Research

In the public discussion, the intersection of Jewish and colonial histories often produces simplistic stereotypes. To counter these, this project offers a nuanced investigation of Jewish entanglements with colonial rule, with anti-colonial struggles, and with decolonization. It emphasizes the ambivalent Jewish position between inclusion and exclusion, indigenous and foreign, colonizer and colonized. Through a focus on the Mediterranean region during the turbulent decades of the mid-20th century, it decenters the prevalent emphasis on the Arab-Jewish conflict over Palestine/Israel and explores forgotten experiences from other contexts. The study of these experiences may inform contemporary debates on colonialism, racism, and antisemitism.

This project systematically investigates the connections between socialist-communist underground work and women's networks under Nazi occupation along the transregional European flight routes (Soviet Union, Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, France).

Starting with the first World's Fair in London (1851) and continuing through Paris (1867, 1889, 1900), Vienna (1873), and Chicago (1893) to the World's Fairs of the interwar period in Barcelona (1929) and Paris (1937), this project analyzes how world exhibitions influenced the development and representation of statehood and how political change between imperial and national order affected the forms of representation of statehood.