Fields of Interest:
My research centers on the culture, society, and politics of modern Germany, with particular interest in the history of nationalism and national identity. My first book was on the role of localist ideologies and provincial culture in German nation-building. I have recently published a book on the 1829 revival of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, which examines the role of music in the nineteenth century German society and culture and the significance it accrued for Germans in search of a national identity. This book complements a collection of articles on music and German national identity that I edited with musicologist Pamela Potter.
I am now at work on a major study of the musical culture of modern Germany from the 18th century to the present. I teach European history and German history, including courses on the Third Reich and the Holocaust, on culture and thought in modern Europe, and on nationalism, fascism, and ethnic conflict.
Courses Offered
- HIS 102: The West and the World since 1942
- HIS 169: The Transatlantic Twenties
- HIS 206: The Holocaust
- HIS 226: Hitler's Germany, 1914-1945
- HIS 233: 19th Century European Thought
- HIS 365W/465: Modern Jewish History
Representative Publications:
- Bach in Berlin: Nation and Culture in Mendelssohn’s Revival of the St. Matthew Passion (Cornell University Press, 2005).
- “Culture and the Arts,” in the Oxford Short History of Germany, 1800-1870, ed. Jonathan Sperber (Oxford University Press, 2004).
- Music & German National Identity, co-edited with Pamela Potter (University of Chicago Press (2002).
- "A Europe of Regions: the History and Historiography of Subnational Groups in Modern Times," American Historical Review (Fall, 1999).
- "How German is it? Nationalism and the Origins of Serious Music in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany." 19th Century Music (Spring 1998).
- "Bach Revival, Public Culture, and National Identity: The St. Matthew Passion in 1829" in A User's Guide to German Cultural Studies (University of Michigan Press, 1997).
- "What is German Music? Reflections on the Role of Music in the Making of the Nation," German Studies Review (Spring,1993).
- A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat (Berkeley, 1990).
