Professor Stefan Berger
Professor of Modern German and Comparative European History
Address: School of Languages, Literatures and CulturesUniversity of Manchester, Oxford Road,Manchester M13 9PL
Email: stefan.berger@manchester.ac.uk
Research specialisation
Current areas of research interest include: Modern and Contemporary European history, especially the history of Germany and Britain; comparative labour history; nationalism and national identity studies; history of historiography and historical theory.
Currently completing a British Academy funded research project on 'Britain and the GDR' - together with Dr. Norman LaPorte (University of Glamorgan).
Also currently directing a European Science Foundation funded five-year research programme on 'Representations of the Past: The Writing of National Histories in Europe'.
Publications
Click the highlighted link to view a full list of publications.
Professional Biography
Education:
1975 - 1983: educated at Konrad-Adenauer Gymnasium in Langenfeld/Rheinland, FRG. Languages: English, Latin, French.
1985 - 1987: University of Cologne, where I studied history, political science and German literature. Learnt Italian.
1985 - 1990: awarded a scholarship of the German National Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes).
1987 - 1990: awarded a Rhodes scholarship at the University of Oxford, Trinity College, engaged in research for a D.Phil. about "The Labour Party and the SPD. A Comparison of their Structure and Development and a Discussion of the Relations Between the Two Movements, 1900 - 1933"; the thesis was completed and accepted by the History Faculty Board in August 1991.
Community service: 1983 - 1984 at the Holiday Centre of the Catholic Labour Movement in Rahrbach (Sauerland)
Academic Jobs:
Present position: Professor of Modern German and Comparative European History at the University of Manchester.
Teaching responsibilities:
- The Search for Normality: German National Identities after 1945 (final year undergraduate)
- Working-class lives and the search for social and political emancipation in 19th and 20th century Germany (second year undergraduate)
- European National Identities after 1945 (MA option)
- National Identity and History Writing (MA Critical Theory pathway)
Supervision of research students:
- Sven de Roode, PhD on 'The Reception of the European Union in the Print Media of Britain, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Netherlands, 1955 - 1983' (2006 -)
Administrative responsibilities:
- research co-ordinator for German, responsible for drafting the UoA's 2007 RAE submission
- member of school research committee
- Postgraduate research co-ordinator, German
- Member of school postgraduate research committee
- German Research Seminar organization (2007/8)
On my arrival at the University of Manchester, I became a founding member and one of the directors of the Centre for the Study of Cultural Forms of Modern European Politics. The Centre is a Faculty-wide research centre with financial input from the School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures and the School of Social Sciences.
Since September 2007 I am also the Director of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at the University of Manchester. It is co-financed by the The University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University and Salford University.
Previous academic jobs:
1986 - 1987: held a job as one of the student assistants to Prof. Schmidt at the University of Cologne, Politics Dept.
1990 - 1991: Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Plymouth.
Teaching responsibilities:
- English Social History, 1750 - 1850
- European Labour Movements, 1850 - 1939
- The Development of Western and Central Europe (Britain, Germany, France and Italy), 1945 to the present
1991-2000: Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the School of European Studies, University of Wales, Cardiff.
Teaching responsibilities:
- German Contemporary History, 1945 - 1998 (First year lecture course)
- Imperial Germany, 1866-1914 (optional module for second and fourth year students)
- The Weimar Republic, 1918-1933 (optional module for second and fourth year students)
- National Socialist Germany, 1933-1945 (optional module for second and fourth year students)
- The post-war reconstruction of Germany, 1945-1949 (optional module for second and fourth year students)
- The Adenauer years, 1949-1963 (optional module for second and fourth year students)
- The German labour movement, 1800 - 1998 (optional module for second and fourth year students)
- Language classes in years 1,2 and 4: translation German-English; grammar; precis and essay writing; oral.
Supervision of research students:
- Heiko Feldner, PhD on 'Karl Dietrich Hüllmann and the Invention of "Scientificity" in Historical Writing in Nineteenth Century Germany' (1997 - 2000)
Furthermore I was co-chair of the department's research unit on 'Political Parties, Social Movements and Institutions' and deputy director of the Centre for German History at Cardiff University.
Administrative duties included
- membership of the school's teaching committee (1995-1998),
- research committee (1996-2000; chair since 1998),
- co-responsibility for admissions (1992-93),
- the organisation of the year-abroad arrangements (including all Erasmus/Socrates programmes with Germany 1992-2000).
I was also co-ordinator for a taught M.Sc.Econ. on the topic of 'West European Labour Studies'.
On the M.Sc. I was teaching
- Introduction to European Labour Movements: Components on Britain and Germany as well as the comparative components.
- Approaches to Labour Studies: seminars on comparative history, Marx, Weber, the history of everyday life, Foucault, Bourdieu and on the linguistic turn.
- Labour Politics: Components on Britain and Germany as well as the comparative components.
- Labour Cultures: Components on Britain and Germany as well as the comparative components.
- Labour Relations: Components on Britain and Germany as well as the comparative components.
