| Post: | Professor of Modern European History (Centre for Modern European Cultural History) |
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Biography
BA History, Haverford College (US), 1985; MA, University of Chicago, 1989; PhD, University of Chicago 1995.
Asst Professor, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 1996-1999; University of Sussex, 2000-
Co-director of Sussex's Centre for Modern European Cultural History, as well as Director of the Sussex-China Faculty Exchange Programme since 2004.
My most recent book, Within Walls: Private Life in the German Democratic Republic, was published by Oxford University Press in 2010, and received the Fraenkel Prize for Contemporary History from the Wiener Library.
Currently I am researching a book on changing ideas of civilization in 20th century Europe.
I teach courses on twentieth-century Germany, as well as a variety of undergraduate options on Modern European social and cultural history, including a Special Subject entitled ‘The Cold War: Politics, Society and Culture."
As part of the MA programme in Modern European Cultural History, I teach courses on "The Making of Modern Europe" and "The History of Human Rights."
Editorial Board Memberships and Inter-University Activities:
Editorial Board, Past & Present, 2009-
Chair, German History Society UK, 2011-2013
Editorial Board, German History, 2010-
National Subpanelist for History, Research Excellence Framework (REF), 2011-2014.
Joint Editor, German History, 2004-09
SELECT PUBLICATIONS
Books:
Within Walls: Private Life in the German Democratic Republic (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2010), 321 pp.
*Awarded Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History (Senior Category) by the Wiener Library, London, October 2010
The Authority of Everyday Objects: A Cultural History of West German Industrial Design (Berkeley:UniversityofCalifornia Press, 2004; paperback, 2007), 348 pp.
*History Book Prize Finalist, German Studies Association (USA), 2006
Edited Books:
Co-Editor (with Christian Wiese), Years of Persecution, Years of Extermination: Saul Friedländer and the Future of Holocaust Studies (London: Continuum, 2010), 370 pp.
Co-Editor (with Alon Confino and Dirk Schumann), Between Mass Death and Individual Loss: The Place of the Dead in Twentieth-Century Germany (New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008; paperback, 2011), 329 pp.
Co-Editor (with Katherine Pence), Socialist Modern: East German Everyday Culture and Politics (Ann Arbor: University of MichiganPress, 2008), 378 pp.
Co-Editor (with Greg Eghigian), Pain and Prosperity: Reconsidering Twentieth Century German History (Palo Alto:StanfordUniversity Press, 2003), 279 pp.
Guest Edited Special Journal Issues:
Co-Editor (with David Crowley), “Domestic Dreamworlds: Notions of Home in Post-1945 Europe,” Journal of Contemporary History 40:2 (Spring, 2005), pp. 213-362.
Articles and Book Chapters
“Socialism, Social Rights, Human Rights,” Humanity, special issue edited by Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann et al (Spring 2012), forthcoming.
“Westalgie: West German Longing for the Cold War after 1989,” German Politics & Society, Autumn2012, forthcoming.
“Violence, Separateness and Performance: Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy Reconsidered,” Gewalt Denken. Lektüren – Festschrift für Bernd Weisbrod zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Habbo Knoch, Uffa Jensen and Miriam Rürup (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2011), pp. 214-222.
“Die Politik des Privaten: Eingaben in der DDR [The Politics of the Private: Citizen Complaints in the GDR],” Demokratie im Schatten der Gewalt: Geschichten des Privaten im deutschen Nachkrieg, ed. Daniel Fulda, Dagmar Herzog, Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann and Till van Rahden (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2010), pp. 286-309.
“Manners, Morality and Civilization: Reflections on Post-1945 German Etiquette Books,” in Histories of the Aftermath: The Legacies of World War II in Comparative European Perspective, ed. Frank Biess and Robert Moeller (New York: Berghahn, 2010), pp. 196-214.
“’I Want My File!’ The Private Side of German Reunification,” History Today, Oct. 2009, pp. 34-39.
“Privatheit” [Privacy], in Erinnerungsorte der DDR, ed. Martin Sabrow (Munich: CH Beck, 2009), pp. 314-325.
“Private Property and Public Culture: A Forgotten Chapter of East European Communist Life,” in Centre d'histoire de Sciences Politiques, http://www.histoire-politique.fr, January 2009.
"Property, Peace and Honor: Neighborhood Justice in Communist Berlin,” Past & Present 201(November 2008), pp. 215-254.
