Dr Clare Copley
Lecturer in Modern European History
School of Psychology and Humanities
Clare is a historian of modern Germany specialising in memory politics, the built environment and the history of Berlin. She teaches across a variety of subjects in modern European history and is interested in supervising research projects on topics including the legacies of fascism and state socialism, everyday life and cultural production under dictatorship, and contested heritage.
Clare’s forthcoming monograph, ‘Nazi Buildings, Cold War Traces and Governmentality in Post-Unification Berlin’ (Bloomsbury, 2020), brings together approaches from cultural and urban history as well as German Studies and political theory in order to examine power, legitimacy and memory politics in the Berlin Republic.
Her research has been funded by (amongst others) the AHRC and the Institute of Historical Research (Scouloudi Research Award). Clare was awarded the Dyos Prize for Urban History (2016) and the German History Society / Royal Historical Society Postgraduate Essay Prize (2015).
She has given invited talks at the Freie University (Berlin), University of Cambridge, Institute of Historical Research (London), Humboldt University (Berlin), and the Centre for Urban History (Leicester).
Clare is module leader for:
- HYC101: Introduction to History
- HY1117 European States and Societies (c. 1815 – 1914)
- HY 2006 Europe in an Age of Extremes (c. 1914 – 2000)
- HY 3007 Dictatorship, Division and Democratisation: Germany 1933 - 1965
- HY 4011 Sources and Methods in Historical Research (co-convened with Jack Southern)
Clare gained her AHRC-funded PhD from the University of Manchester. Prior to joining the history department at the University of Central Lancashire in 2016, she taught at the Universities of Bristol, Sheffield, Manchester and Birkbeck College, University of London. Her teaching and research interests focus on the social and cultural history of modern Europe, particularly twentieth century Germany.
- PhD German Studies, University of Manchester
- MA (research route) International Politics: International Relations, University of Manchester
- BA (hons) German and European Studies, University of Manchester
- Dyos Prize for Urban History (2016)
- German History Society / Royal Historical Society Postgraduate Essay Prize (2015)
- Memory politics
- Contested heritage
- Everyday life and cultural production under fascism and state socialism
- German History Society
- European Association for Urban History
In her current research Clare uses post-unification responses to the built legacies of National Socialism and the Cold War to explore contested memory and governmentality in Germany. In particular, she is interested in memorialisation and the development of the memorial landscape, attempts to 're-encode' historically 'burdened' buildings and the interplay between power, memory politics and the built environment.
Clare’s forthcoming monograph, ‘Nazi Buildings, Cold War Traces and Governmentality in Post-Unification Berlin’ examines how the united, democratic Germany attempts to deal with Nazi and Cold War buildings, memorials and statues and the debates, contests and controversies that this sparks and what all this tells us about power and memory politics in the Berlin Republic.
Publications:
- Copley, Clare. Nazi Buildings, Cold War Traces and Governmentality in Post-Unification Berlin (Bloomsbury, 2020)
- Copley, Clare. "‘Stones do not Speak for Themselves’: Disentangling Berlin’s Palimpsest." Fascism 8.2 (2019): 219-249.
- Copley, Clare. "Curating Tempelhof: negotiating the multiple histories of Berlin's ‘symbol of freedom’." Urban History 44.4 (2017): 698-717.
- Copley, Clare. "Konrad H. Jarausch, Harald Wenzel and Karin Goihl (eds), Different Germans, Many Germanies: New Transatlantic Perspectives." (2019): 471-473.
Use the links below to view their profiles:
- University of Central Lancashire: History
- Invited talks:
- March 2019: ‘ “Guilty buildings”? Responding to the built legacies of Fascism and National Socialism, International Workshop: Comparing the Cultural History of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
- June 2018: ‘National Socialist prestige buildings and the post-war urban landscape’, International Workshop: Fascist and National Socialist Antiquities and Materialities, Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge
- Sept 2017: Problematic Heritage: Goering’s Aviation Ministry Building, Modern German History Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, London
- May 2017: Plurality, truth and freedom? Staging the FRG through its 'burdened' sites, Forschungskolloquium zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus, Humboldt University, Berlin
- May 2017: Reuniting the City, Recoding the City: Berlin After the Wall, Centre for Urban History Seminar Series, University of Leicester.
Telephone:44 (0)1772 894432
Email: Email:Dr Clare Copley
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