Prof Dr Christina von Hodenberg
Christina von Hodenberg is a historian of modern Germany and Britain with a particular interest in political protest, the role of media and the law, gender regimes, feminism, and generations.
My most recent work engages with questions of ageing, value change, and the challenges faced by historians who want to access and re-analyse quantitative and qualitative sources generated by twentieth-century social scientists.
Prior to joining the GHIL as Director in September 2018, I held faculty positions at Queen Mary University of London, the University of Freiburg, and the University of California, Berkeley. My doctorate is from Bielefeld University, and I won a Humboldt Research Award in 2014 which enabled me to spend a joyous year at the University of Halle-Wittenberg in 2014–15. My books have explored topics as diverse as the role of Prussian judges during the revolution of 1848–9, the 1844 revolt of Silesian weavers (Germany’s most famous working-class protest), political journalism in post-war West Germany, and the impact of television on the 1960s cultural revolution in Britain, the United States, and West Germany. My alternative account of late-1960s protest in West Germany (Das andere Achtundsechzig) generated much discussion in academia and beyond when it came out in 2018. A revised version of this monograph, situating the German case within the Western European ‘1968’, will appear in English translation in 2024 with Oxford University Press.
I am also affiliated with Queen Mary University of London’s School of History, where I continue to supervise postgraduate research students and postdoctoral scholars. Enquiries by prospective applicants are welcome.
Research Project
Ageing and ‘Doing Gender’ in the Era of Value Change
Scholars tend to write the cultural history of post-war Germany and Britain from the perspective of youth, tracing epochal shifts to the protests and subcultures of the younger generation. For the 1960s and 1970s, a period of affluence and value transformation, alleged conflicts between male educated youth and their authoritarian fathers often serve to explain political change. This project shifts the focus onto the complex roles of middle-aged and elderly people, and particularly onto ageing women. It explores the 1960s generation gap in new ways by focusing on how older people related to changing mores, the gendered subtext of contemporary clashes, the agency of women, and the intermediary position of the middle generation.
Research Project
Writing Contemporary History with Social Science Data: Plans for a Digital Infrastructure
Social science data – the sources generated through state-sponsored data collection or social science research from the 1940s onwards – are a new challenge for contemporary historians. While they allow unique insights into the social history and experience of ordinary citizens, they come with strings attached. Social science data often lack adequate documentation of the context within which they were collected. Their re-use may be restricted by data protection laws and ethical issues. They may never have been systematically archived or may come in formats that require additional skills and methodical ingenuity to access (such as old statistical software or video cassettes). I trialled the re-use of social science data in my work on the ‘Bonn Longitudinal Study of Ageing’, a large-scale gerontological project conducted at the University of Bonn from 1964 to 1984. These sources are now accessible in an online data archive. I also co-lead the ‘Arbeitskreis Sozialdaten und Zeitgeschichte’, a working group of German historians which explores and promotes new digital infrastructures in this area.
Further projects
Christina von Hodenberg is also involved in the research group on the history of Euroscepticsm, and is a member of the media history module of the ICAS Meriankolleg ‘Metamorphoses of the Political’.
