Abstract
In: Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung 2019. Berlin: Metropol Verlag, pp. 223–254.
Regional studies had a difficult start after World War II in East Germany, where most of the traditional institutes had been ruined by the war and the exodus of scholars from Nazi Germany. In the 1950s, however, a new basis for research on Africa, Asia, and Latin America emerged in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), which was in urgent need of specialized knowledge about these continents at a time of decolonization and new opportunities to position the GDR in the new world order. This essay discusses the various options proposed by East German scholars and imposed by the Communist authorities on them during the years of intense reform of the higher education system. The transformation that happened and led to internationally recognized approaches in area studies cannot be understood as a purely internal development and instead has to be seen as a consequence of interactions with trends in other parts of the world – making East German area studies part of a broader intellectual movement that supported various globalization projects.
Über den Autor
Matthias Middell, Prof. Dr., geb. 1961 in Leipzig. 1981 bis 1985 Studium der Geschichtswissenschaft in Leipzig, 1989 Promotion zur Formierung der französischen Gegenrevolution 1788–1792 und 2002 Habilitation zur Geschichte der Weltgeschichtsschreibung im 20. Jahrhundert. Seit 2007 Professor für Kulturgeschichte der Moderne an der Universität Leipzig und seit 2008 Direktor des Global and European Studies Institute. Seit 2016 Sprecher des Sonderforschungsbereichs (SFB) 1199 »Verräumlichungsprozesse unter Globalisierungsbedingungen«. Veröffentlichungen zuletzt u. a.: Routledge Handbook of Transregional Studies, London 2018; Handbuch der Transnationalen Geschichte Ostmitteleuropas, Göttingen 2017 (mit Frank Hadler); Routledge Handbook of the French Revolution in World History, London 2015 (mit Alan Forrest). Gastherausgeber des Jahrbuchs für Historische Kommunismusforschung 2019.