We are delighted to welcome Prof. Dr. Anette Schlimm as a new colleague to the Faculty of Humanities.
Anette Schlimm completed her habilitation at LMU Munich in January 2020 and was granted the venia legendi for Modern and Contemporary History. Her habilitation thesis is titled “Übergangsgesellschaften regieren. Drei Dörfer und die Moderne" ("Governing Transitional Societies: Three Villages and Modernity"). Prior to that, she earned her doctorate in March 2011 at Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg with the dissertation “Ordnung des Verkehrs – Ordnung der Gesellschaft. Verkehrsexpertise als Ordnungsdenken und Social Engineering in Deutschland und Großbritannien (1920er- bis 1950er-Jahre)" ("Order of Transportation – Order of Society: Transportation Expertise as Order-Making and Social Engineering in Germany and Great Britain (1920s–1950s)"). In the 2023–24 academic year, Prof. Schlimm also served as a Richard von Weizsäcker Visiting Fellow at the European Studies Centre of St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford.
With her proven expertise in German and European history from the 19th to the 21st century, Anette Schlimm will significantly enrich the research and teaching at our faculty, particularly through her consistently interdisciplinary and transnational scholarly work, which combines historical studies with approaches from the social and cultural sciences and also focuses on the transatlantic dimension.
The Faculty of Humanities is very much looking forward to collaborating with Prof. Dr. Anette Schlimm and to her scholarly contributions to the History Department.
Two Questions for Prof. Dr. Anette Schlimm
My current research topics in three sentences:
I am researching two topics that, until a few years ago, received little attention in contemporary history. I demonstrate that rural areas, long considered simply "backward," were spaces with significant momentum of their own and, particularly in a decentralized country like Germany, had far more influence on political culture, education, living conditions, and economic dynamics than we have long understood. And I am investigating the history of the radical right throughout the long 20th century, currently focusing primarily on the long-ignored precursors of today’s "Reichsbürger" and their connections to conservative and alternative circles.
In teaching, the following is particularly important to me:
The conditions of studying are constantly changing. Right now, everyone is talking about AI—but what does that mean not only for study conditions and exam performance, but also for the skills that history students will need in the coming years? What skills are the “superpowers" of historians, and how can we preserve and develop them? I want to keep the conversation going on these topics—with students as well as with colleagues.