Research Interests
- Ageing and the elderly in Germany and Britain after 1945
- Political culture in 19th- and 20th-century Germany and Britain
- Gender regimes and the history of feminisms
- Popular protest and revolutions
- Generations in contemporary history
- Research-generated social science data as historical sources
- Digital humanities methods for historians
- The history of journalism, mass media, television
- Value change, sexuality, kinship, and gender since 1960
- Comparisons and transnational links between Germany, the UK, and the US
- Legal history and the role of lawyers
- The history of concepts (Begriffsgeschichte)
- Coming to terms with the Nazi past
Education and Academic Background
| 2018– | Director of the GHIL |
| 2012– | Professor of European History, Queen Mary University of London |
| 2007–2012 | Reader in European History, Queen Mary University of London |
| 2006–2007 | Senior Lecturer in European History, Queen Mary University of London |
| 2004 | Habilitation for Modern and Contemporary History, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg |
| 2002–2005 | DAAD Visiting Assistant / Associate Professor of History, University of California at Berkeley |
| 2000–2001 | John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellow, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University |
| 1995–2002 | Assistant Professor of History, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg |
| 1992–1995 | Ph.D. in Modern History, Universität Bielefeld |
| 1987–1991 | MA in Modern History, Eastern European History and German Literature, Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München |
Fellowships, Grants, and Scholarships
2021–2024 | Co-PI for Research Group on Eurosceptic networks in the history of European integration |
2020–2022 | Co-PI for DFG grant on ‘Social Data and Contemporary History’ |
2019–2022 | Principal Investigator for Research Group on ‘Medialization and Empowerment’ |
2017–2019 | Principal Investigator for two EU Marie Curie-Fellowships |
2016–2019 | Volkswagen Stiftung grant for Digitization of Bonner Längsschnittstudie des Alterns, with Historisches Datenzentrum Sachsen-Anhalt, Martin Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg https://www.geschichte.uni-halle.de/struktur/hist-data/ |
2014–2015 | Visiting Professor at Martin Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg |
2009 | Leibniz Summer Fellowship, Zentrum für Zeitgeschichtliche Forschung Potsdam |
2000–2001 | John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellow, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University |
May 1998 | DAAD Visiting Professorship, The Canadian Centre for German and European Studies, Université de Montréal |
Honours and Distinctions
| 2014 | Humboldt Research Award |
| 2009 | First prize, ‘Das Historische Buch’ (H-Soz-u-Kult) for the book ‘Konsens und Krise’, in the media history category |
| 1996 | Dissertation prize, Westfälisch-Lippische Universitätsgesellschaft, for ‘Die Partei der Unparteiischen’ |
Memberships and Affiliations
- Editorial Board, Journal of Modern European History
- Editorial Board, German History
- Editorial Board, Historical Social Research
- Chair of Advisory Council, Zentrum für Zeitgeschichtliche Forschung Potsdam (2015-2022)
- Advisory Council, Hamburger Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte
- Advisory Council, Centre for British Studies, Humboldt University
- Board member, Leo Baeck Institute
- Board member, German History Society (2006–2011; 2018–)
- Advisory Council, Institute for Historical Research, London (2010–2014)
- Co-convener, Modern German History Seminar, Institute for Historical Research, London (2006–2015)
- Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
- Member of Verband Deutscher Historiker und Historikerinnen
Publications
Monographs and Edited Volumes
with Raphael Rössel and Gabriele Lingelbach, Historicizing Familial Care for People with Disabilities in Modern Europe, special issue of Journal of Modern European History (forthcoming 2024)
with Philipp Müllert, ‘Euroskeptics’ in European Integration History, special issue of Journal of Modern European History (forthcoming 2024)
with Jane Freeland, Archiving, Exhibiting, and Curating the History of Feminisms in the Global 20th Century, special issue of Women's History Review, vol. 32 (2023)
Das andere Achtundsechzig: Gesellschaftsgeschichte einer Revolte (Munich, 2018) [Read more]
Television's Moment: Sitcom Audiences and the Sixties Cultural Revolution (New York, 2015) [Read more]
Konsens und Krise: Eine Geschichte der westdeutschen Medienöffentlichkeit, 1945 bis 1973 (Göttingen, 2006) [Read more]
with Detlef Siegfried (eds.), Wo ’1968’ liegt: Reform und Revolte in der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik (Göttingen, 2006) [Read more]
Aufstand der Weber: Die Revolte von 1844 und ihr Aufstieg zum Mythos (Bonn, 1997) [Read more]
Die Partei der Unparteiischen: Der Liberalismus der preußischen Richterschaft, 1815–1848/49, Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft 113 (Göttingen, 1996) [Read more]
