About the Contemporary History department
Contemporary History Department
The Department of Contemporary History was established in 1984. Our research ranges from global contemporary history to war, migration and gender history. Christiane Berth took over the professorship for contemporary history with a focus on global contemporary history in August 2020 (location Institute für Geschichte, Attemsgasse 8/II). Based on the partnership with the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on the Consequences of War, a second professorship for European Contemporary History with a focus on conflict and migration research was established in 2019 ( Ludwig Boltzmann Institute, Liebiggasse 9).
Research profile
The Department of Contemporary History researches global, regional and local processes of change in society, business, science and politics. We deal with the period from the late 19th century to the early 21st century - our wide-ranging research networks extend from Graz to Canada, Russia, West Africa, China, Japan and Latin America.
Our research draws on methods from cultural and social history history and the history of technology, whilst we also draw inspiration from interdisciplinary approaches. This helps us to evaluate the wide range of sources that touch on contemporary history, such as digital images, films, radio broadcasts or interviews with contemporary witnesses.
Publications of the Contemporary History Department
Global contemporary history
Berth, Christiane / Wieters, Heike (2021): "Wonder Foods" to End World Hunger? International Organizations, NGOs, and Industrial Actors in Global Nutrition, 1940s to 1970s.
In: Research in Contemporary History 18.2, pp. 307-330.
Berth, Christiane (2021): Food and Revolution. Fighting Hunger in Nicaragua, 1960-1993. Pittsburgh. University of Pittsburgh Press.
Kotik, Tanja (2021): The East-Southeast Asian world system, its integration into the modern world system and state transformation in China, ca. 1500 to 1900. In: Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte. 22,1-2. 2021. S. 231-256.
Berth, Christiane (2020): "Coffee with blood on it" - consumer boycotts against Latin American dictatorships.
In: Bulletin Association of Swiss History Teachers. S. 22-26.
Berth, Christiane (2020): Between hope, pride and anger. The emotional appropriation of the telephone in Mexico, 1930s to 1980s.
In: Heßler, Martina (ed.): Technology emotions. Paderborn. Ferdinand Schöningh. S. 229-249.
Berth, Christiane (2020): ITU, the Development Debate, and Technical Cooperation in the Global South, 1950-1992.
In: Gabriele Balbi, Andreas Fickers (eds.): History of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Transnational Techno-Diplomacy from the Telegraph to the Internet. Berlin/Boston. De Gruyter Oldenbourg. S. 77-106.
Berth, Christiane; Pineda, Yovanna; Wolfe; Mikael (2020): Dialogues: History of Technology in Africa and the Americas in the Twentieth Century - Blog article Technology's Stories.
Berth, Christiane (2020): Fear, Curiosity and New Social Rules: Representations of Early Telephone Use in Latin America, 1880-1935 - Blog article Technology's Stories.
Memory culture and memory research
Suppanz, Werner (2023): The memorial to the unknown soldier. An unrealized project in the Austrian First Republic. In: Richard Hufschmid, Karin Liebhart, Dirk Rupnow, Monika Sommer (eds.): ErinnerungsORTE weiter denken. In memoriam Heidemarie Uhl. Vienna. Böhlau. 2023. S. 337-348.
Suppanz, Werner (2023): "Ghosts of the old Austria. The struggle for the power of interpretation over the Habsburg past in the First Republic. In: Feichtinger, Johannes; Uhl, Heidemarie (eds.): Das integrative Empire. Knowledge production and cultural practices in Habsburg Central Europe. Bielefeld. transcript. 2023. 281-301.
Andrea Strutz (2022): History workshops as a form of narrative history culture
In: Rita Garstenauer et al. (eds.), Geschichte, Erinnern, Erzählen. Conducting and researching historically oriented biographical work, 2022, pp. 112-117 (in print).
Stromberger, Monika (2020): Of Heroes, Victims and Enemies: A Comparison of Memorials for the Dead of the Second World War in Yugoslavia/Slovenia and Austria/Styria (1945-1961).
In: Frank Jacob, Kenneth Pearl (Eds.), War and Memorials. The Second World War and Beyond (= War (Hi) Stories 4), Paderborn et al., pp. 73-104.
War and the consequences of war
Suppanz, Werner / Goll, Nicole M. (eds.) (2022): "Heimatfront": Graz and the Crown Land of Styria in the First World War. Vienna-Cologne: Böhlau Verlag.
Suppanz, Werner / Goll, Nicole M. (2022): "Directed Society". Styria in the "total" war. In: "Home Front": Graz and the Crown Land of Styria in the First World War. Vienna-Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, pp. 7-30.
Suppanz, Werner / Lakitsch, Maximilian (eds.) (2022): Grazer Forschungsbeiträge zu Frieden und Konflikt. Graz: Graz University Library Publishing. Available online as open access (PDF).
Bacher, Dieter (2020):Intelligence services in occupied Austria: The Soviet side
In: Karner, Stefan / Stelzl-Marx, Barbara (eds.), The Red Army in Austria. Aspects of Soviet Occupation 1945-1955. The Harvard Cold War studies book series. Lanham/Boulder/New York/Toronto: Plymouth.
