Recent activity – Page 2 – Andrew S. Tompkins

Understanding and Controlling the Environment in Contemporary History

14/02/2023

Collaboratively written chapter for the open-access textbook The European Experience: A Multi-Perspective History of Modern Europe, 1500–2000. Introduction: Over the course of the twentieth century, Europeans, the European environment, and their mutual relationship underwent dramatic changes. The acceleration of industrialisation at the turn of the century amplified existing problems like water and air pollution. So,…
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Protest and Social Movements in Contemporary History

14/02/2023

Collaboratively written chapter for the open-access textbook The European Experience: A Multi-Perspective History of Modern Europe, 1500–2000. Introduction: Over the course of the twentieth century, protest and social movements changed dramatically. In the first half of the century, much of the European continent was embroiled in conflict between right- and left-wing movements that sought to…
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Borders in Contemporary History

14/02/2023

Collaboratively written chapter for the open-access textbook The European Experience: A Multi-Perspective History of Modern Europe, 1500–2000. Introduction: Political borders in twentieth-century Europe are usually thought of as lines on a map, separating one nation-state from another. In practice, however, there are many borderlands and border zones where belonging is ambiguous, arbitrary, or unstable. Throughout…
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Berlin’s Modern History: A European Perspective

30/01/2023

I taught this course at NYU Berlin for three semesters in 2023 and 2024. Description: The history of Germany is inscribed into modern Berlin, which has served as the capital of an empire, a failed democracy, the Nazi experiment, a socialist state, and now Europe’s most populous country – all within less than a century.…
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The Gender of Smuggling: East German Customs and the Criminalization of Polish Workers’ Consumption, 1980-1989

28/10/2022

Presented at the workshop “Between Deviance and Marginalization: Gendered Perspectives on Transnational Crime” at the Universität Erfurt.

„Unter vorläufiger französischer Verwaltung“: Staatsterritorium, Grundbesitz und die Grenzen des Deutschen Reiches in der westlichen Bundesrepublik

04/08/2022

Artikel veröffentlicht im Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche Geschichte 49. 2021, S. 174-216. Auszug: In vielen Fragen der Nachkriegsordnung waren Ost und West in der Politik der Bundesrepublik engstens verflochten. Der Fall des sequestrierten deutschen Vermögens in Frankreich und der „Annektierung“ des Mundatwaldes in der Pfalz zeigt in extremis, wie Fragen der verlorenen Ostgebiete auch…
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Rezension: Gerst et al., Grenzforschung

18/11/2021

Sammelband rezensiert für H-Soz-u-Kult (18.11.2021). Veröffentlicht auch bei Soziopolis unter dem Titel “Erkundungen im Grenzgebiet”. Zusammenfassung: Die Beiträge eignen sich am besten zur eigenständigen Lektüre der einzelnen Themen, die allerdings klar mit übergeordneten Fragen verbunden sind. Entsprechend dem Ansatz der Herausgeber:innen, die Bandbreite der Grenzforschung vor allem in theoretischer und methodischer Hinsicht darzustellen, überwiegen insgesamt…
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Warszawa w październiku / Warsaw in October

23/10/2021

In October 2021, I made several trips to Warsaw to conduct research in the Archiwum Akt Nowych. Equipped with my trusty camera (and sometimes with my GDR-made Pentacon 135mm lens), I photographed not only untold quantities of archive documents but also some of the sights of Stary Mokotów and central Warsaw.

Window on Wrocław

01/08/2021

Signs, text, graffiti, posters, and murals in Wrocław’s public spaces.

Wrocławianie

25/07/2021

People in Wrocław.

Wiosna / Spring

03/07/2021

Wrocław in the Springtime.

Wrocław reopens

27/06/2021

It has been an unusual year to do research abroad, as I have spent most of my time in Poland inside my own apartment, “Zoomed out” in front of a computer screen. Travel long remained restricted, restaurants and bars were closed, and public spaces felt risky due to the coronavirus pandemic. Spring 2021 felt like…
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Not Here, Not Anywhere: Local and Transnational Anti-Nuclear Protest in 1970s France and West Germany

08/03/2021

Presentation for Institut de Recherches Historiques du Septentrion/Université de Lille “Politicisations: Emotions, Sociabilities, Frontiers” seminar

Wrocławska zima / Wrocław Winter

06/03/2021

Photos from the Winter in Wrocław, where I have been conducting a research project about the German-Polish border.

Review: Augustine, Taking on Technocracy

01/02/2021

Monograph reviewed for German Studies Review 44 (1), 2021 (pp. 208-210). Summary: Taking on Technocracy covers a broad range of developments in the domains of technology, policy, and protest, analyzing them with nuance in the different contexts of East and West Germany. For those wanting to understand why the issue of nuclear power has remained…
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