Articles and Chapters
Selected
with Kai Naumann and Pascal Siegers, ‘Wie Archive und Forschungsdaten zueinanderfinden – ein gegenseitiger Lernprozess’, in Archiv in Theorie und Praxis, 3/2023
‘Disciplining Girls in German families: Gendered Childhood Experiences of Violent and Authoritarian Parenting in Germany from the 1890s to the 1940s’, in Mary E. John and Elisabeth Schömbucher-Kusterer (eds.), Querying Childhood [ICAS:MP series], (London/New Delhi, submitted, forthcoming 2023)
with Jane Freeland, ‘Archiving, Exhibiting, and Curating the History of Feminisms in the Global Twentieth Century: An Introduction’, in Archiving, Exhibiting, and Curating the History of Feminisms in the Global 20th Century, special issue of Women's History Review, 32 (2023)
with Pascal Siegers, ‘Alte Frauen in der Bundesrepublik am Beispiel der BOLSA-Sozialdaten: Eine Korrespondenzanalyse nach Bourdieu’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 48/1 (2022), 59–88 [Read here]
with Kerstin Brückweh, Pascal Siegers, Lutz Raphael, Sabine Reh, Clemens Villinger, Kathrin Zöller, ‘Sozialdaten als Quellen der Zeitgeschichte: Zur Einführung’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 48/1 (2022), 5–27 [Read here]
‘Television Viewers and Feminism in 1970s North America: How All in the Family Drove Value Change’, in Ravi Vasudevan (ed.), Media and the Constitution of the Political: South Asia and Beyond (New Delhi, 2022), 195-217 [Read here]
‘Die Stimmen der Alten: Die BOLSA-Forschungsdaten als Quellen der deutschen Zeitgeschichte’, Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History, 17 (2020), 403-421 [Read here]
‘Zur Generation der 45er: Stärken und Schwächen eines Deutungsmusters’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 4–5 (2020) [Read here]
‘Carolina Rahm und das deutsche Jahrhundert der Extreme’, in Jörg Später and Thomas Zimmer (eds.), Lebensläufe im 20. Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 2019), 167-185
‘Writing Women's Agency into the History of the Federal Republic: “1968,” Historians, and Gender’, Central European History, 52/1 (2019), 87–106 [Read here]
‘Gesellschaftsgeschichtliche Perspektiven auf das westdeutsche “Achtundsechzig”’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 38/39 (2018), 31–36 [Read here]
‘Square-Eyed Farmers and Gloomy Ethnographers: The Advent of Television in the West German Village’, Journal of Contemporary History, 51 (2016), 839–65 [Read here]
‘Expeditionen in den Methodendschungel: Herausforderungen der Zeitgeschichtsforschung im Fernsehzeitalter’, Journal of Modern European History, 10 (2012), 24–48 [Read here]
‘Ekel Alfred und die Kulturrevolution: Unterhaltungsfernsehen als Sprachrohr der 68er-Bewegung?’, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 62 (2011), 557–72
‘Mass Media and the Generation of Conflict: West Germany’s Long Sixties and the Formation of a Critical Public Sphere’, Contemporary European History, 15/3 (2006), 367–95 [Read here]
‘Of German Fräuleins, Nazi Werewolves, and Iraqi Insurgents: The American Fascination with Hitler’s Last Foray’, Central European History, 41/1 (2008), 71–92 [Read here]
with Philipp Gassert, ‘Media: Government versus Market’, in Kiran Klaus Patel and Christof Mauch (eds.), The United States and Germany during the Twentieth Century: Competition and Convergence (Cambridge, 2010), 227–44 [Read here]
‘The Protest of Silesian Weavers in 1844: Household Strategies and Moral Concepts’, in Jan Kok (ed.), Rebellious Families: Household Strategies and Collective Action in the 19th and 20th Centuries, International Studies in Social History, vol. 3 (Oxford/Providence, 2002), 39–56
‘Politische Generationen und massenmediale Öffentlichkeit: Das Beispiel der Fünfundvierziger in der Bundesrepublik’, in Ulrike Jureit and Michael Wildt (eds.), Generationen: Zur Relevanz eines sozialwissenschaftlichen Grundbegriffs (Hamburg, 2005), 266–94
‘Der Fluch des Geldsacks: Der Aufstieg des Industriellen als Herausforderung bürgerlicher Werte’, in Manfred Hettling and Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann (eds.), Der bürgerliche Wertehimmel: Innenansichten des 19. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 2000), 79–104
‘Mit dem Rotstift gegen die soziale Frage: Die preußische Pressezensur und der schlesische Weberaufstand 1844’, Forschungen zur Brandenburgischen und Preußischen Geschichte, NF 9 (1999), 91–122
Reviews and Miscellaneous Publications
Electronic publications
with Kathrin Zöller, Clemens Villinger, Pascal Siegers, Sabine Reh, Lutz Raphael, Kerstin Brückweh: Sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungsdaten als historische Quellen: Welche Infrastrukturbedarfe hat die zeitgeschichtliche Forschung?, RatSWD Working Paper 277/2022. Berlin: Rat für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsdaten (RatSWD) [Read here]
Radio
Academic adviser and interviewee for the four-part podcast series ‘Alle Menschen müssen sterben, vielleicht auch ich’, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, 30 August – 10 September 2022 [Listen here]