Bacher, Dieter (2020): Between staying, returning and moving on? Fremdsprachige Displaced Persons in Niederösterreich 1945-1955.
In: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften (ÖZG), 1/2020 "Migrationswege", pp. 139-163. Also available online as open access (PDF).
Bacher, Dieter (2020): Collecting the Shreds. Former Austrian POWs in the Soviet Union as a Source of Information for British Secret Services in Early Cold War Austria.
In: Frank Jacob, Stefan Karner (eds.): War and Veterans. Treatment and Reintegration of Soldiers in Post-War Societies. Paderborn, pp. 185-201.
Bachinger, Bernhard (2020): Challenge in the Balkans: The Experiential Worlds of German-speaking Soldiers on the Salonica Front 1915-1918.
In: Frank Jacob, Stefan Karner (eds.): War and its Aftermath. New York.
Bischof, Günter / Stelzl-Marx, Barbara / Bergmann-Pfleger, Katharina (2020): Auftrag Zukunft: 3000 Zeichen für Gedenken, Toleranz und Demokratie. 15 years of the Future Fund of the Republic of Austria. Vienna/Cologne/Weimar.
Karner, Stefan / Stelzl-Marx, Barbara (eds.) (2020): The Red Army in Austria: The Soviet Occupation, 1945-1955. The Harvard Cold War studies book series. Lanham/Boulder/New York/Toronto: Plymouth.
Knoll, Harald / Stelzl-Marx, Barbara (2020): Stalin's Judiciary in Austria. Arrests and Convictions during the Occupation.
In: Stefan Karner, Barbara Stelzl-Marx (eds.), The Red Army in Austria. Aspects of Soviet Occupation 1945-1955. The Harvard Cold War studies book series. Lanham/Boulder/New York/Toronto: Plymouth.
Ruggenthaler, Peter / Steiner, Anna (2020): The road to Helsinki. Détente with Bonn as the final stage on the way to convening the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
In: Michael Borchard, Stefan Karner, Hanns Jürgen Küsters, Peter Ruggenthaler (eds.): Détente in the Cold War. The Road to the Moscow Treaty and the CSCE, Graz - Vienna, pp. 677-701.
Stelzl-Marx, Barbara (2020): Ivan's Children, The Consequences of Sexual Relations between Red Army Soldiers and Austrian Women
In: Stefan Karner, Barbara Stelzl-Marx (eds.), The Red Army in Austria. Aspects of Soviet Occupation 1945-1955. The Harvard Cold War studies book series. Lanham/Boulder/New York/Toronto: Plymouth.
Migration, flight and exile
Knoll, Sarah (2023): A "migration of peoples"? The flight from Romania and refugee policy in Austria around 1990
In: Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History, online edition, 19 (2022), H. 3
Andrea Strutz (2023): Internment of Civilians and Refugees as Enemy Aliens during the First and Second World Wars in Canada. In: Gabriele Anderl (ed.), Hinter verschlossenen Toren - die Internierung von Geflüchteten von den 1930er-Jahren bis in die Gegenwart. Vienna: Publishing house of the Theodor Kramer Society 2023, pp. 403-429.
Strutz, Andrea (2023): Forced to flee and deemed suspect: Tracing life stories of interned refugees in Canada during and after the Second World War
In: Gabriele Anderl, Linda Erker, Christoph Reinprecht (eds.), Internment Refugee Camps. Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Bielefeld: transcript 2022, pp. 229-250 (peer reviewed).
Andrea Strutz (2021): Emigration from Graz in the post-war period - an attempt at an account
In: Historisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Graz, Vol. 51 (Migrationsraum Graz), 2021, pp. 129-148 (reviewed).
Andrea Strutz (2021): Traveling knowledge: Refugees from Nazism and their Impact on Art Music and Musicology in post-1945 Canada
In: Susanne Korbel, Philipp Strobl (eds.): Mediations through Exile: Cultural Translation and Knowledge Transfer on Alternative Routes of Escape from Nazi Terror. London: Routledge 2021, pp. 135-153 (peer reviewed).
Andrea Strutz (2020): Interned as "enemy aliens": Jewish Refugees from Austria, Germany and Italy in Canada
In: Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies 20, ed. by Swen Steinberg and Anthony Grenville. Brill/Rodopi: Leiden, Boston, pp. 46-67 (peer reviewed).
Nationalism and identity constructions
Suppanz, Werner (2020): Othmar Spann's writings until 1918.
In: Karl Acham with the collaboration of Georg Witrisal (ed.): Die Soziologie und ihre Nachbardisziplinen im Habsburgerreich. Vienna-Cologne-Weimar. Böhlau. S. 607-612.
Suppanz, Werner (2020): Karl Kautsky: Race and Judaism (1914).
In: Karl Acham with the collaboration of Georg Witrisal (ed.): Die Soziologie und ihre Nachbardisziplinen im Habsburgerreich. Vienna-Cologne-Weimar. Böhlau. S. 910-912.
Suppanz, Werner (2020): Friedrich Hertz: Modern Theories of Race. Critical essays (1904).
