Jacob S. Eder
Ph.D. Candidate
(ABD)
jeder[at]sas.upenn.edu
Education
Undergraduate Studies in Ancient and Modern European History and American Cultural History, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany (2001-2005); M.A. in History, University of Nebraska-Lincoln on Fulbright Scholarship (2007); A.M. in Modern European History, Penn (2009). Since 2010 I am also an associate member of the graduate school of the Jena Center 20th Century History, Germany. I am currently a Mellon Pre-doctoral Fellow in Cold War/Post-1945 International History at The George Washington University's Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) where I also coordinate the Program on Conducting Archival Research.
Research Interests
My dissertation “Holocaust Angst: The Federal Republic of Germany and Holocaust Memory in the United States” focuses on German cultural diplomacy in the United States and its relevance for the formation of transnational Holocaust memory. I am approaching this topic from three angles: the exponentially growing interest of American society in the Holocaust and its impact on German-American relations since the late 1970s, efforts in the United States on the part of the Federal Republic to (re-)claim the power of interpretation over the history of the Holocaust, and the reception of such policies in the United States by governmental or private institutions and individuals.
Advising Committee
Publications
“Holocaust-Erinnerung als deutsch-amerikanische Konfliktgeschichte. Die bundesdeutschen Reaktionen auf das United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.” In Jan Eckel and Claudia Moisel, eds. Universalisierung des Holocaust? Erinnerungskultur und Geschichtspolitik in internationaler Perspektive, 109-134. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2008.
Article for Archiv for Sozialgeschichte (2012 volume on “Wandel des Politischen: Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland während der 1980er-Jahre“) in preparation.
Book reviews for sehepunkte, H-German, and H-Soz-u-Kult.
Conference Papers
I have presented papers at the Annual Conferences of the German Studies Association (GSA) in 2008, 2010 and in 2011, the conference Public History in Germany and the United Statesat the Free University Berlin in 2009, a conference on West Germany in the 1980s (Wandel des Politischen: Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland während der 1980er-Jahre) organized by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Bonn in 2010, the conference American Responses to the Holocaust at the Roosevelt Study Center (Netherlands), and at a number of seminars and colloquia in Europe and the United States. In June 2011, I was the coordinator of the international workshop “Global Holocaust? Memories of the Destruction of European Jews in Global Context” held at the University of Augsburg.
Outside Fellowships
I have received outside fellowships from the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C., the Georg-Eckert-Institute for International Textbook Research in Braunschweig, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Holocaust Educational Foundation. Over the past years, I have participated in a number of interdisciplinary and international seminars and workshops, such as the Summer Institute on the Holocaust and Jewish Civilization at Northwestern University, the Summer Institute on Conducting Archival Research (SICAR) at George Washington University, and the Spring Academy of the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA).
