(Photo: Emily MacKenzie)

Principal Investigator

Prof. Dr. Simone Derix

Simone Derix holds the Chair of Modern and Contemporary History at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. Her research focuses on transnational actors, networks, transfers and perceptions in the 20th century.

Within Conflicts.Meanings.Transitions she leads a sub-project on the interpretations of the Nuremberg Trials in the global South and the repercussions of these interpretations in Europe. She is co-editor of the online portal “Quellen zur Geschichte der Menschenrechte,” the series “Studien zur Internationalen Geschichte,” and the journal “Historische Anthropologie.”

RESEARCH AREAS

  • Germany and Europe in trans- and international perspective
  • Wealth, assets and property regimes
  • Cultural history of the political
  • Visual History

(Photo: Niklas Reinhart)

Principal Investigator

Dr. Julia Eichenberg

Dr. Julia Eichenberg is a Freigeist Fellow and lectures in Modern European History at the University of Bayreuth. Her research combines Eastern and Western European history as well as a history of international cooperation with the study of war and violence.

Within Conflicts.Meanings.Transitions she is Principal Investigator (PI) of a sub-project on paramilitary violence after World War I as well as, together with Prof. Dr. Jana Hönke, a sub-project on corporate responsibility for colonial violence. In addition, she is PI of the London Moment project (2014-2023, Volkswagen Foundation), and spokesperson of the German Association for Historical Peace and Conflict Research (AKHF).

Research Areas

  • Cultural and social history of war and paramilitary violence
  • History of diplomacy, law, and International Relations
  • European history, including Eastern and Western Europe

(Photo: Niklas Reinhart)

Principal Investigator

Prof. Dr. Jana Hönke

Jana Hönke holds a chair at the University of Bayreuth with a focus on Global Political Sociology and Peace and Conflict Studies. Her research addresses how governance practices are exercised and contested.

In Conflicts.Meanings.Transitions she co-leads a sub-project with Dr. Julia Eichenberg on corporate responsibility for colonial violence. She is also the director of INFRAGLOB (ERC), a sub-project within Postcolonial Hierarchies (BMBF), and the DFG project Crafting the Space to govern. Furthermore, Jana Hönke is Deputy Spokesperson of the Bavarian Scientific Alliance for Peace, Conflict, and Security Research, founder of the UBT Peace and Conflict Research Network, and member of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy Hamburg (IFSH).

Research Areas

  • Non-governmental politics, infrastructure and extraction
  • Postcolonial studies
  • Critical security studies
  • Africa and South-South relations (China and Brazil)

(Photo: Niklas Reinhart)

Co-Coordinator

PD Dr. Florian Kühn

Florian Kühn is a coordinator of the BMBF-funded research network Conflicts.Meanings.Transitions. He has more than two decades of experience in studying violence and its political organisation, within the state or outside state structures. His research mainly focuses on the interactions of “local” social orders and international interventions.

Research Areas

  • State-building, peace-building, and the liberal peace
  • Political economy of conflicts and non-state violent groups
  • Afghanistan, West and Central Asia, and the Middle East

Research associate

Johannes Lehmann, M.A.

Johannes Lehmann is a research associate in the Department of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Augsburg. His research focuses, among other things, on the history and post-history of the National Socialist concentration camps. Together with Prof. Dietmar Süß, he is working on the sub-project “Politik der Versöhnung: Kirchen, Religion und Diktaturbewältigung nach 1945”.

Research Areas

  • Culture of remembrance at sites of National Socialist crimes
  • NS perpetrator research
  • Reparation of National Socialist injustice

Research associate

Dr. Bretton (Bret) McEvoy

Bret is a political scientist with a focus on international relations and peace and conflict studies. His research addresses how political actors interpret their roles in histories of injustice and engage their consequences through projects of accountability, denial and resistance.

In Conflicts.Meanings.Transitions he examines the entangled corporate responsibilities of arms manufacturers in (post)colonial violence.

Research Areas

  • Justice, human rights and (historical) accountability
  • Critical race/whiteness and postcolonial studies
  • Feminist theories and masculinities studies
  • Non-state actors
  • USA, Europe (UK and Germany) and North-South relations

Research associate

Dr. Christian Methfessel

Christian Methfessel is a research fellow at the Institute of Contemporary History Munich-Berlin (IfZ). His research focuses on the history of the international order since 1945.

In “Deutungskämpfe im Übergang” he is working on the sub-project “Menschen, Rechte, Identität(en). Die jugoslawischen Nachfolgekriege und gesellschaftliche Deutungskämpfe im Europa der frühen 1990er Jahre.” In addition, he is working on a project on the history of annexations and secessions in the age of the global Cold War.

Research Areas

  • Media History
  • Colonial History
  • Global History
  • International history

Research associate

Christina Pauls, M.A.