In: Karl Acham with the collaboration of Georg Witrisal (ed.): Die Soziologie und ihre Nachbardisziplinen im Habsburgerreich. Vienna-Cologne-Weimar. Böhlau. S. 906-910.
Suppanz, Werner (2020): Isidor Singer: The Jews' struggle for justice (1902).
In: Karl Acham with the collaboration of Georg Witrisal (ed.): Die Soziologie und ihre Nachbardisziplinen im Habsburgerreich. A compendium of international research on cultural studies in Central Europe. Vienna-Cologne-Weimar. Böhlau. S. 902-906.
Prof. Dr. Christiane Berth
I research the history of communication and technology, food and consumption as well as world trade and migration. My current research project deals with the global history of the modern office.
After completing my PhD on the history of the coffee trade at the University of Hamburg (2010), I did postdoctoral research in Switzerland on hunger and nutrition in Latin America. It was there that I wrote my habilitation thesis, which will be published in 2021 under the title Food and Revolution. Fighting Hunger in Nicaragua, 1960-1993 was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press.
My research has taken me to Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico, Paraguay and Colombia, among other places. I have been Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Graz since August 2020.
Nina Jahrbacher, BA MA
is a doctoral student at the Department of History, Department of Contemporary History, specializing in contemporary and economic history. In her master's thesis, Die Anfänge der Südbahn im Herzogtum Steiermark. Spaces and People, she explored the question of whether the economic impact of the Southern Railway on the (former) Duchy of Styria up to 1870 can be determined, and used the parameters of "spaces" and "people" to trace how this spatially and temporally restricted area developed before and during the construction (1830-1857) and after the completion of the Southern Railway (1857-1870). In her dissertation and as a Junior Fellow of the Elisabeth List Fellowship Program for Gender Studies Global Working Environments in Transition: The History of Technology, Gender and Emotions since the 1960s, she is investigating the effects of the introduction of electronic data processing on the administration of the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) between 1969 and 1991. She is also in charge of organizing the 15th Austrian Contemporary History Day (Graz 2024).
Dr. Sarah Knoll, BA MA
Sarah Knoll studied history with a focus on contemporary history at the University of Vienna. Her dissertation, completed in 2022 at the Institute of Contemporary History at the University of Vienna, dealt with the treatment of refugees from communist regimes between 1956 and 1989/90, with a particular focus on the activities of NGOs and the UNHCR. In 2018, she was a Junior Visiting Fellow at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. Previously, she worked as a project assistant at the Institute for Modern and Contemporary History Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Her research interests include humanitarianism and humanitarian aid, international organizations, flight and migration during the Cold War and Austrian history in international contexts. In her current research project, she is investigating the history of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).
List of publications
Mag. phil. PhD Katharina Oke
Katharina Oke studied journalism and African studies in Vienna. She then completed a doctorate in African history/global history at the University of Oxford. In 2018, she completed her doctorate on newspaper culture in Nigeria with the dissertation "The Politics of the Public Sphere. English-language and Yoruba-language Print Culture in colonial Lagos, 1880s-1940s". Before coming to Graz at the end of 2020, Katharina was a Lecturer in Modern African History at King's College, London, and a TORCH Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. Since September 2022, she has been a Marie Curie Global Fellow in partnership with the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. As part of this project - "A History of Making Things in West Africa" - she is researching entrepreneurial activities, (art) craft production and knowledge production in Accra and Lagos.
Dr. Monika Stromberger
Monika Stromberger studied history at the University of Graz and received her doctorate in 2001 in the field of contemporary history. From 1992-2013 she was involved in various research projects on topics such as: Urban research and modernity and Central Europe around 1900 (SFB), World War I, National Socialism in Styria, urban planning and architecture after 1945, the socialist city (Ljubljana), global history in the 20th century, architecture and consumer culture; exhibition projects on the ABGB and Annenstraße. From 1994 she was an external lecturer at the University of Graz (some years also at Graz University of Technology). She has been a Senior Lecturer at the Department since 2013. In addition to awards for her research, she recently received the University of Graz Teaching Award for Digital Teaching.
Focus of research/teaching: city, memory politics, visual history; Slovenia, Styria; e-learning/digital media
Assoc. Prof. DDr. Werner Suppanz
Werner Suppanz studied law (doctorate 1984) and history (doctorate 1993) at the University of Graz. From 1997 to 2003, he was initially a lecturer and project collaborator, in particular as part of the CRC "Modernity - Vienna and Central Europe around 1900" (1996-2004). Since 2007, he has been an assistant professor, and since his habilitation in 2017 on the topic of "Erinnerungslandschaften. The First World War in Discourses and Topographies of the 1920s" as Associate Professor in the department.
Main areas of work: History of memory and politics of the past, cultural history of the political and politics of identity with a focus on nationalism. In recent years, his focus has been on the First World War and the cultural and memory history of wars.
Head of the Contemporary History Department
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Christiane Berth
+43 316 380 - 2621
Attemsgasse 8/II, 8010 Graz
Dienstag von 14:00 bis 15:00 Uhr
https://bit.ly/4bAT8SP