Professor Christina von Hodenberg

I have written widely on the social and cultural history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Germany. My first book was a collective biography of Prussian judges from 1815 to the revolution of 1848-49. I then moved to the history of working-class protest with my study of Germany’s best-known workers’ uprising, the 1844 revolt of Silesian weavers. In 2006, I published the first overview study of political journalism in West Germany between 1945 and 1973. This prize-winning study explores how mass journalism helped overcome authoritarian traditions of German political culture. My fourth book (2015) was a comparative study on the impact of German, British and American television on the Sixties cultural revolution. Most recently, I have written a social history of late sixties protest in West Germany, forthcoming in 2018.

• political culture in 19th and 20th century Germany
• the history of journalism, mass media, television

• value change, sexuality, family, gender and youth
• popular protest and revolutions
• the history of ageing and elderly people in 20th century Germany

• Das andere Achtundsechzig: Gesellschaftsgeschichte einer Revolte [The other 1968: Social History of a Revolt] (Beck Verlag, Germany, 2018).

• Television's Moment: Sitcom Audiences and the Sixties Cultural Revolution (link is external) (Berghahn, 2015)
• Konsens und Krise: Eine Geschichte der westdeutschen Medienöffentlichkeit, 1945 bis 1973 (link is external) [Consensus and Crisis: Mass Media and the Public Sphere in West Germany, 1945-1973] (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2006)
• Aufstand der Weber: Die Revolte von 1844 und ihr Aufstieg zum Mythos (link is external) [The Silesian Weavers’ Revolt in 1844: Myth and Reality] (Bonn: J.H.W. Dietz, 1997)
• Die Partei der Unparteiischen: Der Liberalismus der preußischen Richterschaft, 1815-1848/49 (link is external) [The Impartial Party: Prussian Judges and Liberalism, 1815-1848/49], Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft 113 (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996)
• Wo ’1968’ liegt: Reform und Revolte in der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik (link is external) [1968 in West Germany: Reform and Rebellion in the History of the Federal Republic], (co-editor and contributor) (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006)
• ‘Expeditionen in den Methodendschungel: Herausforderungen der Zeitgeschichtsforschung im Fernsehzeitalter,’ in Journal of Modern European History (link is external) 10 (2012), 24-48
• ‘Ekel Alfred und die Kulturrevolution: Unterhaltungsfernsehen als Sprachrohr der 68er-Bewegung?‘ in Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht (link is external)  62 (2011),  557–572
• ’Mass Media and the Generation of Conflict: West Germany’s Long Sixties and the Formation of a Critical Public Sphere,’ Contemporary European History (link is external) 15, 3 (2006), 367-395
• ‘Of Nazi Werewolves, German Fräuleins, and Iraqi Insurgents: The American Fascination with Hitler’s Last Foray,’ Central European History (link is external) 41, 1 (2008): 71-92.
• ‘Mass Media: Manipulation and Markets,‘ in: Kiran Klaus Patel and Christof Mauch, eds., Competing Modernities: The United States of America and Germany, 1890-1990, forthcoming with Cambridge University Press (link is external) (together with Philipp Gassert)
• ‘The Protest of Silesian Weavers in 1844: Household Strategies and Moral Concepts,’ Jan Kok, ed, Rebellious Families: Household Strategies and Collective Action in the 19th and 20th Centuries, International Studies in Social History (link is external), vol 3 (Oxford and Providence: Berghahn, 2002), 39-56
• ’Politische Generationen und massenmediale Öffentlichkeit: Das Beispiel der Fünfundvierziger in der Bundesrepublik,’ Ulrike Jureit and Michael Wildt, eds., Generationen: Zur Semantik eines sozialwissenschaftlichen Grundbegriffs (link is external) (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2005), 266-294
• ’Der Fluch des Geldsacks: Der Aufstieg des Industriellen als Herausforderung bürgerlicher Werte,’ Manfred Hettling and Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, eds., Der bürgerliche Wertehimmel: Innenansichten des 19. Jahrhunderts (link is external) (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), 79-104
• ’Mit dem Rotstift gegen die soziale Frage: Die preußische Pressezensur und der schlesische Weberaufstand 1844,’ Forschungen zur Brandenburgischen und Preußischen Geschichte (link is external) NF 9 (1999), 91-122

Editorial Positions

I welcome applications from candidates wishing to undertake doctoral research in the following areas:

• 19th and 20th century German social and cultural history
• transnational links between Germany, the UK and the US
• legal history and the role of lawyers
• generations in 20th century Germany
• the history of concepts (Begriffsgeschichte)
• coming to terms with the Nazi past

Current PhD Students