Professor Cornelie Usborne

 

Job Title: Professor of History Qualifications: PhD (Open), BA (Open) Email Address: C.Usborne@roehampton.ac.uk

I grew up in Munich, Germany. I 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 two-fold: 1. The history of sexuality as a lived experience in Weimar and Nazi Germany;
2. Women in Nazi Germany: the debate about their role, agency and complicity.

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.

Fellowships:

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

Travel 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

Conference Organisation

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).

Publications

(2008) Women under Nazism: agents and victims, London: Routledge.

(2007) `Body biological to body politic: women’s demands for reproductive self-determination in the First World War and early Weimar Germany’, in Geoff Eley and Jan Palmowski (eds), Citizenship and National Identity in Twentieth-Century Germany , Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 129-145.

(2007) Cultures of Abortion in Weimar Germany, Oxford & New York: Berghahn Books.

(2005) Rebellious girls and pitiable women: abortion narratives in Weimar popular culture, German History, the journal of the German History Society, London: Arnold, vol. 23, no.3, 321-338.

(2004) `Geburtenkontrolle in der Weimarer Republik und Magnus Hirschfelds widerspruechliche Interessen' in Elke-Vera Kostowski, Julius Schoepps eds, Magnus Hirschfeld. Ein Leben im Spannungsfeld von Wissenschaft, Politik und Gesellschaft, Berlin: Bebra Wissenschaft, 95-115.

with Willem de Blécourt (2004) `Medicine, Mediation and Meaning', in W. de Blécourt and C. Usborne (eds), Cultural Approaches to the History of Medicine. Mediating Medicine in Early Modern and Modern Europe, London: Palgrave, 1-11.

(2004) Cultural Approaches to the History of Medicine. Mediating Medicine in Early Modern and Modern Europe, London: Palgrave, 241pp.

(2003) 'Respresentation of Abortion in Popular Culture in Weimar Germany', in Paul Pasteur, Sonja Niederacher, Maria Mesmer eds. Sexualität, Unterschichtenmilieus und ArbeiterInnenbewegung', Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsanstalt, 81-92.

(2002) 'Gestocktes Blut' oder 'verfallen'? Widersprüchliche Redeweisen ueber unerwünschte Schwangerschaften und deren Abbruch zur Zeit der Weimarer Republik', in B. Duden, J. Schlumbohm, P. Veit (eds), Geschichte des Ungeborenen. Zur Erfahrungs- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Schwangerschaft. 17. - 19. Jahrhundert. Veröffentlichungen des Max Planck- Instituts fuer Geschichte, Goettingen: Vandehoeck & Rupprecht, 170, 293-326.

(2001) 'Heilanspruch und medizinische Kunstfehler. Abtreibung durch Ärzte in der Weimarer Republik': offizielle Beurteilung und weibliche Erfahrung, Medizin, Gesellschaft und Geschichte, special issue, ed. Reinhard Spree, 19, 95-121.

(2001) 'Women Doctors and Gender Identity in Weimar Germany, 1918-1933', in A. Hardy, L. Conrad (eds) Women and Modern Medicine, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 109-126.

(2000) 'Women's voices in male court rooms. Abortion trials in Weimar Germany', in J. Woodward ed. Coping with Sickness: Medicine, Law and Human Right (Sheffield: European Association for the History of Medicine Association), 91-107.

(1999) Gender & Crime in Modern Europe, (London: UCL Press).

(1999) 'History of Alternative Medicine since 1800', special issue of Medical History, July issue.

(1994) Frauenkoerper - Volkskoerper. Geburtenkontrolle und Bevoelkerungspolitik in der Weimarer Republik, Muenster: Westfaelisches Dampfboot, 300pp.

(1992) Politics of the Body in Weimar Germany: Women's Reproductive Rights and Duties, (Macmillan, London; University of Michigan Press, USA), 304pp..

Membership of professional bodies

1992- :Co-organiser of the Modern German History Seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London.

1994- : Co-organiser of the Women's History Seminar at the Institute of Historical Research

1994-1998: Member of the Executive Committee of the Society for the Social History of Medicine, overseas officer.

1986- : Founding member and continuing member of the editorial board of German History, the journal of the German History Society.

1982- : Member of the German History Society

1985-8: and
1991-4: Committee member of the German History Society.

1985: Member of the Society for the Social History of Medicine

1982-9 Member of London Feminist History Group (until its demise).

Qualification Details

1981: First class honours degree by the Open University;
1989: Ph. D. thesis in History (Open).

Research Expertise

History of Modern Germany; feminist and gender history; cultural history, especially of Weimar cinema; social history of medicine; history of the body and of sexuality.

Teaching Expertise

The First World War and Social Change; Modern German History; Art & Society in Weimar Germany; early German film; Women & Gender in Modern Europe; History from Below.

Examining Experience

Jun 2001: External examiner of Ph.D., Film Studies (for Dr E Cowie, supervisor), University of Kent.
(Janet McCabe, "Addicted to Distractions: Spatial Topographies, Ima-gined Female Spec-tator-Participants and Feminine Bodies in Early German Popular cinema, 1910-1919).

Jun 1997: Exterminal examiner of Ph.D., History, University College London (supervisor Prof. Roy Porter), internal examiner Dr Daniel Pick (Katharina Rowold, `The Academic Woman, Minds, Bodies, and Education in Britain & Germany, 1860-c.1914').

Sep 1993: External examiner of extended MA thesis, History, University of East Anglia/University of Hamburg (on the Fichte Society in Germany), co-examiner WG Sebald.

Consultancy Expertise

Epert on Modern German social, cultural and feminist History; social history of medicine in modern Europe; history of early German film; history of the body, reproduction and sexuality.

Consultancies Undertaken

Oct 2005: Referee for the ESCR, for a three-year research grant.

Oct 2002: Referee for The Wellcome Trust, History of Medicine Programme, for a five-year research project.

May 2000: Rapporteur for the End of Award Report of a three-year research project on oral history in England, Economic & Social Research Council

1997-2000: External examiner for the History Programme, University of Portsmouth

Jun 1999: External Assessor for the Subject review of History, Middlesex University.

May 1999: External referee for the promotion to Associate Professor of History with tenure, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

Apr 1998: Referee for a prize essay awarded by the Society for the Social History of Medicine

Sep 1998: External referee for the award of a Humboldt Scholarship to a Danish scholar.

Mar 1997: External referee for a three-year research project in the Social History of Medicine, The Wellcome Trust

Apr 1995: External referee for a one-year research grant in the Social History of Medicine, The Wellcome Trust

Jan 1995: External referee for a one-year research grant in the Social History of Medicine, Wellcome Trust

Regular referee for articles submitted to the journals: German History, Gender & History, Medical History, Social History of Medicine, Medizin, Gesellschaft und Geschichte.

I have also refereed typescripts of monographs in European and German History and Sociology for the following publishers: Routledge, Berg, Berghahn, Longman, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press.

I was also acting as a referee for eight young post-doctoral scholars who were seeking a permanent position in a university in the UK and the USA.

Undergraduate courses taught at Roehampton:

History
Film Studies

Postgraduate courses taught at Roehampton:

Historical Research