Ute Frevert

Director Emerita
 

Doing the History of Emotions in Berlin
Writing the History of Emotions in Berlin and Elsewhere
Constitutional Sentiments: The Germans and Their Fundamental Laws
Media Outreach
Research Team 2023–06/2024
Research Team 07/2024–2026

Doing the History of Emotions in Berlin

When the Center for the History of Emotions (HoE) closed its doors on 30 June 2024, the group led by Ute Frevert could look back on a prolific sixteen-year journey through previously mostly uncharted waters. In 2008/2009, seven researchers outlined possible research questions and projects in a special issue of Geschichte & Gesellschaft, one of Germany's most renowned historical journals. While historians and researchers from other disciplines doubted the potential of the emerging field, this first programmatic sketch of what historical research into emotions might look like was widely acknowledged. Not surprisingly, by 2024 the field and its methods had broadened, albeit to an extent altogether unforeseeable in 2008. This was demonstrated in a final collaborative publication that cast an eye back on the work done during the Center's life and outlined the horizons that emerged in that time. In Revisiting the History of Emotions, edited by Ute Frevert and Kerstin Maria Pahl, twelve scholars—of history, cultural anthropology, sociology, and literary studies—engaged with the field's current directions and challenges, showcasing the multi-disciplinarity of methodologies and theories undergirding the history of emotions today. Each co-written article used a different case study to explore the same premise: that feelings are culturally and historically specific, and that they are social, existing not only in the body and mind of the individual, but in relation to and in interaction with the social and material world.

Key Reference

Writing the History of Emotions in Berlin and Elsewhere

More striking proof that the history of emotions has been successfully established as a discipline of historical science comes from the 2024 monograph Writing the History of Emotions, part of Bloomsbury's Writing History series, which explains key approaches that have contributed to effective historiography. Eschewing a traditional chronological approach, the book presents a collection of articles spanning the 18th to the 21st century, which examine how emotions were defined and valued, put into practice, contested or forgotten, reframed, and given new meaning. Ute Frevert shows how emotions like love, trust, honor, pride, shame, empathy, and greed prompted historical change and were themselves dependent on social, political, and economic developments, as well as subject to gendered and class-based notions of feeling. Emotions have been used historically both to propel and suspend democratic politics, and have also played a role in the development of capitalism and the homo oeconomicus. Bearing witness to the rich harvest of over 25 years of scholarship, the book sheds light on how emotions have been instrumentalized and manipulated in politics as well as in economic and social life, and opens new avenues for future generations of researchers.

Key References

Constitutional Sentiments: The Germans and Their Fundamental Laws

2024 marked a major anniversary in German history and offered another chance for the history of emotions to prove its worth. 75 years after its adoption, Germany's Basic Law of 1949 stood as an institution more popular than ever. Widely lauded as a major asset and enabler of West Germany's democratic development following the Second World War, it appears at first glance a cherished and uncontested document. But how does it fare when viewed through the lens of the history of emotions? Post-1949, West Germans in fact took some time to warm up to their Grundgesetz; they did so, above all, through a process of political contestation. The citizens of East Germany, meanwhile, displayed the requisite optimism for their own constitution twice reformed; they had little choice—criticism and discontent were immediately repressed. The reunified country disappointed many citizens by denying them the opportunity to draft and vote on a new common constitution conceived by Easterners and Westerners together. Still to this very day, constitutional sentiments in the former GDR are less intense and positive than in the former West.

Constitutions inspire emotions, and they did so especially in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the pre-1848 period as much as in the Weimar Republic, citizens breathed life into a piece of paper by either welcoming and embracing it with much fanfare—or by rejecting it with hatred and contempt, as communists and national socialists did during the 1920s and early 1930s. The Nazis, though keen on emotionalizing public life, left the constitution dormant. Allegiance to Führer and Volk were far more important. With this in mind, the absence of constitutional enthusiasm and "constitutional patriotism" in the early post-war decades was less than surprising. All the more in need of explanation is why the Basic Law gradually found favor and eventually became, together with the Federal Constitutional Court, one of Germany's best-loved political institutions. Ute Frevert's monograph Verfassungsgefühle. Die Deutschen und ihre Staatsgrundgesetze (Constitutional Sentiments. The Germans and Their Fundamental Laws) examines why this happened, against the backdrop of a far longer history of constitutional sentiments dating back to the early nineteenth century.

