30-11:30 a.m., Sheraton, Hampton Room

Chair: Konrad H. Jarausch, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Papers:

The Debate on Civilization: Troeltsch, Schweitzer, and Jaspers
Joanne Miyang Cho, William Paterson University of New Jersey

Talking about Race after National Socialism: African American GIs in 1950s West
Germany Maria Hohn, Vassar College

The Conditions of Inclusion: Germans, Turks, and the Debate about Gender Roles in the Postwar Federal Republic
Rita Chin, Oberlin College


Comment: David S. Luft, University of California at San Diego
 

Session 31.  The German and Austrian–German Historical Narrative
Friday, January 5, 2:30-4:30 p.m., Sheraton, Beacon Room B

Chair: Ann Taylor Allen, University of Louisville
Papers:

Friedrich Meinecke and the Limits of Historicism
Troy Paddock, Southern Connecticut State University

A Closer Look at the "Soteriological" Narrative of the German Reformation
Susan Renee Boettcher, University of Missouri at Rolla

The "Soft Law" of the Austrian Historical Narrative under the Habsburgs
Mark E. Blum, University of Louisville


Comment: Georg G. Iggers, State University of New York at Buffalo
 

Session 33.  The Intersection of Personal Narratives and Collective Historical Narratives in Twentieth–Century Germany
Friday, January 5, 2:30-4:30 p.m., Westin, Essex Ballroom North Center 

Chair: Jeffrey Herf, University of Maryland at College Park
Papers:

Remembering and Revisiting the Past: Collective Memory and German Women's Private Memories of the Third Reich
Michelle Mouton, University of Northern Iowa

Narratives of Defense and Justification: Heidelberg University Professors and the Nazi Past, 1945–55
Steven Paul Remy, Ohio State University

Biography and Communist Purges: The Case of East German Old Communists
Catherine Epstein, Amherst College

Conflicting Narratives? The First Postwar Generation in East Germany and the Nazi Past
Dorothee Wierling, University of Erfurt


Comment: Mary Jo Maynes, University of Minnesota
 

Session 97.  "The Wall in the Mind?" Narratives and Representations of Self in a Divided Germany
Saturday, January 6, 2:30-4:30 p.m., Marriott, Grand Ballroom Salon J
Chair: Richard Wetzell, German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C.
Papers:

The Cold War in Mind: A Case of Schizophrenia in Soviet. Occupied Germany and the Challenges of Historical Pathography
Greg Eghigian, Penn State University

Making up Consumers: Men and Women through the Lens of German Market Research, 1930s–1960s
Christoph Conrad, Free University of Berlin

The End of Socialism and the Reinvention of the Self: A Study of the East German Psychotherapeutic Community in Transition
Christine Leuenberger, Cornell University


Comment: Elizabeth Lunbeck, Princeton Universit


Session 120.  Popular Loyalties, National Identities, and Historians' Narratives of the Fate of the Habsburg Monarchy
Sunday, January 7, 8:30-10:30 a.m.  Sheraton, Beacon Room B
Joint Session with the Society for Austrian and Habsburg History

Chair: Gary B. Cohen, University of Oklahoma at Norman
Papers:

"Ethnicity" as National Argument
Jeremy King, Mount Holyoke College

Between National and Ethnic Identity: The Role of the Jews as a Foundation for Habsburg Continuity, 1900–19
Marsha L. Rozenblit, University of Maryland at College Park

Praga Magica: Imagination, Poetics, and Historical Narrative in the Identities of a Habsburg City
Karl F. Bahm, University of Wisconsin at Superior


Comment: Gary B. Cohen


Session 129.  Terror and Population Politics under Nazi and Soviet Power: Comparative Explorations
Sunday, January 7, 8:30-10:30 a.m., Marriott, Grand Ballroom Salon I

Chair: Stephen Kotkin, Princeton University
Papers:

Exterminate a Significant Portion of the Population: Population Politics in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Russia
Peter Holquist, Cornell University

When Soviets Met Nazis, 1939–53
Amir Weiner, Stanford University

The Permeable Borders of Race and Nation: Comparing Population Politics under Nazi and Soviet Power
Eric D. Weitz, University of Minnesota

