I am an historian of contemporary Germany with expertise in transnational histories of sexuality, social memory, and visual culture. I also work on the history of populism and authoritarianism, especially as it evolves in social media and memory. I have written books and articles on sexual subcultures in the aftermath of WWII, co-edited two books on same-sex sexuality, and another on the history of documentary photography. I’m particularly interested in how history is conceptualized and written, including how categories are imagined and put to use in our analysis of past people, sentiments, and events. I’m currently finishing a monograph on social media and vernacular Holocaust memory, while overseeing a multi-year, SSHRC supported project on Photography and the Sexual Revolution. A new project, Hate 3.0, explores the role and function of historical misremembering in populist and far-right discourses in social media.
Alongside my academic writing, I undertake collaborative digital projects. Recent examples include the New Fascism Syllabus (www.NewFascismSyllabus.com) and the German Studies Collaboratory (www.GermanStudiesCollaboratory.org).