“Nachbarschaft, Konflikte und Ehre: Alltagsjustiz in der DDR,” in Zeiträume: Potsdamer Almanach des Zentrums für Zeithistorische Forschung, 2007 (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2008), pp. 17-28.
“Death and 20th Century Germany,” in Between Mass Death and Individual Loss: The Place of the Dead in Twentieth-Century Germany, ed. Alon Confino, Paul Betts and Dirk Schumann (New York/Providence: Berghahn, 2008), pp. 1-24.
“When Cold Warriors Die: The State Funerals of Konrad Adenauer and Walter Ulbricht,” in Between Mass Death and Individual Loss: The Place of the Dead in Twentieth-Century Germany, ed. Alon Confino, Paul Betts and Dirk Schumann (New York/Providence: Berghahn, 2008), pp. 151-178.
“Building Socialism at Home: The Case of East German Interiors,” in Socialist Modern: East German Everyday Culture and Politics, ed. Katherine Pence and Paul Betts (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008), pp. 96-132.
“Germany, International Justice and the 20th Century,” in History and Memory, Special Issue on “Histories and Memories of 20th CenturyGermany,” ed. A. Confino 17:1/2 (Fall 2005), pp.45-86.
“Domestic Dreamworlds: Notions of Home in Post-1945 Europe,” Journal of Contemporary History 40:2 (April, 2005), pp. 213-236.
“Ästhetik und Öffentlichkeit: Westdeutschland in den 50er Jahren” [Aesthetics and the Public Sphere: West Germany in the 1950s] in Bernd Weisbrod, ed., Die Politik der Öffentlichkeit-Die Öffentlichkeit der Politik: Politische Medialisierung in der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003), pp. 231-260.
"The Politics of Post-Fascist Aesthetics: West and East German Design in the 1950s,” in Life After Death: Violence, Normality and the Reconstruction of Postwar Europe, eds. Richard Bessel and Dirk Schumann (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 2003), pp. 291-321.
“Remembrance of Things Past: Nostalgia in West and East Germany, 1980-2000,” in Pain and Prosperity: Reconsidering 20th Century German History, eds. P. Betts and G. Eghigian (Palo Alto:StanfordUniversityPress, 2003), pp. 179-207.
“The New Fascination with Fascism: The Case of Nazi Modernism,” Journal of Contemporary History 37:4 (September, 2002), pp. 541-558.
“The Nierentisch Nemesis: Organic Design as West German Pop Culture,” German History 19:2 (May, 2001), pp. 185-217.
"The Twilight of the Idols: East German Memory and Material Culture," Journal of Modern History 72:3 (September, 2000), pp. 731-765. ( *Higby Prize for Best Article in the JMH 1998-2000)
"The Bauhaus as Cold War Legend: West German Modernism Revisited," German Politics and Society 14:12 (Summer, 1996), pp. 75-100.
Pence, Katherine and Betts, Paul, eds. (2007) Socialist modern: East German everyday culture and politics. Social history, popular culture, and politics in Germany . University of Michigan Press. ISBN 9780472069743
Betts, Paul (2005) Germany, international justice and the 20th century. History and Memory, 17 (1-2). pp. 45-86. ISSN 0935-560X
Unset (2005) Special issue: domestic dreamworlds: notions of home in post-1945 Europe. Journal of Contemporary History, 40 (2). SAGE Publications. ISBN 0022-0094
Betts, Paul (2004) The authority of everyday objects: A cultural history of West German industrial design. Weimar and now: German cultural criticism . University of California Press. ISBN 9780520240049
Betts, Paul (2003) Ästhetik und öffentlichkeit: Westdeutschland in den 50er jahren. In: Die politik der öffentlichkeit - die öffentlichkeit der politik. Politische medialisierung in der geschichte der bundesrepublik. Wallstein, pp. 231-260. ISBN 9783892446910
Betts, Paul (2003) The politics of post-fascist aesthetics: West and East German design in the 1950s. In: Life after death: Approaches to a cultural and social history of Europe during the 1940s and 1950s. Publications of the German Historical Institute . Cambridge University Press, pp. 291-322. ISBN 9780521804134
Unset (2003) Pain and prosperity: reconsidering twentieth-century German history. Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804739382
Betts, Paul (2002) The new fascination with fascism: the case of Nazi modernism. Journal of Contemporary History, 37 (4). pp. 541-558. ISSN 0891-2416
Betts, Paul (2001) The Nierentisch nemesis: Organic design as West German pop culture. German History, 19 (2). pp. 185-217. ISSN 0266-3554