Selective Terror in the Third Reich
Eric A. Johnson, Central Michigan University


Comment: Stephen Kotkin Mary Nolan, New York University


Session 140.  The Holocaust Narrative: New Sources and New Approaches
Sunday, January 7, 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m., Marriott, Grand Ballroom Salon C
Joint Session with the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Memorial Holocaust Museum

Chair: Richard Breitman, American University
Papers:

Forgotten Perpetrators: Women in the SS
Gudrun Schwarz, Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung

German Soldiers and the Holocaust: Constructing a Perpetrators' Perspective from Photographs and Documents
Alexander Rossino, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Holocaust History: Appraising the Value of Regional Approaches
Wendy Lower, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum


Comment: Peter Black, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Joint Session of the CGCEH and the SAHH

The Conference Group and the Society for Austrian and Habsburg History are jointly sponsoring the session, 
A Roundtable on Jörg Haider, the Freedom Party, and the Historical Traditions of the Austrian Right,
Saturday, January 6, 2:30-4:30 p.m., Sheraton, Liberty Room A

Chair:        Gary B. Cohen, University of Oklahoma
Panelists:  
Lonnie R. Johnson, Austrian Fulbright Commission
                   Pieter M. Judson, Swarthmore College
                   Bruce F. Pauley, University of Central Florida
                   Max E. Riedlsperger, California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo


Other AHA Sessions with Central European Themes

Session 72.  The Memory of Nazism in Postwar Western Popular Culture
Saturday, January 6, 9:30-11:30 a.m., Sheraton, Berkeley Room
Chair: Denise Youngblood, University of Vermont
Papers:

The World the Nazis Never Made: Alternate History and the Memory of Nazism in Postwar Anglo–American Popular Culture
Gavriel Rosenfeld, Fairfield University

Watching Germans Watching Television: Nazism and the Holocaust in the Eyes of the Consumers of German Public Television
Wulf Kansteiner, Binghamton University

Mouse, Maus, and Mickey Mouse: Representing the Holocaust in an Age of Total Commodification
Michael Rothberg, University of Miami


Comment: Jeffrey Herf, University of Maryland at College Park

Session 98.  Narratives of National Embodiment and Belonging: Women's Citizenship in Germany, France, and America
Saturday, January 6, 2:30-4:30 p.m., Sheraton, Fairfax Room B

Chair: David F. Crew, University of Texas at Austin
Papers:

Political Rights and Ethnic Duties: A Comparative History of the Development of the Citizenship Rights of Married Women in Germany, France, and the United States
Eli Nathans, Johns Hopkins University

Bodies, Subjectivities, and Citizenships in Germany after the First World War
Kathleen Canning, University of Michigan

Law, Culture, and Gender: Citizenship and National Identity in Fin–de– siècle France and Germany
Leora Auslander, University of Chicago


Comment: Kenneth F. Ledford, Case Western Reserve Universit

Session 101.  Narrating Justice and Atrocity: War Crimes Trials and the Politics of Memory in the Postwar World
Saturday, January 6, 2:30-4:30 p.m., Westin, Essex Ballroom North West

Chair: Jeffry Diefendorf, University of New Hampshire
Papers:

Search for Justice: Ideals and Realities in the Tokyo War Crimes Trials
Peter Li, Rutgers University

The Shock of the Old: The Ulm Einsatskommando Trial and the Return of the Repressed in Postwar Germany
Devin O. Pendas, University of Chicago

Telling the Story: Survivor Testimony and Narration of the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial
Rebecca E. Wittmann, University of Toronto


Comment: Moishe Postone, University of Chicago

Session 136.  Nature in Modern German History: New Approaches and Counternarratives
Sunday, January 7, 8:30-10:30 a.m., Marriott, Grand Ballroom Salon K

Chair: Celia Applegate, University of Rochester
Papers:

Commerce and Ecology: The Reengineering of the Rhine River in the Age of Coal and Chemicals, 1815–1914
Mark Cioc, University of California at Santa Cruz

Nature in a Divided Land: Concepts of Nature and the Practice of Conservation in East and West Germany, 1949–Early 1960s
Sandra Chaney, Erskine College

Social Hiking: The Naturfreunde Organization and the Socialist Appropriation of Nature in Weimar Germany, 1919–33
John A. Williams, Bradley University


Comment: David Blackbourn, Harvard University

Session 143. Confessions of Suicide in Early Modern Germany and Switzerland
Sunday, January 7, 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m., Marriott, Grand Ballroom Salon I

Chair: Michael McDonald, University of Michigan
Papers:

Suicide in Lutheran Northern Germany: Gender, Discourse, Experience
Vera Lind, German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C.

