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Professor emerita

Telephone : +44 020 8392 3243
Email : C.Usborne@roehampton.ac.uk
Department : Humanities
Office location : Howard 203

Send a message to Professor Cornelie Usborne

Qualifications

PhD (Open), BA (Open)

About

I grew up in Munich, Germany and studied German and English literature at Munich University and subsequently trained at the literary publisher, Carl Hanser. After settling in London and working in publishing I decided to go back to university, reading History at the Open University, where I also completed my Ph.D. in Modern German Social History. 
My research interests have been in the field of social and cultural history of Weimar Germany, especially the history of the reproductive body, abortion and sexuality. 
My new research interest is on `Imagined Pleasure, Ambivalent Practice. A cultural history of women’s sexuality in Weimar and Nazi Germany', concentrating on women's own narratives of their own sexual experiences.

Research Interests

Research Supervision

I am happy to supervise research on social, cultural and medical history in twentieth-century Germany, especially on the history of women, of medicine, reproduction, the body and sexuality; also on popular culture, including film, literature and theatre.

Research Project Undertaken

`Imagined Pleasure, Ambivalent Practice. A cultural history of women’s sexuality in Weimar and Nazi Germany', concentrating on women's own narratives of their own sexual experiences.


Conference Organisation

2010 Co-organiser, cross-disciplinary conference, From Space to Place, the Spatial Dimension in History of Western Europe , at the German Historical Institute, London, for Centre for Research in History & Theory, Roehampton University 

2008 Co-organiser, cross-disciplinary conference, The Pictorial Turn in History, Centre for Research in History & Theory, Roehampton University 

2007 Co-organiser, intern. workshop on Time and History, Centre for Research in History & Theory, Roehampton University 

1999 Co-organiser, intern. conf., The Meaning of Medicine: Cultural approaches to the historical study of medicine in Early Modern and Modern Europe, jointly sponsored by the Society for the Social History of Medicine, London and the Huizinga Institute, Amsterdam, Amsterdam 10 - 12 September. (With additional funding from the Wellcome Trust, London and the Historical Association London and the German Academic Exchange Service). 

1996 Co-organiser of an intern. symposium on The History of Alternative Medicine in Modern Europe, The Wellcome Institute, London (Travel grants for speakers of the Wellcome symposium, The Wellcome Trust, London and DAAD). 

1995 Co-organiser of international conference on Gender & Crime in Europe, Early Modern and Modern, Roehampton Institute London (Three travel grants for German speakers by DAAD).


Travel Grant

2009-11British Academy small grant 
2001 British Academy small grant 
2001 Scouloudie Froundation 
2001 The Wellcome Trust 
1996 The Wellcome Trust 
1994 The Wellcome Trust 
1993 German Academic Exchange Service 
1981, 1982 The Open University

Membership of Professional Bodies

2005 - AHRB Research Leave Fellowship 
2002 - Leverhulme Research Fellowship 
2001 - AHRB Research Leave Fellowship 
1994 - Wellcome Research Leave Fellowship

Publications

(2008) `Body Biological to Body Politic: Women's Demands for Reproductive Self-Determination in World War I and Early Weimar Germany', Geoff Eley, Jan Palmowski (eds), Citizenship and National Identity in Twentieth-Century Germany (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press) , 129-145.(2007) 
(2007) Cultures of Abortion in Weimar Germany , London/New York: Berghahn Books, 284 pp.
(2004) `Geburtenkontrolle in der Weimarer Republik und Magnus Hirschfelds widersprüchliche Interessen', Elke-Vera Kostowski, Julius Schoeps (eds) Magnus Hirschfeld. Ein Leben im Spannungsfeld von Wissenschaft, Politik und Gesellschaft (Berlin: be.bra wissenschafts verlag) , 95-115.
co-edited with Willem de Blécourt (2004) `Medicine, Meditation and Meaning', Cultural Approaches to the History of Medicine. Mediating Medicine in Early Modern and Modern Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan) , 1-11.
co-edited with Willem de Blécourt (2004) Cultural Approaches to the History of Medicine. Mediating Medicine in Early Modern and Modern Europe , Palgrave/Macmillan, London/New York, 241.
(2003) `Representation of Abortion in Popular Culture in Weimar Germany', Paul Pasteur, Sonja Niederacher, Maria Mesmer (eds), Sexualität, Unterschichtenmilieus und ArbeiterInnenbewegung (Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsanstalt), 81-92.
(2001) `Women Doctors and Gender Identity in Weimar Germany, 1918-1933', Anne Hardy and Lawerence Conrad (eds) Women and Modern Medicine (Amsterdam: Rodopi), 109-127.
co-edited with Margaret L. Arnot (1999) Gender & Crime in Modern Europe, London: UCL Press.
(1992) Politics of the Body in Weimar Germany. Women's Reproductive Rights and Duties , (London: Macmillan; Michigan, USA: University of Michigan Press), 304pp.
with Charlotte Behr and Sabine Wieber (2010) `Picturing the Past'. Special issue, Cultural & Social History , 7, issue 4, 423-529.
with Charlotte Behr and Sabine Wieber (2010) Introduction. `The Challenge of the Image' , Cultural & Social History , Special Issue: Picturing the Past, 7, issue 4, 425-434.
(2009) `Nieder mit Paragraph 218! Die Kontrolle über Frauenkörper und Volkskörper in der Weimarer Republik', Spirale der Zeit , 5, 33-38.
(2006) `Rebellious Girls and Pitiable Women: Abortion Narratives in Weimar Popular Culture', Germany History , 23, no 3, 321-339.
(2001) `Heilanspruch und medizinische Kunstfehler. Abtreibungen durch Ärzte in der Weimarer Republik: offizielle Beurteilung und weibliche Erfahrung', Medizin, Gesellschaft und Geschichte, 19, 95-121.
Willem de Blécourt, Cornelie Usborne (eds) (1999) History of Alternative Medicine since 1800 , special issue of Medical History, vol 43, no 3 , 392.
(1994) Frauenkörper - Volkskörper. Geburtenkontrolle und Bevölkerungspolitik in der Weimarer Republik , (Münster: Verlag Westfälisches Dampfboot), 300.
(2002) `"Gestocktes Blut" oder "verfallen"? Widersprüchliche Redeweisen über unerwünschte Schwangerschaften und deren Abbruch zur Zeit der Weimarer Republik", Barbara Duden, Jürgen Schlumbohm, Patrice Veit (eds) Geschichte des Ungeborenen. Zur Erfahrungs- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Schwangerschaft, 17. - 20. Jahrhundert, Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte 170, Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Rupprecht, 293-326.
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