History 314: Modern German History, George Mason University

This course is a survey of German history from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the present. It covers Germany’s unification in 1871, European Imperialism, the two World Wars, Nazism, the Holocaust, Communism, the Cold War, and today’s migration crisis. Throughout the semester we will focus on how social, political, and cultural changes affected and were affected by outsiders—often-marginalized groups including the working classes, women, queer people, Jews, and people of color. In your writing assignments you will be asked to imagine how ordinary Germans would have experienced the events they lived through, from wars to revolutions, and how they in turn might have shaped those events.

History 388: Nazi Germany, George Mason University

Although Adolf Hitler governed Germany for only twelve years, the Nazi state remains one of the most intensively studied regimes in modern history. This course will cover the history of Nazi Germany, examining the rise of National Socialism in the Weimar Republic, elements of Nazi rule, World War II, the Holocaust, and the aftereffects of Nazism in postwar Europe and the United States. Over the course of the semester, we will consider a number of core questions about the Nazi era, including what role the persecution of racial and social outsiders played in Nazi Germany, how one should classify the Nazi state in comparison to other dictatorships, and what the Nazi era can tell us about our world today.

History 499: Germany after Nazism, George Mason University

In the years following the end of World War Two, Germany underwent a series of radical changes. It was occupied by the four Allied Powers—the United States, Soviet Union, UK, and France—and divided into four individually governed occupation zones. Prominent Nazis were put on trial at Nuremberg, while thousands of ordinary Germans were tried, imprisoned, or removed from their jobs on suspicion of Nazi sympathies. Other Germans, many of them women whose husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons the war had claimed, took it upon themselves to rebuild a country that Allied firebombing had reduced to rubble. The newly-formed United Nations labored to help millions of displaced persons across Europe, in particular survivors of the Holocaust and those brought to Nazi Germany as forced laborers. The United States and the Soviet Union worked with German leaders who had resisted Nazism to found two competing political systems in what would become West and East Germany, respectively. These years saw the beginning of the Cold War, including the dramatic Berlin blockade and airlift. In this seminar, you will research and write a substantial paper on some aspect of German politics, society, or culture during the occupation, and present your findings at the end of the semester.

Hist 4S/Germ 45: Crimes Against Humanity, Stanford University

What is a crime against humanity and how can it be punished? Starting with the Nuremberg Trials, this seminar will consider how the juridical category of crimes against humanity came into existence and has evolved over the past half century. Thinking through core questions posed by Hannah Arendt, we will consider how crimes against humanity are to be understood in the context of modern jurisprudence, who perpetrates such crimes, and what relationship exists between crimes against humanity and modernity. 

History 635: Nazi Germany, George Mason University

Although Adolf Hitler governed Germany for only twelve years, the Nazi state remains one of the most intensively studied regimes in modern history. In this seminar we will read historical scholarship about the Nazi era, examining the rise of National Socialism in the Weimar Republic, elements of Nazi rule, World War II, the Holocaust, and the aftereffects of Nazism in postwar Europe and the United States. Over the course of the semester, we will consider a number of core questions about the Nazi era, including what role the persecution of racial and social outsiders played in Nazi Germany, how one should classify the Nazi state in comparison to other dictatorships, and what the Nazi era can tell us about our world today.

History 615/635: Global History of Sexuality and Gender, George Mason University

What are sexuality and gender identity, what do they have to do with each other, and how have they changed over time? Why have different regimes regulated sexuality in different ways and for different reasons? How have individuals understood their sex and sexuality in different times and places? These are a few of the questions we will tackle this semester, reading some of the most influential histories of gender and sexuality in Europe, the United States, and Asia. The course includes a focus on oral history.

History 635: Germany in the Cold War, George Mason University

The Berlin Wall remains one of the Cold War’s most potent symbols, a representation of the physical and ideological divisions that shaped the world over the course of forty years. In this seminar we will examine Germany in the Cold War era, reading historical scholarship about both the East German communist dictatorship and the West German democracy. We will look at how early historiography, which viewed East Germany through the lens of totalitarianism, has given way to new approaches that take up questions of citizenship and sovereignty in both Germanies through perspectives of gender, sexuality, race, ideology, and class. Over the course of the semester, we will ponder how the Cold War shaped each Germany’s path, how ordinary people engaged in the geopolitical struggles of the Cold War, and how national and international priorities intersected in the two German states.