Calvinism and Suicide: The Case of Early Modern Geneva
Jeffrey R. Watt, University of Mississippi

Catholic Suicide: A Contradiction?
David Lederer, National University of Ireland at Maynooth


Comment: H. C. Erik Midelfort, University of Virginia

The full 2001 AHA program can be found on line, at the following address: http://www.theaha.org/annual/program/index.html


Conference Group for Central European History

Current Officers (January 2000-January 2001)
President: Mary Jo Maynes, University of Minnesota
Vice-President: Konrad Jarausch, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and University of Potsdam 
Vice-President Elect: David Crew, University of Texas at Austin
Immediate Past President: Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia, New York University
At-Large Member (exp. January 2001): Mary Lindemann, Carnegie-Mellon University
At-Large Member (exp. January 2002): Pieter Judson, Swarthmore College
At-Large Member (exp. January 2003): Doris Bergen, University of Notre Dame
Editor of Central European History, Kenneth Barkin, University of California, Riverside
Executive Secretary and Treasurer, Kees Gispen, University of Mississippi

Archives Committee
David Barclay (Kalamazoo College) has agreed to take over the chair of the archives committee. Besides David, the committee includes the following members:
John Connelly, University of California at Berkeley
Carole Fink, Ohio State University
Geoffrey Giles, University of Florida (ex officio)
Alan Steinweis, University of Nebraska at Lincoln 
Gerhard Weinberg, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
For contact information, please see the Fall 1998 Newsletter (http://home.olemiss.edu/~hsgispen/cgceh/Fall98Nwsltr.html)

Nominations Committee 
As reported in the spring 2000 Newsletter, the Conference Group’s 2000 nominating committee is made up of the executive committee.  The committee nominated David Blackbourn, Harvard University, for the position of Vice-President Elect and Peter Black, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, for a three-year term on the executive committee.  These nominations will be voted on at the January business meeting in Boston.  The executive committee welcomes members' suggestions for officers of the Conference Group.  The Executive Secretary recommends that Gerald Feldman and Roger Chickering be renominated to continue serving as the Conference Group’s delegates to Friends of the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C.  These or other nominations will be discussed at the January business meeting, which will elect next year’s officers.

Recommendation for naming the Conference Group's Book Prize
In the course of 2000, the Executive Committee again discussed the possibility of associating our book prize with the name of an historian; the committee proposes to name the book prize for Hans Rosenberg.  This recommendation will be discussed and voted on at the time of the January business meeting in Boston

Editorship of Central European History to become vacant
The editor of Central European History, Ken Barkin, will complete his current and last term of office in the spring of 2004.  The Executive Committee welcomes suggestions from members and readers of CEH for a new editor, in hopes that beginning the process now insures a timely transition to a worthy successor and new institutional home for the journal.  This matter will be discussed at the January business meeting.



Announcements

Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar in German History
"Germany in the Age of Total War, 1914 -1945"
Washington, D.C., April 25-28, 2001

The German Historical Institute in Washington, the Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University, and the Conference Group for Central European History are pleased to announce the Seventh Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar in German History. The conference is once again supported by the German-American Academic Council and will convene in Washington, D.C. from April 25 to 28, 2001.

The seminar brings together young scholars from Germany and North America who are nearing the completion of their doctoral degrees. We plan to invite eight doctoral students from each side of the Atlantic to discuss their research projects. The discussions will be based on papers submitted in advance of the conference. The languages of the seminar will be German and English. We shall cover travel costs and lodging expenses. The theme of this year's conference will be "Germany in the Age of Total War, 1914-1945." 

