Log in
The impact derives from research undertaken from 2007 to 2012 by Thomas Biskup (Hull) in collaboration with colleagues in Germany and Oxford. Marking the 2012 tercentenary of King Frederick II `the Great' of Prussia (1712-86), the research contributed directly to a series of major public events in Germany and the UK. The impact assumed two main forms. First, these research- informed public events benefitted the economy of Brandenburg by stimulating tourism, and increasing the number of visitors and overnight stays to record highs. Second, as part of the on- going process of re-defining German national identity and the place of Germany in Europe, the public image of Frederick II was reshaped.
David Robb's research into folk and protest song has an impact on a wider public through its promotion at music clubs and festivals and in its use in political education in schools. The context for the impact is the general political climate in Germany since the Second World War where protest song has been supported at a national level as `democratic' heritage. Questionnaires from a recent workshop revealed how teachers have made use of Robb's recent on-line research project to promote a democratic consciousness amongst pupils. His research has also influenced the song repertoires of folk groups and performers.
In this REF period, Christopher Young researched and published widely on the Olympic Games in twentieth-century Germany. Highlights of the impact of this research include: (i) Young's co- authored monograph was the principal reference for an exhibition on the 1972 Munich Olympics, which ran for 6 weeks in 2012 at Munich's main station; (ii) Young made a significant contribution as consultant to three of the six documentary programmes `Olympic Radio Ballads', which were broadcast on Radio 2 in the run-up to London 2012; (iii) Young's research was the basis of his April 2012 presentation at the Historian's Speaker Series at the Office of State in Washington.
The impact of this on-going project has been to raise cultural awareness of Eastern European history and life behind the Iron Curtain by bringing together communities of former Eastern European citizens in Bristol. It has given those communities the opportunity to share their stories with a group with many common experiences. The project has also given them the opportunity to increase their awareness of other Eastern European countries. Public awareness has been raised through a series of events which have allowed project participants to voice their views and experiences, including a museum exhibition, a series of school workshops, and a set of resources for secondary school teachers.
The Gutzkow project, co-directed by Lauster and Vonhoff of the Department of Modern Languages (German), has transformed public access to the author's work through open-access, on-line publication. The project, which combines specialist scholarship with innovative editing, has considerably enhanced public appreciation of a widened canon of 19th-century German literature (impact 1). User testimonies, the international press, public acknowledgement and public involvement in events in the region reveal a significant renewal of public interest in Gutzkow. The editorial results of the Gutzkow project have been requested by an interdisciplinary linguistic digitization project in Berlin and will be fully integrated in this open access linguistic database (impact 2).
Directly inspired by the research of Rüdiger Görner, in the autumn of 2010 the Globe Theatre and the Goethe Institute in London staged a season of lectures, performances, readings and films entitled `Shakespeare is German'. This materially affected the cultural life of the capital, notably in the direction of 'conserving, preserving and presenting transnational cultural heritage'; it broadened the horizons of more than two thousand attendees; it had a resonance in the media which marked a clear shift in popular conceptions of Anglo-German cultural relations; and it continued to resonate in both countries long after the actual season finished.
Dr Kuhn's research has established him since the mid-1990s as one of the world's leading experts on the modernist poet, playwright and cultural commentator Bertolt Brecht. He has worked to increase the public understanding of Brecht's work, to make good translations with reliable commentaries widely available, and to enhance the quality of Brecht theatre productions. Besides his involvement with (non-academic) publishing, he has worked directly with theatres and drama colleges, providing advice and workshops, revising translations, writing programme notes, and improving the quality of performance of Brecht's work. Beneficiaries include theatre audiences, school students, general readers, the publishing industry, the performing arts, and cultural life in general.
Research by Haase underpinned the successful renaming of one of the central sites of the new Germany — the Marion-Countess-Dönhoff-Platz in Berlin — in 2010/11. Haase's research informed the politically sensitive consultation process between politicians and local communities, and within the communities themselves, and provided research that helped deliver broad-based community support for the new name. The research-informed community engagement approach facilitated by Haase's research set a national standard of excellence in renaming processes. A permanent interpretation board contributes historical depth to locals' and tourists' experience of the Square.
Bill Niven is a public history practitioner, and an acknowledged expert on war and post-war Germany. The Buchenwald Child was a particularly well-known national story. It was based on wartime events but written up in the post 1945 period, where it was used by the socialist Deutsche Demokratische Republik (GDR) to demonstrate its antifascist roots and prove its sympathy towards Holocaust victims. Niven's study revealed that this much lauded story was largely founded on myth shaped by the exigencies of the Cold War (i.e. the need to prove that the GDR was the `better' Germany). His work started a major re-evaluation that stretched, as was always intended, beyond the boundaries of academia into the public domains of national identity formation within the context of reconciling the present with Germany's National Socialist and post 1945 divided pasts. This reassessment has taken the form of public discussion in the German media (newspapers, radio, TV), including a one-hour TV documentary film based largely on the book and including interviews with the Buchenwald Child himself, Niven and the director of Buchenwald Memorial Site. A paperback version of Niven's book was produced and distributed by Germany's Federal Centre for Political Education. It has since triggered discussion within organisations representing veteran survivors of the camp.
The research traces the interrelated debates on art, education and violence from the German Enlightenment to the present day. It analyses how the Enlightenment has shaped discussions of ethics and aesthetics both in the nineteenth century and in post-war German culture. The research has been communicated to a wide range of audiences: students, adult learners, creative organisations and their audiences, resulting in enriched cultural experiences and a different perspective on contemporary issues through the introduction of new ideas, arguments and forms of expression.