Prof. Dr. John J. BreuillyUniversity of Birmingham Kurzer Lebenslauf mit den wichtigsten akademischen StationenGeburtsjahr und -ort; Aufgewachsen / Schulabschluss in: London, 1946; A-levels in History, Geography and English Studienfächer und -dauer, Studienorte: History and Politics, York University, 1965-68; Ph.D York University 1968-72 Abschlüsse: (Studium, Promotion, Habilitation) First class honours BA (Hons) in History and Politics in 1968; Ph.D (History) awarded in 1978. Thema der Promotion: German (especially Hamburg) labour history in mid-19th century Tätigkeiten an Hochschulen oder Forschungseinrichtungen: 1997-2001, Professor of Modern History and Head of Department, University of Birmingham Zurückliegende Forschungsschwerpunkte: German labour history, comparative social history of 19th century England and Germany; nationalism Aktuelle Forschungsschwerpunkte: comparative cultural history of selected provincial cities in mid-19th century Germany (Hamburg), France (Lyon) and England (Manchester, and also Birmingham and Leeds) Wichtige Monographien oder Herausgeberschaften: Nationalism and the State (2nd.ed., 1993, Manchester and Chicago); Joachim Friedrich Martens (1806-1877) und die Deutsche Arbeiterbewegung [with Wieland Sachse] (Göttingen, 1984); Labour and liberalism in nineteenth-century Europe: essays in comparative history (Manchester & New York, 1992); Editor: The State of Germany: the national idea in the making, unmaking and remaking of a nation-state (London, 1992); Co-edited with G.Niedhart and A.Taylor, The Era of the Reform League: English Labour and Radical Politics 1857-1872. Documents Selected by Gustav Mayer (Mannheim, 1995); The Formation of the First German Nation-State, 1800-1871 (London, 1996); Nationalismus und moderner Staat. Deutschland und Europa (= Kölner Beiträge zur Nationsforschung 6), (Köln, 1999); Editor: 19th Century Germany: Politics, Culture and Society 1780-1918 (London, 2001); Austria, Prussia and Germany: 1806-1871 (Harlow, 2002) Wichtige Mitgliedschaften und Auszeichnungen: Chair of German History Society, 1999-2002. Visiting Professorships at Hamburg University (1987-88) and Bielefeld University (1992-93); Fellow of Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, 2001-02. Fragen zur historischen Forschungslandschaft und zu aktuellen Debatten2. a) Wie kamen Sie zur Geschichtswissenschaft? Was hat Sie motiviert, Geschichte zu Ihrem Beruf zu machen? I loved it at school and shifted back to it after starting a degree in social sciences. One of my teachers (Hans Koch) stimulated an interest in German history where I tried to pursue the kind of social and labour history for Germany which had been made central for England in the late 1960s by historians such as E.P.Thompson and Eric Hobsbawm. 2. b) Die Geschichtswissenschaften haben in den zurückliegenden Jahrzehnten zahlreiche Erweiterungen und Neuorientierungen der Frageansätze und Forschungsperspektiven erfahren. Welche halten Sie für die interessanteste und folgenreichste? Although I reject the more extreme forms of cultural history and the "linguistic turn", I think trying to bring together the history of music, painting, architecture, literature together with a broader cultural and social history has been very important. I also think rigorous comparative history based on archival research into all the cases compared is still poorly developed but there are an increasing number of outstanding studies of this kind. 2. c) Sehen Sie Forschungsfelder, denen man künftig mehr Aufmerksamkeit widmen sollte? Comparative history which includes eastern Europe, Asia and Africa in addition to the usual focus on western Europe and the USA.
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