Christina Pauls is a research associate at the Department of Political Science, Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Augsburg. Her doctoral dissertation deals with post- and decolonial critiques of the dominant concept of peace and explores them in the context of interpretive struggles over collective memory.

Research Areas

  • Understandings of peace
  • Epistemic violence
  • Critical and decolonial peace research
  • Germany, Kazakhstan, Rwanda

(Photo: Peter Kolb)

Co-Coordinator

Dr. Jan Sändig

Jan Sändig is a research associate at the Chair for Sociology of Africa (University of Bayreuth) and co-coordinator of Conflicts.Meanings.Transitions.

His research centers on non-violent protest and armed resistance, particularly in Western and Central Africa. Employed within the INFRAGLOB project at Bayreuth, he focuses on local and transnational protests against mining in Africa.

Reseach Areas

  • Social movements, protest, and violence
  • Corporations and conflict
  • Nigeria, DRC, and Guinea

(Photo: Peter Kolb)

Research associate

Alexander Schwarz, M.A.

Alexander Schwarz is a research associate at the University of Bayreuth. His research interests focus on nationalism, anti-Semitism and the Freikorps.

In the research project, he is part of the thematic field “violence”. Supervised by Dr. Julia Eichenberg, he is examining the suppression of the Munich Soviet Republic. The study focuses on the question of why the (Franconian) Freikorps and government troops unleashed violence in Munich in May 1919, which has since been known as the “White Terror”.

RESEARCH AREAS

  • Nationalism
  • Antisemitism
  • Freikorps

Research associate

Dr. Daniel Stahl

Daniel Stahl is a research associate at the Department of Modern and Contemporary History. He researches how legal norms were negotiated and enforced internationally and transnationally in the 20th century.

In his subproject, he focuses on the significance of the Nuremberg Trials for transatlantic interpretive struggles for peace and justice. Using the Argentine-German example, he asks how references to “Nuremberg” shaped the interpretation of past experiences of violence in Argentina and how they affected the German discussion of the Nuremberg Trials.

RESEARCH AREAS

  • International History
  • History of human rights and international law
  • Arms trade, disarmament and arms control
  • History of European-Latin American Relations

Principal Investigator

Prof. Dr. Dietmar Süß

Dietmar Süß is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Augsburg. His research deals, among other things, with experiences of violence in the 20th century. Together with Johannes Lehmann, M.A., he leads the sub-project on the “Politik der Versöhnung: Kirchen, Religion und Diktaturbewältigung nach 1945”.

RESEARCH AREAS

  • History and posthistory of National Socialism
  • Labour History
  • Contemporary history of Catholicism

Principal Investigator

Prof. Dr. Christoph Weller

Christoph Weller is head of the Department of Political Science, Peace and Conflict Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences at the University of Augsburg. His research focuses on conflict research, especially its methodology and practice orientation, among others related to communal conflict transformation, epistemologies of peace and participatory conflict research.

In the research network, he is primarily concerned with problems of social science peace and conflict research as well as theoretical-conceptual questions of interpretive struggles. In addition, he conducts research on the emergence and development of peace and conflict research in Germany.

Research Areas

  • Conflict, peace and violence studies
  • Sociology of knowledge of international politics
  • German foreign policy
  • Methodology of conflict and world politics research

Principal Investigator

Prof. Dr. Andreas Wirsching

Andreas Wirsching is Director of the Institute of Contemporary History Munich-Berlin (IfZ) and holds the Chair of Modern History at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich. His research focuses, among other things, on globalization as well as German and European history in the 20th and 21st centuries.

He is a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities and is, among other things, a member of the scientific advisory board of the House of European History in Brussels. In addition, he is one of the main editors of the edition “Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland” (AAPD), compiled by the IfZ on behalf of the German Foreign Office.

In “Interpretive Struggles in Transition” he leads the IfZ-based sub-project “Menschen, Rechte, Identität(en). Die jugoslawischen Nachfolgekriege und gesellschaftliche Deutungskämpfe im Europa der frühen 1990er Jahre”.

Research Areas

  • Dictatorships in the 20th century
  • Democracies and their historical self-understanding
  • Transformations in recent contemporary history
  • International and transnational relations after 1945
  • Europe after 1989

Research associate

Dr. Michaela Zöhrer

Michaela Zöhrer is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Augsburg, Chair of Political Science, Peace and Conflict Studies. The diploma sociologist and doctor of social science focuses her current research on contemporary struggles over meaning in the area of conflict between identity politics and universalistic promises of participation.

In the BMBF-funded research network, she is also jointly responsible for the area of academic and political education and is involved in the promotion of young academics.

RESEARCH AREAS

  • NGOs and Social Movements
  • political sociology, cultural studies, global studies
  • feminist and postcolonial approaches
  • ethics, power, and participation in empirical research practice