Jonas Wernz
Department of History
Modern History
Albertus-Magnus-Platz
D-50923 Cologne
Philosophikum, 3rd floor, Room 3.107
E-Mail: jonas.wernz(at)uni-koeln.de
Research Areas
- European History of the “Sattelzeit” (1750-1850) and of the “long” 19th Century (1789-1914)
- History of International Relations
- Postwar Politics and Transitions
- Nationalism
- Historical Times and Futures
Abstract
The project examines how German contemporaries imagined, designed and debated postwar after the Napoleonic Wars. Postwar is viewed as a space of conflicting imagination in which concepts of reorganization, agency and political issues are inscribed. Questioning the caesura of the Congress of Vienna in favor of a long-term perspective, the project accentuates the processual and public negotiation of postwar reorganization between 1813 and 1819 and draws on a large number of pamphlets and journal articles by bourgeois actors that have so far only been studied peripherally or selectively. On the one hand, the project explores the discursive and communicative strategies with which contemporaries opened up postwar and sought to legitimize their participation in the politics of reorganization. On the other hand, it reveals the diversity of postwar concepts that circulated between 1813 and 1819 and sheds light on the simultaneously fractured and symbiotic relation between liberal, national, federal and cosmopolitan blueprints. Overall, the work will thus contribute to a more profound understanding of change and continuity in the “long” transition from war to peace after 1815 and offer an innovative approach to historical postwar periods.CV
| since 09/2020 | Research Assistant (Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter), Chair of Modern History (Prof Dr. Ute Planert), University of Cologne | |
| since 05/2020 | Phd Candidate in Modern History (Collegiate at the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for Humanities Cologne) | |
| 04/2020-07/2020 | Teaching Assistant (Lehrbeauftragter) at the Department of History, University of Cologne | |
| 2019 | M.Ed., University of Cologne. Master Thesis: „On the Threshold of a New Time": Postwar, Temporal Discourses and the Reordering of "Future" during the Congress of Vienna 1814-1815 (awarded with the Faculty Prize of the Philosophical Faculty) | |
| 2019-2020 | Tutor for the Introductory Lecture in Modern History | |
| 2018-2020 | Student Research Assistant (Wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft), Chair of Modern History (Prof. Dr. Ute Planert), University of Cologne | |
| 2013-2019 | Study of History, English and Educational Sciences at the University of Cologne and the School of History at the University College Cork, Ireland |
Talks (Selection)
Which Peace for Whom? Reassessing Historical Postwar | Research Colloquium “Political Practices in the 19th Century”, organized by Prof. Dr. Ute Planert (October 29, 2024): University of Cologne.
Opening Postwar: Political Agency and the Public Sphere in Germany 1813-1818 | Conference New Postwar Orders: Transforming Europe and the World after War and Revolution (1815-1840) (April 24-26, 2024): University of Cologne.
Preventing Defeat after Victory: European Peace due to Federal Nationalism in Germany, 1814-1815 | Nationalism, War and Defeat. Interdisciplinary Conference on Nationalism (May 25-26, 2023): University of Copenhagen.
"A Vivid Idea of the Times": Open Futures, Politics and Re-Organisation 1814-15 | Research Colloquium on Modern History and Contemporary History, organized by Prof. Dr. Patrick Wagner/Prof. Dr. Theo Jung (April 13, 2023): Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg.
'Periodization in the Making': Time and the Figure of "Turning Point" in German Print Media 1814/1815 | Conference Periodization and Time in History: Perspectives from Germany, Europe and the Middle East (March 29-30, 2023): University of Cambridge.
Archetype of "Europe"? German Nationalism, Print Media, and the Quest for European Postwar Order 1813-1815 | Conference Changing Concepts of "Europe" since the 18th Century: Between the National, the Transnational, and the Global (March 2-4, 2023): Aarhus University.
Kairological Paradigm: Temporal Hybridity and Politics in the German Public Sphere 1814/1815 | Cambridge German History Research Group, DAAD Cambridge Research Hub for German Studies (November 17, 2022): University of Cambridge.
Temporal Hybridity: A Liminal Approach Towards Periods of Transition and Social Change | 2022 Cambridge AHRC International Conference, Open-Oxford-Cambridge Doctoral Training Partnership (September 20-21, 2022): University of Cambridge.
Open Futures. Concepts of political (Re-)Organisation between Napoleonic Empire and the Concert of the European Powers 1813-1822 | Research Colloquium on Modern History, organized by Prof. Dr. Ulrike Lindner (May 17, 2022): University of Cologne.
Open Futures. Concepts of political (Re-)Organisation between Napoleonic Empire and the Concert of the European Powers 1813-1822 | Doctoral Colloquium on History of the 19th Century (May 12-13, 2022): Cologne.
Teaching
Winter term 2024/25 | Proseminar: The German Kaiserreich as Empire (1884-1918)
Winter term 2024/25 | Theory Course: What is a historical event?
Winter term 2023/24 | Proseminar: Constellations, Dynamics, In-Betweenness: Colonial History of the Kaiserreich
Winter term 2022/23 | Proseminar: Revolutionary Orders? Nationalism, Liberalism and the European State System 1848/49 (together with Elias Mahiout)
Summer term 2022 | Proseminar: „Ja dürfen s’ denn des?“ – The German States in the Kaleidoscope of Revolutions 1848/49 (together with Elias Mahiout)
Winter term 2021/22 | Proseminar: 1871 – Europe and the Founding of the Kaiserreich (together with Elias Mahiout)
Summer term 2021 | Proseminar: War and Nation: The German "Wars of Unification" 1864-1871 in European Perspective (together with Elias Mahiout)
Winter term 2020/21 | Proseminar: Europe or the World? Great Power Conflicts 1740-1763 (together with Elias Mahiout)
Summer term 2020 | Proseminar: The Seven Years' War (1756-1763): Global Crises and European Conflicts at the Onset of the Modern Era (together with Elias Mahiout)
Publications
Review: Bogusław Dybaś (ed.), Die polnische Frage und der Wiener Kongress, 1814-1815, Wien 2021, In: The English Historical Review, Vol. 139, Issue 598-599 (2024), 935-937.
Review: Alexandra Paulin-Booth, Time and Radical Politics in France. From the Dreyfus Affair to the First World War, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2023, In: H-Soz-Kult, 03.05.2024.
Conference Review Neuere Forschungen zur Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts, May 12/13 2022, In: H-Soz-Kult, 22.09.2022. (Together with Elias Mahiout)