Faculty Listing

Alphabetical Listing
Listing by Field

Wulf Kansteiner

Associate Professor
PhD, 1997, UCLA
Modern Germany, Holocaust Studies, media history, historiography


Office: LT 715		  
Phone: (607) 777-2503 E-mail: wkanstei@binghamton.edu
I am a cultural-intellectual historian of 20th century Europe and focus on the representation and collective memory of World War II and the Holocaust in Germany. I am interested in the mass media representations of the events, especially in television, as well as their impact on postwar historiography and philosophy. In addition, I pursue more theoretical projects concerned with the theory and practice of historiography, historical culture, and comparative genocide studies. I teach modern German history, the history of the Holocaust, memory studies and historiography.

Recent or current undergraduate courses:

  • The Long German Century
  • The Holocaust

Recent or current graduate courses:

  • Historiography
  • Cultures of Catastrophe*
*Courses with an asterisk are also open to undergraduates.

Publications

Books

  • The Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe , co-edited with Claudio Fogu and Ned Lebow, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 366 pp.
  • In Pursuit of German Memory: History, Television, and Politics after Auschwitz (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2006), 440pp.

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

  • "Wonderful, Horrible Lies: Riefenstahl Memory and Riefenstahl History in Germany ,” in: Neil Pages, Ingeborg Maier O'Sickey, Mary Rhiel (eds.), Riefenstahl Screened: An Anthology of New Criticism (New York : Continuum, forthcoming 2008).
  • (with Harald Weilnböck) “Against the Concept of Cultural Trauma or How I Learned to Love the Suffering of Others without the Help of Psychotherapy, “ in: Astrid Erll, Ansgar Nünning (eds.), Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook ( New York : de Gruyter, forthcoming 2008).
  • "Sold Globally – Remembered Locally: Holocaust Cinema and the Construction of Collective Identities in Europe, Israel, and the US,” in: Stefan Berger (ed.), Narrating the Nation ( New York : Berghahn, forthcoming 2008).
  • "Alternate Worlds and Invented Communities: History and Historical Consciousness in the Age of Interactive Media” in: Keith Jenkins, Sue Morgan, Alun Munslow (eds.) Manifestos for History ( Oxford : Routledge, 2007), 131-148.
  • "Losing the War – Winning the Memory Battle: The Legacy of Nazism, World War II, and the Holocaust in the Federal Republic of Germany ,” in: Fogu/Kansteiner/Lebow (eds.), The Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe Durham : Duke UP, 2006, 102-146.
  • (with Claudio Fogu) “Conclusion: The Politics of Memory and the Poetics of History,” In Fogu/Kansteiner/Lebow (eds.), The Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe (Durham: Duke UP, 2006), 284-310.
  • “Television Archives and the Making of Collective Memory: Nazism and World War II in three Television Blockbusters of German Public Television,” in: Francis X. Blouin /William Rosenberg (eds.), Archives, Documentation, and the Institutions of Social Memory (Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2005), 368-378.

    German version: "Populäres Geschichtsfernsehen vor Holocaust : Die Darstellung des Nationalsozialismus und des Zweiten Weltkrieges in drei Erfolgssendungen des ZDF," Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung 30/4 (2005), 53-73 and online through Zeitgeschichte-online , 21 pp.

  • "Testing the Limits of Trauma: The Long-Term Psychological Effects of the Holocaust on Individuals and Collectives," History of the Human Sciences 17 (2004), 97-123.
  • Genealogy of a Category Mistake: A Critical Intellectual History of the Cultural Trauma Metaphor," Rethinking History 8 (2004), 193-221. Abridged version reprinted in Frame:tijdschrift voor literatuurwetenschap 18/1-2 (2005), 8-30.

    German version of the two previous texts: “Menschheitstrauma, Holocausttrauma, kulturelles Trauma: Eine kritische Genealogie der philosophischen, psychologischen und kulturwissenschaftlichen Traumaforschung seit 1945,” in: Friedrich Jaeger/Jörn Rüsen (eds.), Handbuch der Kulturwissenschaften : Band 3: Themen und Tendenzen (Stuttgart : Metzler, 2004), 109-138.

  • "Nazis, Viewers, and Statistics: Television History, Television Audience Research and Collective Memory in West Germany," Journal of Contemporary History 39 (2004), 575-598.
  • "The Radicalization of German Memory in the Age of its Commercial Reproduction: Hitler and the Third Reich in the TV Documentaries of Guido Knopp," in: Norbert Finzsch/Ursula Lehmkuhl (eds.), Atlantic Communications: The Media in American and German History from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century (Providence: Berg, 2004), 335-372.

    German version: "Die Radikalisierung des deutschen Gedächnisses im Zeitalter seiner kommerziellen Reproduktion: Hitler und das Dritte Reich in den Fernsehdokumentationen von Guido Knopp," in: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 51 (2003), 626-648.

  • "Populäres Geschichtsfernsehen vor Holocaust: Die Darstellung des Nationalsozialismus und des Zweiten Weltkrieges in drei Erfolgssendungen des ZDF," Zeitgeschichte-online, posted since March 2004 at http://www.zeitgeschichteonline.de/portal/alias__rainbow/lang__de/tabID__40208182/DesktopDefault.aspx.
  • "Entertaining Catastrophe: The Reinvention of the Holocaust in the Television of the Federal Republic of Germany, New German Critique 90 (Fall 2003), 135-162.

    German version: "Ein Völkermord ohne Täter: Die Darstellung der 'Endlösung' in den Sendungen des Zweiten Deutschen Fernsehens," Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche Geschichte 2003, 229-262.

