German Historical Institute London Podcast

Queering German History: Still a Vital and Viable Endeavour?

What difference can queer perspectives make in our understanding of the German past and in present-day conversations around sexual and gender diversity? Having taught and published on LGBT history for several years in Berlin, London, and other places, Benno Gammerl takes this opportunity to reflect on the impact of such work. Looking at experiences and struggles of same-sex loving and gender-nonconforming people in Germany since around 1900, the talk discusses whether we should continue doing queer history in spite of the criticism that it essentializes sexual identity categories, and against powerful pushback from right-wing and other parts of the political spectrum in the East and West. Benno Gammerl is Professor of History of Gender and Sexuality at the European University Institute in Florence. His work addresses oral, emotional, queer-feminist, and intersectional histories. He is currently researching how bi-cultural couples in Germany have intimately navigated diversity since the 1960s. In 2023 he published Queer. Eine deutsche Geschichte vom Kaiserreich bis heute.

Queer Perspectives: New Ways of Understanding German History

In this episode, host Kim König speaks with Benno Gammerl (European University Institute in Florence) about the research underlying his lecture on “Queering German history: Still a vital and viable endeavor?”. They explore what it means to “queer” history, both as a critical practice and as a methodological approach for rethinking established historical narratives. Benno Gammerl discusses why queering remains a vital tool for understanding German history and reflects on its implications for historiography more generally. They also consider how this perspective can offer valuable insights to scholars whose work may not explicitly engage with queer history.

Decolonising the Natural History Collections of Empire

This lecture, with a focus on India, aims to understand this important archive of knowledge of the natural world collected and organised in the context of the empire in the light of recent historiography on botany and empire. It highlights the importance of creating an inventory and digitally repatriating botanical specimens held primarily in British institutions, and highlights efforts for cultural remediation. The lecture examines neglected literature and networks in the imperial scientific network, which were crucial to what was a prodigious scientific renaissance in natural history and environmental understanding in the imperial context from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. Vinita Damodaran is Professor of South Asian History at the University of Sussex and a specialist in the history of modern India with particular interests in environmental change, identity and resistance in Eastern India. Her research ranges from the social and political history of Bihar to the environmental history of South Asia, including using historical records to understand climate change in the Indian Ocean World. Her many publications include the books Nature and the Orient, Essays on the Environmental History of South and South-East Asia (1998), British Empire and the Natural World: Environmental Encounters in South Asia(2010), Climate Change and the Humanities (2017), Geography in Britain after the Second World War (2019), and Commonwealth Forestry and Environmental History: Empire, Forests and Colonial Environments in Africa, the Caribbean, South Asia and New Zealand (2020). At Sussex, Professor Damodaran is also director of the Centre for World Environmental History.

A linguistic legacy: The lasting impact of Reformation-era texts

In this episode, GHIL Fellow for Medieval History Thomas Kaal and host Kim König talk with Henrike Lähnemann, Professor of Medieval German Literature and Linguistics at the University of Oxford, about her recent GHIL lecture. They explore how Latin and German texts from around 500 years ago shaped the development of the German language and its cultural history, with examples ranging from nuns’ letters to Reformation pamphlets and songs, a brief musical interlude included.

1525 and All That: How Nuns’ Letters and Reformation Pamphlets Shaped German History

The lecture will discuss how Latin and German texts written 500 years ago influenced the linguistic and historical development of early modern and modern Germany, looking at examples from nuns’ letters, Reformation pamphlets, and songs. This is part of a project to write a cultural history of Germany by developing a historical narrative which combines linguistic changes with political, social, and cultural topics, arguing that early 16th-century texts and agendas still have an impact today.