James Krull M.A.

• seit 04/2021 Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter bei Prof. Dr. Christine Krüger
• 01-12/2019; seit 06/2022 Honorarkraft beim Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
• 03/2021-04/2021 Referent für Öffentlichkeitsarbeit bei der Otto Benecke Stiftung e. V.
• 01/2020-01/2021 Pädagogisch-wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter beim Projekt Lernort Kislau
• 2014-2019 Hilfskraftstätigkeiten u.a. bei der Max Weber Stiftung und der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung
• 2012-2019 Studium Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
  • 2019 M.A. Internationale Geschichte der Neuzeit
  • 2018 Auslandssemester ‚Intellectual History’ University of St Andrews
  • 2015 B.A. Geschichte, Politik und Gesellschaft

Full CV as PDF

• Proseminar: Malen nach Zahlen – Geschichte in Graphic Novels (WiSe 2024/25)
• Seminar: Germany – an introduction into Geography, History and Politics (WiSe 2021/22) (WiSe 2022/23) (WiSe 2023/24) (WiSe 2024/25)
• Praxisübung: Zeitgeschichte im Museum - kleine Erinnerungen und große Narrative (SoSe 2024)
• Übung: Schweigen, Bewältigen, Erinnern: Die Aufarbeitung der NS-Verbrechen in der Bundesrepublik (SoSe 2023)
• Übung: Geschichte im Stadtbild – Institutionen, Methoden, Berufe (SoSe 2023)
• Proseminar: Grammophon, Radio, Podcast & Co. – Geschichte von und in auditiven Medien (WiSe 2022/23)
• Übung: Geschichte in der Öffentlichkeit – Typen, Trends und Theorien (SoSe 2022)
• Proseminar: 'Shell shock' und 'Kriegszittern' – traumatisierte Weltkriegsveteranen in Großbritannien und Weimarer Republik (WiSe 2021/22)
• Übung: #onthisday: Jahres- und Gedenktage zwischen Emotion und Politik (SoSe 2021)

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National days of remembrance connect selected versions of the remembered past with current ideas and goals for the future. They bridge the gap between the layers of time and connect different levels of publicity: Grief as an essential, first and foremost individual, intimate emotion, is being more or less successfully scaled up and thus transferred publicly onto the collective. On a macrosocial scale or when the identity of the dead, the scale or the political context of the suffered loss is of national importance, this is mostly happening with the state itself involved. Thus, national days of remembrance can be a means of visualizing the powers at play in the politics of history on a national level.

This project examines the political, cultural and emotional mechanisms, languages and customs behind national acts of commemoration by looking at national days of remembrance since the end of the Second World War. Conducting an asymmetrical transnational comparison between Germany and the UK, it aims to provide an updated, theoretically based and transnational perspective on national days of remembrance. The period of investigation stretches from the end of the Second World War up to the present. The threshold of 1990 is explicitly crossed, because the increasing temporal distance of the commemorating collective to the object of remembrance – i.e. those, who are being commemorated – alters the working mechanisms of commemorative acts and should thus be taken into account.

There are various ways in which a commemorative event can be ‘national’ – the focus of remembrance, the nationally charged commemorative narrative, the organizational framework and scope, the organizer’s claim, the involvement of state, the outreach, the symbolism, the accessibility, the critical reception as well as the emotional connection with the wider public. All these points give rise to the fact that national days of remembrance are an essential part of the cultural memory of a society and a point of crystallization for a state’s relationship with its past and therefore with itself. Due to their annual repetition, they are an ideal tool for highlighting political, cultural, and social change.

This co-tutelle project is co-supervised by Prof. Riccardo Bavaj, University of St Andrews.