Modern and Contemporary History

The history of the nineteenth and twentieth century had a powerful, long-term impact on the outlook of the world today. The downfall of the communist system in 1989-1991, ensuing transformations, and increasing globalization have challenged scholars to experiment with new transnational approaches, including shared/entangled history, history of transfers, histoire croisée, and global history. The Department of Historical Studies combines various historiographical traditions, providing a meeting ground for historians working on European and world history. The field stimulates systematic reflection on the history of the nineteenth, twentieth and the twenty-first centuries on topics such as political violence, migration, imperial formations, labor movements, political religions and fundamentalism, fascism and the Holocaust, the rise of populism, communism, or the comparative study of totalitarian systems. Another dimension of teaching and research is memory studies and the politics of history.

Faculty
Students
Courses
Publications
Activities

Alíz Horváth

East Asia, with a focus on Japan, China, and Korea
Linguistic Diversity in Digital Humanities

Anastasia Felcher (Visiting)

Cultural History of Borderlands
Minority Histories in Plural Societies
Memory and Heritage of Violence
Archiving the Cold War and Post-Socialist Transition

Balázs Trencsényi

History of Political Thought
History and Methodogy of Historiography
Transnational and Comparative History
History of Early Modern and Modern East Central Europe

Carsten Wilke

Jewish History and Thought
Comparative Religious History
History of the Iberian World

Charles Shaw

Cold War Studies
Comparative Empires
Cultural History and Cultural Studies
Nationalism Studies

Constantin Iordachi

Fascism and Totalitarianism
Nation and Nationalism
Political History
Southeastern Europe/Balkans

Emese Lafferton

History of Science, Medicine and Technology
Medical Humanities
History of Race, Gender and Sexuality

Juliane Fürst

Soviet Social and Cultural History
Subcultures, Non-Conformism, Dissent
The Long Perestroika/Perebudova

Khadija Zinnenburg Carroll

Colonial History and Visual Art
Nineteenth-Century and Contemporary Global Histories of Art and Science
Sensory Ethnography and the Collecting of Material Culture

M. Brett Wilson

Modernism
Print Culture
Islamic Studies
State Relations with Religious Institutions

Marsha Siefert (Emirata)

Cinema, Diplomacy, and Cold War Culture
Media History, Music History, and Technology
Labor, Information, Communication, and Infrastructure

Michael Ignatieff

Intellectual history, the European Enlightenment and After
Liberalism and its History
Human Rights and the History of Moral Universalism

Nadia Al-Bagdadi

Modern Arab and Middle Eastern Intellectual and Cultural History (18th -21st Centuries)
Islamic Studies
Gender in Arab and Mediterranean Studies in Comparative Perspective
Global and Regional History

Susan Zimmermann

Global Inequalities and the Unequal International Division of Labour
Work and Labor in Different Political and Economic Systems
Research Perspectives that Integrate the Study of Class and Gender

Tolga U. Esmer

Crime, Corruption, and Imperial Governance
Inter- and Intra-Confessional Relations and Nation-State Formation
The Ottoman World and its Successor States

Cody James Inglis

History of Political Thought
History of Philosophy
Conceptual History
Habsburg Empire and its Successor States

Ivana Mihaela Žimbrek

Socialist Yugoslavia
Cold War
Urban History

Lucija Balikić

History of Austro-Hungarian Monarchy
History of Yugoslavia
History of Ideas
History of Knowledge Production

Aliaksandr Bystryk

History of Nationalism
Mass Media and Nationalism
History of Belarus

Berkant Yavuz

History of Philosophy
History of Political Thought
Mortality & Modernity
History of Religion & Religious Thought

Daniela Munteanu

History of Human Sciences
New Imperial History
History of Knowledge
History of Self

Elisabeth Luif

Transnational Perspectives on 20th Century Central and Southeastern Europe
Interwar Fascism
Labor History
Memory Politics and Public History

Emilia Castelao

Diplomatic History
Cultural History
History of Sport

Julia Boechat Machado

History of the Book
Tamizdat Publishing
Alternative Publishing Practices

MA Students

As well as PhDs, our MA students study and publish in their chosen research fields. Click on the image above for a list of MA students working in the field of Modern and Contemporary History.