Key Reference

Media Outreach

This book on constitutional sentiments was published on the occasion of the anniversary of Germany's Basic Law, but it may be even more timely as a socio-political intervention for its open address of current pressing issues such as threats to liberal democracy. Accordingly, it has not only elicited reactions from a specialist audience of historians, but also considerable media attention and requests to speak at broader public events. As president of the Max Weber Foundation and a leading scholar of modern history, Ute Frevert has continued to actively contribute to these and other contemporary political and societal discourses after her retirement, in numerous newspaper articles, media appearances, lectures, and panel discussions, both nationally and internationally.

Research Team 2023–06/2024

Last update: September 2026 

Researchers 

Helen Ahner (until 06/2024), Michael Amico (until 11/2023), Agnes Arndt (until 08/2023), Rukmini Barua (as of 07/2023: York University, Toronto, Canada), Stephen Cummins (as of 07/2024: I Tatti - The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence, Italy), Ute Frevert, Max Jack (until 06/2024), Stephanie Lämmert, Karsten Lichau (until 06/2024), Soňa Mikulová (until 06/2024), Alexandra Oberländer (as of 05/2024: Freie Universität Berlin, Germany), Kerstin Maria Pahl, Margrit Pernau, Esra Sarioğlu (as of 01/2024: University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA), Frederik Schröer (until 06/2024), Maik Tändler (as of 07/2024: Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History, Munich, Germany), Nagehan Tokdoğan (until 06/2024), Mika Toyota, Julia Wambach

Postdoctoral Fellows 

Olga Reznikova (as of 10/2023: Universität Innsbruck, Austria)

Associate Researchers 

Agnes Arndt (TUD Dresden University of Technology, Germany), Rukmini Barua (York University, Toronto, Canada), Juliane Brauer (University of Wuppertal, Germany), Francesco Buscemi (University of Groningen, Netherlands), Parand Danesh (L'école des hautes études en science social, Paris, France), Benno Gammerl (European University Institute, San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy), Bettina Hitzer (Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany), Anja Laukötter (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany), Caroline Moine (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France), Shabnam Mousavi (Volkswagen Foundation, Hannover, Germany), Philipp Nielsen (Sarah Lawrence College, New York, USA; University of Groningen, Netherlands), Sandra Schnädelbach (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany)

Visiting Researchers 

Umberto Cecchinato (Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy), Parand Danesh (L'école des hautes études en science social, Paris, France), Reetta Eiranen (Tampere University, Finland), Anastasia Fairchild (SciencesPo, Paris, France), Laure Guilbert (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, France), Leon Hughes (Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Ireland), Ilkay Kanik (Istanbul Beykent University, Turkey), Nancy Khalek (Brown University, Providence, USA), Till Knobloch (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA), Aziliz Kondracki (Centre Norbert Elias, Paris, France), Tsiona Lida (Harvard University, Cambridge, USA), Laura Otis (Emory University, Atlanta, USA), Olga Reznikova (University of Zurich, Switzerland), Javier Sadarangani Leiva (University of Hamburg, Germany), Kyoung-Suk Sung (Kyungpook National University, Daegu, South Korea), Natalia Woszczyk (European University Institute, San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy), Hannah Yoken (University of Jyväskylä, Finland), Michal Zechariah (The University of Chicago, USA)

Research Team 07/2024–2026

Last update: September 2026 

Researchers

Ute Frevert, Stephanie Lämmert (as of 10/2024: MIASA, Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa, Accra, Ghana), Kerstin Maria Pahl, Margrit Pernau, Julia Wambach (as of 10/2024: Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam, Germany)

Visiting Researcher

Stephanie Lämmert (MIASA, Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa, Accra, Ghana)