Find out more about the research projects of the Department of Social and Economic History.

Chronological list of publications of the department‘s staff.

The starting point of the planned monograph is the thesis that maps are of outstanding importance for political action in the 20th century. The focus is on the International Map of the World (IMW) which reflects central developments of this century.

The cartographer Gerardus Mercator wrote and received more than 200 letters throughout his life. In this project, surviving letters are re-edited and in large part translated from Latin to German for the first time.

Funded by the German Research Foundation, the project examines the European dimension of town twinning links and its significance in the wide array of political, economic, diplomatic and cultural processes and interests. The project therefore contributes to research into Europe’s wider societal perception, negotiation and performance.

The new research alliance “Kulturen des Kompromisses / Cultures of Compromise” will comparatively approach distinct cultures and epochs to systematically investigate the social, political and cultural premises of compromises. Combining the fields of – among others – history, literary studies, political science, communication studies and jurisprudence, this research alliance will bring together researchers from the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE), the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (WWU) and the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB). The consortium will be lead by the UDE. 

The project analyses the concept of the novel ‘Gesamthochschule’ (a combination of regular universities and universities of applied sciences) that was initiated in 1972. Related to this were planning and space creation processes between 1965-1985 for five such universities that were imagined to be a “landscape of universities“ in the federate state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Martina Stercken/Ute Schneider (Hrsg.): Urbanität. Formen und Inszenierungen in Karten, Texten und Bildern, Köln u.a. 2016. Urbanity is presented in many different ways. As a cipher for a special form of living it is the subject of a multitude of text types.

Ute Schneider/Stefan Brakensiek (Hrsg.): Gerhard Mercator. Wissenschaft und Wissenstransfer, Darmstadt 2015. Which significance does Mercator’s work have for us today? „Gerardus Mercator: Science and Transfer of Knowledge“ was the title of a conference that was dedicated – among other matters – to this question.

Friedrich Jaeger/Wolfgang Knöbl/Ute Schneider (Hrsg.): Handbuch Moderneforschung, Stuttgart 2015. Given this current research environment, the handbook opens up a new perspective. The focus is on the question of how central disciplines have taken up and discussed "Modernity".

In the 19th century, international banking networks significantly contributed to financing the industrialization. But how did decisions for projects within the banks come about? The project examines the banks’ motivations and decision-making structures.

Darja Reuschke/Monika Salzbrunn/Korinna Schönhärl (Hrsg.): The economies of urban diversity: the Ruhr area and Istanbul, New York 2013. The book opens up an innovative perspective on socio-politically urgent questions, using the European Capitals of Culture of 2010, Istanbul and the Ruhr Area, as examples.

The doctoral project addresses the discursivations of unemployment in mass media and its associated construction of (non-)working subjects from 1967 up to the present day. The focus lies on critical analyses of infographics.

The project analyses the concept of the novel ‘Gesamthochschule’ (a combination of regular universities and universities of applied sciences) that was initiated in 1972. Related to this were planning and space creation processes between 1965-1985 for five such universities that were imagined to be a “landscape of universities“ in the federate state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The project examines the European dimension of town twinning links and its significance in the wide array of political, economic, diplomatic and cultural processes and interests. The project therefore contributes to research into Europe’s wider societal perception, negotiation and performance.

Based on historical-theoretical and -scientific papers, reading and writing tasks will be designed and tested that address characteristics of historical work and historical narratives with a focus on the language of academia.

The commission's work of the reactionary ‘Bundesreaktionsausschuss’ of 1851 will be used to examine ways of finding compromise. The focus is on the diplomatic negotiation processes and monitoring practices of the committee in the context of post-revolutionary constitutional revisions.

A biography that not only traces the career of an artistic personality, but rather illuminates the stations of her life from various perspectives, is the result of this work. In which contexts did Elly Ney grow up and which traditions shaped her early years? What networks and transnational relationships could she draw on for her studies and career? How did the cultural transfer of her American years succeed? Why and under what circumstances did she finally return to National Socialist Germany and what role did she play in the "Third Reich"? In addition, her reception will receive attention, as will the posthumous discourse on her National Socialist past in the Federal Republic up to the present day.

The project deals with the resolutions of the International Congresses of Animal Protection Societies, which were held regularly from 1860 onwards. Particular attention is paid to changes in social norms the animal protection societies sought to amend. It examines the tension between the animal rights activists, who wanted to protect society from a feared brutalization, and those who adhered to the status quo.

The fall of the Iron Curtain confronted the police officers of the GDR with a highly contingent situation. The project asks for the overcoming of this surplus of contingencies and the change in police practices after German reunification.

The project will be focused on international conflictual relations, which range from invisibility to a multitude of views. Thus forms of rapprochement and compromise in discourses and representations will be shown. Between the initiative to compromise and a treaty as compromise stands a process of political-diplomatic actions and numerous meetings, which form the starting point for the project.

Publication: Mythos Trümmerfrauen: von der Trümmerbeseitigung in der Kriegs- und Nachkriegszeit und der Entstehung eines deutschen Erinnerungsortes, Essen 2014.

The project examines what function the stagings of the funerals of Pétain and Mussolini and their media reproductions had for post-war societies.

The dissertation project focuses upon the foundational period of the correspondent profession and the first boom around 1900. It examines the development of the professional correspondent between the major media event of ‘1848’ and the outbreak of the First World War.

The dissertation project investigates the negotiation processes and the procedures in dealing with hydrographic knowledge in the CCNR. Case studies are the determination of the length and the joint navigation of the Rhine as well as the standardisation of hydrographic maps from 1817-1880.

Towards the end of the 19th century, industrial research constituted a form of dealing with the future. Since the openness of science entails the risk of failure, the research laboratory was a structure that was intended to make science plannable for companies.

The project examines the lines of development of German cartography over the course of the First World War on the basis of the aspects of production and consumption. The main focus is on issues regarding new production structures, new map types and the use of maps.Me

This doctoral project examines the contingency and possible alternative courses of action for the adoption of the West German science system in the former GDR.