Rudy J. Koshar
George L. Mosse WARF Professor of History & Religious Studies and Director, Religious Studies Program

eMail: rjkoshar@wisc.edu
Phone: (608)265-2578
Office: 4101 Mosse Humanities
Mailbox: 4020 Mosse Humanities

Curriculum Vitae: View PDF

Office Hours: Tuesdays 4:00 - 5:00, Thursdays 4:00 - 5:00, or by appointment

Education: PhD: University of Michigan; MA: University of Michigan; BA: Michigan State

Bio Sketch:

My general field of study is modern German and European intellectual and cultural history, with emphasis on the history of religious thought. Previous research included work on the social roots of Nazism; the lower middle classes in European and German politics between the world wars; historic preservation and German national identity; German memory cultures from 1870 to 1990; the history of consumption; and the history of modern travel and leisure. My current research and graduate teaching focuses on the history of modern European political theology, which is the analysis or critique of power from a religious or theological perspective. I plan to study the history of political-theological thinking in the context of broader transformations in European Christianity, culture, and politics. My undergraduate teaching includes survey lectures on European intellectual and cultural history from the French Revolution to the present, as well as more specialized courses on modern German history since 1870 and the history of religious thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Research Interests:

Modern European intellectual and cultural; modern Germany; religious thought; political theology.

Selected Publications:

• “Where is Karl Barth in Modern European History?” Modern Intellectual History 5, 2 (August 2008): 333-362.
• German Travel Cultures (Oxford: Berg, 2000)
• From Monuments to Traces: The Artifacts of German Memory, 1870-1990 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000)
• Germany’s Transient Pasts: Historical Preservation and National Memory in Twentieth Century Germany (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998)
• Social Life, Local Politics, and Nazism: Marburg, 1880-1935 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986)
  

Awards:

• John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship
• German Marshall Fund of the United States Research Fellowship
• Jean Monnet Research Fellowship, European University Institute, Florence, Italy
• American Council of Learned Socieities Fellowship
• Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation Professorship

Courses Taught:

Lecture Courses:

• History 120 - Europe and the Modern World 1815-Present
• History 410 - Modern Germany 1871-present
• History 415 - History of National Socialism
• History 470 - Religious Thought in Modern Europe
• History 513 - European Cultural History, 1815-1870
• History 514 - European Cultural History 1870-present

Undergraduate Seminars:

• History 600 - Advanced Seminar in History - Topics: “Christianity and Culture in Modern Europe” and “European Lives in the Twentieth Century”

Graduate Courses:

• History 866 - Seminar in Social History of Modern Europe
• History 867 - Seminar in European Social and Intellectual History
• History 891 - Proseminar in Modern European History: Central Europe