Cultural history of politics: concepts and debates

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Notes

 1. For a comparative analysis see Amir-Moazami, Politisierte Religion and Sicko, Das Kopftuch-Urteil.

 2. See for example Requate, “Lebedame und Querulant.”

 3. Pedersen, “What is Political History Now?,” 50–51.

 4. Julliard, “Reflections,” 31. On the German discussion Conrad and Kessel, “Blickwechsel.” Sarasin, “Subjekte, Diskurse, Körper.” Kittsteiner, “Kulturgeschichte.”

 5. Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class, 12; see also Hunt, New Cultural History and Bonnell and Hunt, Beyond the Cultural Turn.

 6. Pedersen, “What is Political History Now?,” 38.

 7. See Mergel, “Kulturgeschichte der Politik”; Landwehr, “Diskurs – Macht – Wissen”; Frevert and Haupt, Neue Politikgeschichte; Stollberg-Rilinger, Was heißt Kulturgeschichte, Schorn-Schütte, Historische Politikforschung. For critical responses to the “Cultural History of Politics” see Rödder, “Klios neue Kleider,” Nicklas, “Macht – Politik – Diskurs,” And the short introduction in Kraus and Nicklas, Geschichte der Politik.

 8. Osterhammel has warned of the risk that older rivalries between social and cultural historians on the one hand and ‘neo-Rankeans’ on the other, may be reproduced or even intensified as a result of misuse of the concept of transnationality. Osterhammel, “Transnationale Gesellschaftsgeschichte,” 474.

 9. Landwehr, “Diskurs – Macht – Wissen,” 104.

10. Steinmetz, Politik.

11. Rödder, “Klios neue Kleider,” 676.

12. Stollberg-Rillinger, Was heißt Kulturgeschichte, 10–11, Mergel, “Kulturgeschichte der Politik,” 587.

13. Kraus and Nicklas, Geschichte der Politik, 1.

14. Frevert, foreword to Frevert and Haupt, Neue Politikgeschichte.

15. For example Pyta, Hindenburg.

16. See Chabal and Daloz, Culture Troubles. Especially the chapter “In Defence of Eclecticism” and the section “On the merit of conceptual and theoretical eclecticism,” 309–27.

17. Landwehr, “Diskurs – Macht – Wissen,” 99–101, 106 and Stollberg-Rillinger, Was heißt Kulturgeschichte, 14.

18. Lehmkuhl, “Diplomatiegeschichte”; Mergel, “Kulturgeschichte der Politik,” 595.

19. See for example Derix, Bebilderte Politik.

20. See Geppert, Pressekriege.

21. This may be found in the debate about whether the role of academics and scientists in Nazi Germany, which had appeared as non-political, was actually political. The debate was launched by Aly and Heim, Vordenker der Vernichtung.

22. Bösch, “Öffentliche Geheimnisse.”

23. Derix, Bebilderte Politik.

24. See the canonical text of Foucault, Wille zum Wissen and Agamben, Homo sacer.

25. Thompson, The Media.

26. Nonetheless, this remains a useful approach. See the thought provoking examples in Föllmer, Sehnsucht nach Nähe.

27. On the Kaiserreich see Daniel, “Einkreisung und Kaiserdämmerung.”

28. Plunkett, Queen Victoria and Kohlrausch, Monarch im Skandal.

29. Bösch and Frei, Medialisierung und Demokratie.

30. Stedman Jones, “Rethinking Chartism.” The thesis of historical continuity also in Biagini and Reid, “Currents of Radicalism.”

31. Wahrman, Imagining the Middle Class. Joyce, Visions of the People. Vernon, Politics and the People.

32. Landwehr, Historische Diskursanalyse.

33. A similar argument may be found in Mergel, “Kulturgeschichte der Politik.”

34. Kraus and Nicklas, Geschichte der Politik, 3.

35. The articles in this special issue were presented at a conference on ‘New Political History in Transnational Perspective’ which took place on 15–16 February 2008. We would like to thank the EUI and the DFG for their financial support. Furthermore we are grateful to the commentators on the papers: Horst Carl, Roger Chickering, Sebastian Conrad, Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, Friedrich Lenger, Kiran Patel and Philipp Ther.