Andrew DoddAndrew Dodd

Andrew studied History and German Studies at the University of Ottawa, spending a year on exchange at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg before coming to St Andrews to complete a Master's in Modern History.
 
His PhD project is concerned with the contemporary history of West Germany and focuses on the role of journalistic commentators as arbiters and communicators of political and intellectual debate, specifically with relation to the concept of the German nation.  A wealth of recent historiography has argued that in the 1980s the Federal Republic of Germany underwent a process of "self-recognition", moving past its old self-conception as a provisional solution to German division with increasing confidence and fashioning a post-national identity for itself. Then, in 1989/90, the Federal Republic opted for a quick and complete national reunification. The conflict between these two developments lays at the centre of the study: just how far beneath the surface did 'the nation' lurk, and how did the opinion-shapers of the Federal Republic deal with the shock of the return of the nation-state? 

Thesis title: West German Journalists Between Division and Reunification, 1987-1991
Supervisor: Dr. Riccardo Bavaj


Publications:
  • "'Ihr wollt den Rest Europas in Deutschland verankern': Margaret Thatcher and German Reunification" in Patrick Bormann, Thomas Freiberger, Judith Michel (eds.) Angst in den Internationalen Beziehungen (Göttingen, 2010), pp. 115-130.
  • "Review: Raffael Scheck, Germany, 1871–1945: A Concise History", European History Quarterly Vol. 40, No. 3 (2010), pp. 557-558.
  • "Review: From the Bonn to the Berlin Republic: Germany at the Twentieth Anniversary of Unification", German History 2012 (Forthcoming)
Papers/Conferences:
  • St Andrews School of History Postgraduate Forum, Feb 2009, "Ruptures and Continuities in History and Historiography: 1789 and 1989"
  • Conference: Angst als Perzeptionsfaktor und Handlungsantrieb in den Internationalen Beziehungen, March 13-15, 2009 at the Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in Bonn, Germany ;
  • Paper: '„Ihr wollt den Rest Europas in Deutschland verankern“: Margaret Thatcher und die deutsche Wiedervereinigung'
  • Aberdeen-St Andrews Postgraduate History Conference, May 23, 2009, "Contesting the Meaning of the East German Revolution: The Conceptual Construction of 'Die Wende'"
  • St Andrews School of History Postgraduate Forum, Feb 2010, "'(Bundes)Deutsch?' Coming to terms with the division of Germany in the late Bonn Republic (1985-1989)"
  • German History Society Conference, Sept 15-17, 2010, "Notions of Germany before 1990: ‘Post-National Democracy’ or Provisorium”
  • St Andrews School of History Postgraduate Forum, Nov 2011, "Contemporary History and the Problem of the Individual Historian: Does “I lived through it” Constitute a Valid Argument?"
Teaching:
  • MO2007: Europe and the World, 1850 – 2000 (Autumn 2008, 2009, 2010)
  • MO1008: Themes in Late Modern History, 1776-1989 (Winter 2011, 2012)
  • MO2901: Europe and the USA in the Twentieth Century (Winter 2011, 2012)
Other:
  • Co-Coordinator - University of St Andrews School of History Postgraduate Forum, 2009-2010.
  • Co-Organizer - Interdisciplinary Workshop: ‘Doing History through Literature – doing Literature through History: Re-visiting disciplinary boundaries’, St Andrews, May 13, 2011
  • Co-Organizer - Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference: "Images of the Past", St Andrews, November 18, 2011.