The University of Sheffield
Department of History

Professor Benjamin Ziemann, M.A. (Freie Univ., Berlin), Ph.D. (Bielefeld), FRHistS, Habilitation (Bochum)

Professor of Modern German History [19th & 20th c. German social, cultural & political history; peace research]

Photo of Dr. Benjamin Ziemann

Email:b.ziemann@sheffield.ac.uk
Room: Jessop West: 3.14 | Telephone: (0114) 22 22585
Office Hours, Spring 2011-12: Tuesdays 14:00-16:00

Biography


Benjamin Ziemann has gained his PhD from the University of Bielefeld, and joined the department in 2005. He has authored, edited and co-edited 13 books. In addition, he has published more than 80 journal articles and book-chapters. Many of his articles appeared in leading peer-reviewed journals, including Contemporary European History, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, German History, Central European History, Historische Zeitschrift and Archiv für Sozialgeschichte.

Benjamin's research covers a broad range of topics in German social, cultural political history during the nineteenth and twentieth century, and also in post-1945 Western European history. He is a renowned expert in the comparative military, social and cultural history of the First World War, and continues to conduct research on the First World War and on mass-violence in the twentieth century more generally. In his second monograph, praised by one reviewer as `one of the most important studies in contemporary history published in recent years´, he has analysed the process of the 'scientisation of the social', taking the Catholic Church in the Federal Republic as an example. Benjamin has also a strong interest in the theory of history and in sociological systems theory, and a particular interest in the application of insights derived from the 'linguistic turn' in social and cultural history.

One of Benjamin's long standing research interests is peace history. Benjamin is one of the co-directors of the Centre for Peace History at the Department of History, founded in 2009, and has served as a vice-chairman of the Arbeitskreis Historische Friedensforschung (Association for Historical Peace Research) and as a member of the International Advisory Board of the Peace History Society, and continues to serve on the editorial board of the journal Peace & Change.
Benjamin has received numerous grants and fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the British Academy, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, the Historial de la Grande Guerre in Péronne (France), the Volkswagen Foundation and the Ministry for Schools, Science and Research in North Rhine-Westphalia. He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Tübingen and a Visiting Scholar at Humboldt-University Berlin, at the University of York, the University of Bielefeld and at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo.

Membership of Professional Bodies

 

 

Research


Current Research
Benjamin is currently completing a book on 'Contested Commemorations. Republican War Remembrances in the Weimar Republic'. This monograph will analyse the commemorations of the First World War in Weimar Germany as a competitive field, and will highlight the extent of pro-republican currents and sentiments in the remembrances of the Great War until 1933.

Teaching and Research Interests
Benjamin is teaching late nineteenth and twentieth century German history and post-war Western European history. He is currently offering modules on Imperial Germany (at level two) and a third-year Special Subject on the history of the Weimar Republic. He is also teaching an MA module entitled "Voices of the Great War: Violence and Experiences in Great Britain and Germany, 1914-1919", and is teaching on the core module for the MA in Twentieth-Century History. He welcomes graduate and research students working on any aspect of German social, political and cultural history since the late nineteenth century, on the history of the First World War, and students interested in the history of protest movements in Western Europe since 1945, and peace movements in particular.

Research Supervision
Benjamin has supervised Meryn McLaren, who completed her PhD on 'Refugee Camps in the Federal Republic, 1945-1960. Community Building and Integration' in 2009 and who has won the essay prize of the German History Society for her article 'Out of the Huts Emerged a Settled People': Community-Building in West German Refugee Camps', published in German History 28 (2010).

Administrative Roles and Responsibilities


Within the department, Benjamin has served in various administrative roles, including Departmental Library Coordinator, as Member of Research Committee and as Module Leader for HST3000 'The Uses of History'. He is a member of the University Senate since October 2010. He is serving on the editorial boards of the journals Peace & Change, First World War Studies and of Swiss Journal for Religious and Cultural History (Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Religions- und Kulturgeschichte). He is also working as a review editor for peace history and military history for the mailing list H-Soz-u-Kult, a part of H-Net.

Selected Publications