  • "Finding Meaning in Memory: A Methodological Critique of Collective Memory Studies," History and Theory 41 (2002), 179-197.

    German version: "Postmoderner Historismus: Das kollektive Gedächtnis als neues Paradigma der Kulturwissenschaften," in: Friedrich Jaeger/Jürgen Straub (eds.), Handbuch der Kulturwissenschaften: Band 2: Paradigmen und Disziplinen, (Stuttgart: Metzler, March 2004), 119-139.

  • "The Rise and Fall of Metaphor: German Historians and the Uniqueness of the Holocaust," in: Alan S. Rosenbaum (ed.), Is the Holocaust Unique? Perspectives on Comparative Genocide, 2nd edition (Boulder: Westview, 2001), 221-244.
  • "Mandarins in the Public Sphere: Vergangenheitsbewältigung and the Paradigm of Social History in the Federal Republic of Germany," German Politics and Society 17/3 (1999), 84-120.
  • "Between Politics and Memory: The Historikerstreit and the West German Historical Culture of the 1980s," in: Richard J. Golsan (ed.), Fascism's Return: Scandal, Revision, Ideology (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), 86-129.
  • "From Exception to Exemplum: The New Approach to Nazism and the 'Final Solution', History and Theory 33 (1994), 145-171. Excerpts reprinted in Keith Jenkins (ed.) The Postmodern History Reader (London: Routledge, 1997), 413-417.
  • "Emplotment and Historicization: Recent German Histories about National Socialism and Modernity," Storia della Storiografia 25 (1993), 65-87.
  • "Hayden White's Critique of the Writing of History," History and Theory 32 (1993), 273-295. Reprinted in Contemporary Literary Criticism 148 (2002), 263-276 and in Robert Burns (ed.), Historiography: Critical Concepts in Historical Studies , vol. 4 (Oxford : Routledge, 2006), 379-403.

Representative Reviews and Comments

  • “Of Kitsch, Enlightenment, and Gender Anxiety: Exploring the Cultural Memories of Collective Memory Studies,” (review of Peter Seixas (ed.), Theorizing Historical Consciousness ) History and Theory 46 (2007), 82-91.
  • "Hugo Frey, Louis Malle (Manchester : Manchester UP, 2004),” Rethinking History 11/2 (2007), 293-295.
  • "Cultures of Catastrophe: Understanding the History and Memory of Mass Death in 20th Century Europe," (Review of Omer Bartov, Mirrors of Destruction: War, Genocide, and Modern Identity German Politics and Society 19 (2002), 88-96.
  • “Siobhan Kattago, Ambiguous Memory: The Nazi Past and German National Identity, (Westport: Praeger, 2001),” German Studies Review 25/2 (2002), 408-409.
  • John P. Teschke, Hitler's Legacy: West Germany Confronts the Aftermath of the Third Reich (New York: Lang, 1999),” German Studies Review 25/1 (2002), 185-187.
  • "The Avant-Garde in the Trenches of Vergangenheitsbewältigung: German History in the Experimental Films of the New German Cinema," (Review of Eike Wenzel, Gedächnisraum Film: Die Arbeit an der deutschen Geschichte in Filmen seit den sechziger Jahren) distributed through H-German October 2001: http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=267771002563763. (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2000).
  • “Werner Bergmann, Antisemitismus in öffentlichen Konflikten: Kollektives Lernen in der politischen Kultur der Bundesrepublik 1949-1989 (Frankfurt: Campus, 1997),” Shofar 19/2 (2001), 163-166.
  • "Mad History Disease Contained? Postmodern Excess Management Advice from the UK," (Review of Richard Evans, In Defence of History) History and Theory 39 (2000), 218-229.
  • “Elisabeth Domansky/Harald Welzer (eds.), Eine offene Geschichte: Zur kommunikativen Tradierung der nationalsozialistischen Vergangenheit (Tübingen: diskord, 1999),” German Studies Review 23/3 (2000), 632-633.
  • "Searching for an Audience: The Historical Profession in the Media Age: A Comment on Arthur Marwick and Hayden White," Journal of Contemporary History 31 (1996), 211-215. Reprinted in Contemporary Literary Criticism 148 (2002), 276-278.
  • "The Holocaust, the Historian, and the Critic," (Review of Dominick LaCapra, Representing the Holocaust: History, Theory, Trauma) Radical History Review 62 (1995), 232-238.

Translations

  • Jan van Pelt, "Einige Überlegungen zum Verhältnis von Historismus und Architektur," Wolfgang Küttler, Jörn Rüsen, Ernst Schulin (Hg.), Geschichtsdiskurs Band 3. Die Epoche der Historisierung (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1997), 132-149.
  • Peter Hanns Reill, "Die Historisierung von Mensch und Natur. Der Zusammenhang von Naturwissenschaften und historischem Denken im Entstehungsprozeß der modernen Naturwissenschaften," Wolfgang Küttler, Jörn Rüsen, Ernst Schulin (Hg.), Geschichtsdiskurs Band 2. Die Anfänge des historischen Denkens (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1994), 48-61.
  • Amos Funkenstein, "Juden, Christen und Muslime: Religiöse Polemik im Mittelalter," Wolfgang Beck (Hg.), Die Juden in der Europäischen Geschichte (München: Beck, 1992), 33-50.
  • Saul Friedlander, "Haß war die treibende Kraft. Die Vernichtung der europäischen Juden," Spiegel Spezial 2 (1992), 30-40.