Institute of Modern History

Dr. Sebastian Koch

Contact

E-Mail: sebastian.kochspam prevention@uni-tuebingen.de

Curriculum Vitae

2021
Doctorate

at the University of Tübingen. Title of the study: “Identity Crises following the End of the British Empire. The Cultural Relocation in Canada, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand”

2020
Scholarship

of the FAZIT Foundation

2015 – 2021
Doctoral studies

at the University of Tübingen

2015 – 2019
Research Assistant

at the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 923 “Threatened Orders – Societies under Stress” in project G04 “End of Empire. Re-ordering in Australia, New Zealand and Canada (1960–1980)”

2015
1st State Examination (Secondary-School Teacher Training)
2012 – 2015
Student Assistant

of Jun.-Prof. Dr. Claudia Lauer at the Department for German Medieval Studies (Chair: Prof. Dr. Annette Gerok-Reiter)

2012–2014
Tutor

at the Department for Modern History (Chair: Prof. Dr. Ewald Frie)

2011–2015
Scholarship holder

of the Deutschlandstipendium, awarded by the University of Tübingen for outstanding study achievements

2011–2014
Student Assistant

at the CRC 923 “Threatened Orders – Societies under Stress” in project D03 “Nobility and Middle Class. Poor Nobles Between Competing Social Orders”

2011
Practical Training

at the Documentation Centre of the Memorial Grafeneck e.V.

2009 – 2015
Studies of History and German Literature

at the University of Tübingen

2009
Abitur (equivalent to A-levels)

awarded with the DPG book prize

Research

Research interests

  • Comparative History of Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and Canada

  • History of the British Empire

  • History of Historiography

  • History of Ideas

  • Postcolonial Studies

PhD project: „Identity Crises following the End of the British Empire. The Cultural Relocation in Canada, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand“

The focus of my study is on the cultural coping strategies that became necessary as a result of the threat to a previously British-oriented collective identity in the former 'white' settler colonies Canada, Australia and New Zealand in the wake of the end of Empire. From the 1960s onwards the foundation of settler-colonial identity concepts – namely the Britishness myth with all its narratives based on notions of Whiteness and family values – came into crisis. Precisely because these narratives had a contingency-coping effect over generations and framed not only ideas of culture and collective identity but also guidelines of economy and politics for so long, ideas of order appeared very fragile in Canada, Australia and New Zealand when Britain turned towards Europe during the 1960s. In this context it became an unavoidable task for actors to 'renegotiate' their understandings of culture and identity. Against this backdrop, my study looks at the search for supposedly 'new' concepts of identity and asks how, for example, with the help of 'new' symbols, memory practices, success narratives and, not least, a 'new' myth, contingency was to be overcome in a time when Britain and its empire could no longer be fixed points of reference in the mentioned countries.

Publications

Monographies

  • Identitätskrisen nach dem Ende des Britischen Empire. Zur kulturellen Neu-Verortung in Kanada, Australien und Aotearoa Neuseeland, Tübingen 2023 (Bedrohte Ordnungen 18).

  • Der Kampf des Helden gegen den egeslîchen trachen. Zur narrativen Funktion des Topos vom Drachenkampf in vergleichender Perspektive, Göppingen 2016 (Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik 783). Rezensionen dazu:

  1. Vibeke Rützou Petersen, in: Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 28.2 (2017), S. 319–321, (https://www.jstor.org/stable/26499460?seq=1).

  2. Peter Somogyi, in: Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur 146.4 (2017), S. 534–538.

  3. Norbert Voorwinden, in: Amsterdamer Beiträge zur Älteren Germanistik 76 (2016), S. 442–445.

  4. Miriam Strieder, Gekommen, um die anderen Helden abzumelden (2016), literaturkritik.de/public/rezension.php?rez_id=22171.

Scientific essays

  • Biculturalism, multiculturalism and indigeneity as a strategy of memoria. Canada and Australia defining themselves in times of threat, in: Renate Dürr (Hg.): Threatened Knowledge. Practices of Knowing and Ignoring from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century, London, New York 2022 (Knowledge Societies in History), S. 152–178.

  • [Essay] Wie ‘närrisch’ ist Jakob van Hoddis’ Visionarr?, in: Tintenklex. Interdisziplinäre Zeitschrift für Nachwuchswissenschaftler 1 (2017), S. 62–70.

lectures

  • Identitätskrisen nach dem Ende des Britischen Empire. Zur kulturellen Neu-Verortung in Kanada, Australien und Aotearoa Neuseeland, Vortrag im Rahmen des Kolloquiums „Geschichtsdidaktik und Public History“ (Lehrstuhl Prof. Dr. Bernd-Stefan Grewe), Universität Tübingen, 20. Mai 2019.

  • Breaking the ‘Conspiracy of Silence’ after Empire? Biculturalism, Multiculturalism and Indigeneity as a Strategy of Memory Practices in Canada and Australia, Vortrag im Rahmen der Konferenz “End of Empire. The British World after 1945”, Tübingen, 10. bis 12. Oktober 2018.

  • Biculturalism, Multiculturalism and Indigeneity as a Strategy of Memoria. Canada and Australia Defining Themselves in Times of Threat, Vortrag im Rahmen der internationalen Hauptkonferenz des Sonderforschungsbereichs 923 “What Do We Still Know? Knowing and Forgetting in Times of Threat”, Tübingen, 28. bis 30. Juni 2018.

  • “… New Zealand can be likened to an elephant unable to make its presence felt at all.” Überlegungen zur Identitätskrise in Neuseeland nach dem Ende des Britischen Empire, Vortrag im Rahmen der Tübinger Doktorandentage, 15. Januar 2018.

  • Identitätssuche. Zur kulturellen Neuverortung in Australien, Neuseeland und Kanada, 1960–1980, Vortrag im Rahmen der ersten Nachwuchstagung der Gesellschaft für Überseegeschichte, Schloss Schney bei Lichtenfels, 04. bis 06. August 2016.

  • In Search of a New Identity. Re-ordering Culture in the 1960s and 1970s, Vortrag im Rahmen des Workshops “End of Empire. Re-ordering in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, 1960–1980”, Tübingen, 25. bis 26. Februar 2016.

Digital exhibitions