2000 - 2005: Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Glamorgan/Wales and Co-founder and co-director of the Hefcw-funded Centre for Border Studies
Teaching responsibilities:
- Europe, 1918 - 1956 (BA 1st year module)
- Life and Labour in an Industrial Society. Europe, 1850 to the Present (BA 2nd year module)
- Identities in Modern Britain and Germany: Nation, Class, Religion, Ethnicity and Gender (BA 3rd year module)
- Researching History (MA core module)
- European Labour Movements (MA optional module)
Currently supervision of two Ph.D. students.
I have successfully supervised to date four MA by research students.
Supervision of research students:
Leighton James, PhD on 'Constructing Miners' Identities in the Coalfields of the Ruhr and South Wales, 1898 - 1923' (2000 - 2003)
Steven Jones, PhD on 'The New Left in Britain and its Reception of Continental European Political Thought' (2004 - 2005; Hefcw-funded PhD studentship, continued to be supervised by colleagues at the University of Glamorgan after my departure to Manchester)
During my time at Glamorgan I also supervised four MA by research students, who had to produce a 30,000 word thesis.
Administrative responsibilities:
- Scheme leader for the MA by research (Humanities)
- Scheme leader for the Taught MA in Cultural and Social History
- Member of the School Research Committee and the Departmental Research Programmes Committee
- Chair of the History Research Unit
Professional activities
1996-2000: Board member of the British Centre at the Max-Planck-Institute for History, Göttingen.
1997-2000: Committee member of the German History Society.
From 2009: Chair (designate) of the German History Society.
2001-2006: Executive committee member of the Labour History Society.
2002-2006: International Secretary of the Labour History Society.
From 2002: Co-chair of the 'History and Theory' network of the biannual European Social Science History Conference (with Chris Lorenz, Amsterdam, and Thomas Welskopp, Göttingen)
2003-2008: Chair of a European Science Foundation (ESF) programme entitled 'Representations of the Past: National Histories in Europe'; for details see here. General editor, together with Guy Marchal and Chris Lorenz, of the six-volume book series entitled 'Writing the Nation' and published with Palgrave MacMillan, 2008 ff.
From 2005: Society of Author's Tieck-Schlegel Translation Price judge
2005- 2006: member of the Irish Research Council for the Social Sciences and the Humanities, Postgraduate Award Board
2006: member of the Irish Research Council for the Social Sciences and the Humanities, Postdoctoral Award Board
2007: chair of the Irish Reseach Council for the Social Sciences and the Humanities, Small Research Grants Award Board
2006: appointed external evaluator of the German research council's (DFG) Excellence Initiative, evaluating German universities.
From 2006: member of the advisory board of the National Museums project, funded by the European Commission and chaired by Professor Peter Aaronson (University of Linkoping, Sweden).
From 2007: member of AHRC peer review panel 4: History.
From 2007: member of the advisory panel of the CHARME consortium of European universities providing postgraduate training in coalfield histories.
Commissioning editor (jointly with Kevin Passmore and Heiko Feldner) on a series of books entitled Writing History and published by Edward Arnold.
Member of the editorial boards of Debatte. Review of Contemporary German Affairs, Labour History Review, Socialist History, Blackwell Compass to History, MUP Critical Studies in Labour History series, Social Europe. The Journal of the European Left.
Member of the Historical Association.
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
I have reviewed book and article manuscripts for Frank Cass, Berghahn Publishers, Berg Publishers, Routledge, University of Ohio Press, Blackwell, Manchester University Press, Oxford University Press, Palgrave/MacMillan as well as German History, International Review of Social History, Journal of Modern History, Political Studies, Blackwell Compass, Labour History Review and Contemporary European History.
I am an external examiner at the University of Aberystwyth (2001 -2004 ), at King's College London (2001 - 2004), the University of Liverpool (2004 - ), and the University of York (2006 -) and I have acted as an external advisor for a new MSc in Social History at Swansea University in 2003 and a MSc in the History of Nationalism at the London School of Economics in 2007. I have also to date examined seven Ph.D.s at the Universities of Sheffield (Carl Wilds), the West of England, Bristol (Ulin Jodah), Oxford University (Christoph Muller; Leonara Fitzgibbons), Portsmouth (Monica Riera) the University of London (D. A. Redvaldsen) and London Metropolitan University (Henning Meyer).
I was external assessor on the appointment panel for a chair in Border Studies at the University of Glamorgan in October 2005. And I did an external review for the history department at the University of Glamorgan in preparation for the RAE 2007 in November 2006.
I have evaluated numerous research proposals for the AHRC, the Leverhulme Trust and the British Academy in the UK and internationally, for the Austrian Research Council and the European Science Foundation.
I have been external assessor for promotion committees at the University of Wales, Swansea, the University of Lancaster, Edge Hill College of Higher Education, Bradford University, the University of Kent at Canterbury, SUNY, Binghamton and Brown University.
I am an occasional contributor to current affairs radio programs of Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Cologne, especially WDR 5, Morgenecho and Mittagsecho, and BBC Radio Wales. I comment mainly on historical-political developments in Britain and Germany.
Podcast for BBC Radio (Open University Programmes) on the theme of 'history and nationalism' (2007).