MA and PhD in Modern European History, specialization twentieth-century Germany
Department of History
University of Chicago, USA
BA in History (Honours)
Department of History
University of British Columbia, Canada
Areas of Research
- Editor, Journal of the History of Sexuality
Dr. Timm is the sole editor and book review editor of the premier journal in the field of the history of sexuality. The JHS is published by the University of Texas Press. - History of German Population Policy
A 2010 book (_The Politics of Fertility in Twentieth-Century Berlin_) with Cambridge University Press, explores efforts to increase the birth rate for nationalistic purposes through eugenic marriage counselling and efforts to control venereal disease from WWI to the fall of communism. - History of Gender in Europe
Dr. Timm also jointly authored the book _Gender, Sex and the Shaping of Modern Europe: A History from the French Revolution to the Present Day_ with Joshua Sanborn (recently published in a second edition). The book presents a comparative view of the role of gender and sexuality in modern history through the lens of key ruptures in the political, cultural, social, military, and colonial history of Europe. - History of Nazi Racial Policy
A current book project (_Lebensborn: Myth, Memory and the Sexualization of the Nazi Past_) will explore the history of a program initiated by Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, to provide maternity homes for women considered racially valuable by the regime. The book will explore the history of the homes, which were spread across Nazi-occupied Europe, along with the myths that circulated about them in the post-WWII period, including fictionalized and sensationalized accounts in popular culture. - History of Sexology and Transsexuality
Together with German and American colleagues, Dr. Timm is engaged in an ongoing collaborative research and curation project that explores the resonance of German sexology in public discourses about sex, sexuality, and treatment options for trans individuals in Europe and North America. This collaboration produced two exhibitions: PopSex!, at the Alberta College of Art + Design in 2011; and TransTrans, at the Nickle Galleries, University of Calgary in 2016. TransTrans will be restaged in a new form at the Schwules Museum (Gay Museum) in Berlin in fall 2018 in conjunction with celebrations of the hundredth anniversary of the founding of Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science. The curators will publish a jointly authored book to accompany the exhibition, which will explore exchanges between doctors and trans individuals in Germany, the United States, and the Netherlands. Our curatorial focus is the exploration of methods to communicate historical knowledge to the public through collaboration with museums and artists. - History of the Holocaust
Dr. Timm is the editor of _Ka-Tzetnik: Reading the First Holocaust Novelist in Israel and Beyond_ (Bloomsbury, 2017). In January 2017, she co-taught the Jack and Anita Hess Faculty Seminar at the Mandel Center of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., which brought together junior faculty members from across the continent to discuss methods of teaching the Holocaust. The seminar focused on gender and sexual violence in the killing fields and concentration camps, a subject that will occupy a another strand of research interest in the coming years. I am particularly interested in questions about the use of survivor testimony in scholarly research and teaching. - Comparative History of WWII Psychological Warfare
A new project, just in development, will explore how the various WWII belligerents attempted to influence both domestic public opinion and the actions of enemy soldiers through the dissemination of leaflets, pamphlets, film, and radio transmissions. I will compare both direct (factual) information campaigns and surreptitious (often known as black propaganda) efforts to encourage enemy desertion by spreading targeted misinformation. Although the outlines of the project are still to be determined, it will likely concentrate on the following countries: Germany, the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Italy, Norway and the Netherlands.
Contact
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Though my own research interests currently centre on the history of sexuality, I am a broadly trained historian of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe, with a focus on Germany. I advise M.A. and Ph.D. students working on a wide variety of subjects, including political, social, and cultural history, and the socio-cultural history of both medicine/health and war/violence. I am appreciative of interdisciplinary and theoretically informed approaches to historical research and writing. I welcome applications from students who have a functional knowledge of German, which generally requires a combination of university language courses (or their equivalent) and some time spent in a German-speaking country or environment.
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