Volker Benkert studied history and English at the Universities of Bonn, Edinburgh, St. Petersburg, and Fribourg. He graduated with a master's degree from the University of Bonn and a doctorate from the University of Potsdam. His research focuses on the impact of sudden regime change on biographies in 20th century Germany and Europe. In addition to relying on traditional sources, he utilizes extended biographical interviews. Furthermore, he is interested in the formation and function of discourses on the totalitarian past on an individual and collective level. Identifying pervasive discourse patterns particularly among ordinary Germans helps to reveal the transmission of often apologetic views of the past over generations.
Benkert teaches upper-division courses in modern German and European history as well as the Western Civilization and Global History surveys. He also offers several capstone classes such as the HST498 History, Memory and National Myths: Changing European Master-Narratives of World War II. Finally, he conducts Individualized Studies projects with interested students on issues in German and German-Jewish history.
Benkert is the author of Glückskinder der Einheit? Lebenswege der um 1970 in der DDR Geborenen. Ch. Links Verlag 2017. http://www.christoph-links-verlag.de/index.cfm?view=3&titel_nr=957
He is the editor of Feinde, Freunde, Fremde? Deutsche Perspektiven auf die USA. Nomos Verlag 2018. http://www.nomos-shop.de/Benkert-Feinde-Freunde-Fremde/productview.aspx?product=27513&pac=weco and Unsere Väter, unsere Mütter. Deutsche Generationen seit 1945 [Our Fathers, our Mothers. German Generations since 1945]. (Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag, 2020) https://www.campus.de/buecher-campus-verlag/wissenschaft/geschichte/unse...
Book
Volker Benkert, Glückskinder der Einheit. Lebenswege der um 1970 in der DDR Geborenen [The Last Children of Socialism. Biographies of East Germans born around 1970]. Forschungen zur DDR-Gesellschaft (Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 2017), 352 pages.
Reviewed by Kathrin Zöller, Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam in H-Soz-Kult 09/25/2018. https://www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/reb-26047
Reviewed by Bernd Lindner, Zeitgeschichtliches Forum Leipzig, „Jugend in Zeiten politischen Umbruchs Sammelrezension“, in Deutschland Archiv 03/05/2018. https://www.bpb.de/geschichte/zeitgeschichte/deutschlandarchiv/265632/jugend-in-zeiten-politischen-umbruchs
Edited Volumes
Volker Benkert and Michael Mayer (eds.), Terrortimes, Terrorscapes. Temporal, Spatial, and Memory Continuities of War and Genocide in 20th Century Europe, (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2022), 260 manuscript pages, forthcoming (under contract, submitted, and in copyediting).
Volker Benkert (ed.), Unsere Väter, unsere Mütter. Deutsche Generationen seit 1945 [Our Fathers, our Mothers. German Generations since 1945]. (Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag, 2020), 246 pages.
Reviewed by Gertrud Hardtmann, Technische Universität Berlin in Socialnet, 12/23/2020 https://www.socialnet.de/rezensionen/27583.php
Volker Benkert (ed.), Feinde, Freunde, Fremde? Deutsche Perspektiven auf die USA. [Foes, Friends, Strangers. German Perspectives on the United States]. Tutzinger Studien zur Politik (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 2018), 350 pages.
Reviewed by M. Kolkmann, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, in German Politics 27, no. 4 (2018): 610-611, https://doi.org/10.1080/09644008.2018.1528699
Peer Reviewed Journal Articles
Volker Benkert, Kelly Bitler, Jason Bruner, Lauren McArthur Harris, Kevin McHugh, David Pijawka, Sharon Smith, Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Marc Vance, “A Monument to Resilience: One Phoenix Building and the Three Communities It Served, 1955–2021”, Journal of Arizona History, 62 (Summer 2021) 2, p. 249-269. https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/46168
Volker Benkert and Marc Vance, „Rettung, Widerstand und Erneuerung. Die Familie Loewy und die Beth-Hebrew-Synagoge in Phoenix, Arizona“ [Rescue, Resistance and Renewal. The Loewy Family and the Beth Hebrew Synagogue in Phoenix, Arizona], Medaon, Zeitschrift für Jüdisches Leben in Forschung und Bildung, 15 (2021), 28, p. 1-14. https://www.medaon.de/en/artikel/rettung-widerstand-und-erneuerung-die-familie-loewy-und-die-beth-hebrew-synagoge-in-phoenix-arizona/
Stephanie Reid, Taylor M. Kessner, Lauren McArthur Harris, Volker Benkert, Jason Bruner, “Comparative Genocide Pedagogy and Survivor Testimony: Lessons from a Unit on the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide”, The History Teacher, 54, no. 2 (February 2021): 297-335.
Lauren McArthur Harris, Stephanie Reid, Jason Bruner, Volker Benkert, “Investigating Comparative Genocide Teaching in Two High School Classrooms”, Theory & Research in Social Education, 47, no. 4 (July 2019): 497-525. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00933104.2019.1635058
Jason Bruner, Volker Benkert, Lauren McArthur Harris, Marcie Jergel Hutchinson, Anders Erik Lundin, “Developing a Critical Comparative Genocide Method”, World History Connected 14, no. 2 (June 2017).
