ANN: NCGS Zoom Seminar with Adam R. Seipp (Department of History, Texas A&M University): Friday, 14 April 2023

The North Carolina German Studies Seminar and Workshop Series (NCGS), an interdisciplinary and inter-institutional group of scholars in the Research Triangle of North Carolina, cordially invites you to our next online event:

Friday, 14 April 2023 from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm (Eastern Time)

ADAM R. SEIPP (Professor of History and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies in the College of Arts & Sciences, Texas A&M University)

Amis: German Society and the U.S. Army, 1945-1995

ABSTRACT: During the Cold War, more than 16 million Americans lived and worked in the Federal Republic of Germany as military personnel, dependents, or civilian employees.  This massive and long-lasting engagement between a foreign army and the population of a sovereign state had important implications for both.  Historians have explored the impact of foreign forces on consumption patterns, social movements, and youth culture in Germany, but there has been little attention paid to their role in shaping politics and political culture. My talk, part of a book project, will explore the lived experience of German communities that existed alongside, and among, the U.S. Army. Scholars need to better integrate the history of foreign military forces, and particularly the Americans, into the history of the Federal Republic of Germany.

BIO: ADAM R. SEIPP is Professor of History and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas A&M University.  He earned his PhD at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill in 2005. His main fields of research are German history, the European history of war and society, and transnational history. He is the author or editor of several books, including Strangers in the Wild Place: Refugees, Americans, and a German Town, 1945–1952 (2013), Modern Germany in Transatlantic Perspective (ed. with Michael Meng, 2017), and The Berlin Airlift and the Making of the Cold War (ed. with John Schuessler and Thomas D. Sullivan, 2022). 

MODERATION: ANDREA A. SINN (O'Briant Developing Professor and Associate Professor of History, Elon University, Department of History & Geography)

COMMENT: ELISABETH PILLER (Junior Professor of Transatlantic and North American History, Albert-Ludwigs Universität Freiburg, Department of History)

To get access to the Zoom seminar please contact the NCGS graduate assistants KEVIN J. HOEPER (kjhoeper@live.unc.edu) and MADELINE JAMES (mljames6@live.unc.edu).    

NCGS Website: https://ncgsws.web.unc.edu/

NCGS Twitter: https://twitter.com/NCGermanStudies

CONTACT: Karen Hagemann (Speaker, UNC-Chapel Hill, Department of History), email: hagemann@unc.edu

CONVENERS: Duke University, Department of History; UNC-Chapel Hill, Department of History