We are now accepting applications from doctoral students whose work falls principally in this era and who will not have finished their degrees by June 2001. Applications should include a short (2-3 pp.) project description, a curriculum vitae, and a letter of reference from the major advisor. 

Please send applications by December 1, 2000, to: 

German Historical Institute 
Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar 
Attn: Baerbel Thomas 
1607 New Hampshire Ave, N.W. 
Washington, DC 20009-2562 
ph. (202) 387-3355 
fax (202) 483-3430 
e-mail: bkthomas@idt.net
web site: www.ghi-dc.org


Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize Winners

The Friends of the German Historical Institute are pleased to announce the winners of this year's Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize:  

H. Glenn Penny III (University of Missouri, Kansas City)
 "Cosmopolitan Visions and Municipal Displays: 
Museums, Markets, and the Ethnographic Project in Germany, 1868-1914"

and

Frank P. Biess (University of California, San Diego)
"The Protracted War: Returning POWs and the Making of East and West German Citizens, 1945-1955"


Summer Institute in German Studies

The Center for German and European Studies at the University of Minnesota in 
conjunction with the University of Munich and the University of Potsdam is planning a:

 Trans-Atlantic Summer Institute in German Studies

The institute is designed to provide a unique forum in which graduate-level students in Germany and the United States can collaborate in the exploration of advanced topics relating to Germany and its role in Europe.  It is envisioned that 12 Germans and 12 Americans will participate in this intensive experience each summer as a way of examining more deeply topics that will enrich their theses and dissertations in German studies. 

 The first round of three yearly institutes will address key issues in twentieth-century German history.
        – Germany in the Century of American and Soviet Power (2001)
        – Violence and Normality in the Century of Total War (2002)
        – Multiple Memories of the Twentieth Century (2003)

 The focus of each of these institutes is on Germany and its role in Europe.  But each topic also lends itself to comparison with developments in the United States.  American views of Germany; the role of violence in American society; conflicting American memories of World War II -- these themes  will place both German and American patterns under the revealing light of comparative history.  As sub-themes of their general topics, each of the institutes will develop the comparative dimension.

Each summer the institute will be co-taught by two faculty members, one from the University of Minnesota and one from either the University of Potsdam or the University of Munich.  The third faculty member will attend the seminar for a few days at the outset and offer guest lectures and lead a few of the discussions.  In 2001, the faculty will be Eric D. Weitz (Minnesota) and Martin Geyer (Munich), and Konrad Jarausch (Potsdam and North Carolina) as guest lecturer.

The Summer Institute in German Studies will be held every July and will last three weeks.  It will be held alternating years in Minnesota and Germany.  In Summer 2001, the Institute will meet at the University of Minnesota, July 9-27.  The Institute will provide substantial support to its participants in order to guarantee that qualified graduate students will be able to enroll in it regardless of income.  Pending final funding decisions, each participant will receive partial or full support for the following:
   
Transportation to the Institute site
    Housing/per diem subsidy
    Waiver of graduate tuition at the University of Minnesota
    Use of computers, e-mail connections, and Internet access at Institute site
    Use of library and archival materials at Institute site

The Institute will carry University of Minnesota Graduate School credit.  Participation will be open to graduate students in History and related disciplines at universities in North America and Germany. Participants will selected on a competitive basis by a joint committee composed of faculty and staff from the University of Minnesota, the University of Potsdam, and the University of Munich.

For further information, please contact one of the following:

Center for German and European Studies
University of Minnesota
214 Social Science Building
267 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
USA

Fax: 612.625.0528
Phone: 612.626.7705 
email: cges@tc.umn.edu
web: http://www.cges.umn.edu

Eric D. Weitz
Associate Professor 
Department of History 
University of Minnesota 
614 Social Sciences 
267 19th Avenue South 
Minneapolis, MN 55455 
USA 

fax: 612.624.7096
phone: 612.624.7506
email: weitz004@tc.umn.edu



The editor of this Newsletter may be reached at the following address:
Department of History
University of Mississippi
University, MS 38677
662-915-7148
662-915-7033 fax
hsgispen@olemiss.edu



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