Education

PhD, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2010

Fields of Interest

Modern German History, Intellectual History, Transnational History

Academic Profile

Philipp Stelzel is a historian of 20th Century Germany, especially of post-1945 Germany from a transatlantic perspective. Before coming to Boston College, he taught at Duke University, North Carolina State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also a Research Associate at the Lasky Center for Transatlantic Studies at the University of Munich. His current book project "A German Special Path: Critical Social History as a Transatlantic Enterprise, 1945-1989" analyzes the intellectual exchange between German and American historians from the end of World War II to the 1980s. In contrast to the prevailing interpretation - which views American historians of modern Germany as a monolithic group of left-liberal scholars - he emphasizes their methodological, interpretive, and political diversity. He also reveals the degree to which the Germans began to associate progress and modernity with the American historical profession. He argues that "American connections" increasingly became an argument in West German historiographical debates, signifying methodological innovation.

Representative Publications

• "Working Toward a Common Goal? American Views on German Historiography and German-American Scholarly Relations during the 1960s." Central European History 41.4 (2008): 639-671.
• "Fritz Fischer and the American Historical Profession: Tracing the Transatlantic Dimension of the Fischer-Kontroverse." Storia della Storiografia 44.1 (2003): 67-84.