Lauren McArthur Harris, Marcie Jergel Hutchinson, Volker Benkert, Jason Bruner, Anders Erik Lundin, “Teaching, Learning, and Researching Genocide Comparatively”, World History Connected 14, no. 2. (June 2017).
Volker Benkert, “Jewish Studies in Germany”, Scripta Judaica Cracoviensia 11 (Fall 2013): 69-75.
Volker Benkert, „Kein ‚Untergang‘ der Geschichtskultur, aber auch keine Bereicherung. Über Bernd Eichingers Film der Untergang“ [Bernd Eichinger’s Film Downfall and German Memory Culture], in: Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 56 (August 2005): 414-419.
Book Chapters
Volker Benkert, „Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter – Apologie und Erlösung von der Vergangenheit im Fernsehkrieg“ [Generation War. Apologia and Redemption in German TV Miniseries on WWII], in So war der deutsche Landser. Die populäre und populärwissenschaftliche Darstellung der Wehrmacht, edited by Jens Westemeier (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoeningh Verlag, 2019), 155-167. Second Edition with Bonn: Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung 2021.
Volker Benkert, “Complicity on the Small Screen: Ordinary Germans as Perpetrators in Recent German TV Miniseries on World War II and the Holocaust”, in Complicity and the Politics of Representation, edited by Cornelia Wächter and Robert Wirth (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2019), 43-56.
Volker Benkert, „Von der Breite und Tiefe ostdeutscher Kohortenprägungen. Warum die letzte DDR-Jugend keine Generation wurde“ [East German Age Cohorts. Why the last GDR Youth did not become a Generation], in: Die Generation der Wendekinder, edited by Andrea Lettrari, et al. (Wiesbaden: Springer VS-Verlag, 2016), 37-54.
Volker Benkert, „Performativer Wandel oder Generationelle Differenzierung? Die Letzte DDR-Generation und das Ende des Sozialismus“ [The last GDR Generation and the End of Socialism in East Germany], in Das letzte Jahrzehnt des Staatssozialismus in der DDR und der Sowjetunion, edited by Michael Mayer and Deutsch-Russische Historikerkommission [Joint German Russian Historians‘ Commission] (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag 2015), 355-366.
Volker Benkert, „Genormt, tradiert und kreativ verändert. Ein Kanon von Sozialisationstypen in der DDR am Beispiel der letzten DDR-Generation“, in Работа над прошлым: ХХ век в памяти послевоенных поколений России и Германии [Working on the Past: The 20th Century in Memory and Communication of Post-War Generations in Germany and Russia], edited by Michael Mayer and Oksana Nagornaja (Moscow: Kamennyj pojas 2014), 164-73.
Volker Benkert, „The last GDR Generation? The GDR and the Process of Transformation after 1990 seen through the Eyes of East Germans born between 1967-73”, in: History by Generations. Generational Dynamics in Modern History, edited by Hartmut Berghoff, Bernd Weisbrod, Uffa Jensen, Christina Lubinski with support from the German Historical Institute in Washington (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag 2013), 195-215.
Spring 2022 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
HST 101 | Global History Since 1500 |
LIA 194 | Special Topics |
HST 460 | World War II |
WWS 460 | World War II |
HST 494 | Special Topics |
HST 599 | Thesis |
HST 790 | Reading and Conference |
Fall 2021 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
REL 454 | History of Genocide |
HST 454 | History of Genocide |
HST 460 | World War II |
WWS 460 | World War II |
HST 599 | Thesis |
Spring 2021 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
HST 101 | Global History Since 1500 |
WWS 460 | World War II |
HST 460 | World War II |
HST 599 | Thesis |
Fall 2020 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
HST 454 | History of Genocide |
REL 454 | History of Genocide |
WWS 460 | World War II |
HST 460 | World War II |
HST 499 | Individualized Instruction |
HST 599 | Thesis |
Spring 2020 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
HST 104 | West Civ: French Rev to EU |
HST 355 | Total War and Crisis-Modernity |
HST 599 | Thesis |
HST 790 | Reading and Conference |
Fall 2019 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
HST 101 | Global History Since 1500 |
HST 590 | Reading and Conference |
HST 599 | Thesis |
Spring 2019 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
HST 493 | Honors Thesis |
HST 494 | Special Topics |
HST 499 | Individualized Instruction |
Fall 2018 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
HST 101 | Global History Since 1500 |
HST 492 | Honors Directed Study |
HST 591 | Seminar |
Spring 2018 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
HST 101 | Global History Since 1500 |
SGS 111 | Global History Since 1500 |
HST 499 | Individualized Instruction |
HST 591 | Seminar |
Fall 2017 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
HST 101 | Global History Since 1500 |
SGS 111 | Global History Since 1500 |
HST 429 | Modern Germany |
HST 493 | Honors Thesis |
Invited Talks
Conference Papers
Conferences Organized
Service to the Field
Service at Arizona State University
Teacher Training Workshops Organization
Outreach Activities