Global Humanities Senior Research and Teaching Stay at Harvard University

September/October 2016

Jessica Gienow-Hecht’s research focuses on the role of culture in international history. Based on archival research performed in the United States, Europe and Latin America, her next project seeks to understand the link between humanitarianism, interventionism, gender and self-representation in U.S. foreign relations since the Spanish-American War. To this end, Gienow-Hecht has just published two essays exploring the potential of “Nation Branding” as a tool to explain national self-representation in a globalizing world since the early modern period. Simultaneously, she is working on an essay linking gender and humanitarianism in the United States in the 1890s. During her stay at Harvard University, she will perform archival work on the region focusing on consular records, diaries, cartoons and eyewitness accounts.

Jessica C. E. Gienow-Hecht is a historian for international and American history and Chair of the Department of History at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. She has previously taught at the universities of Virginia, Bielefeld, Halle-Wittenberg, Harvard, Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Cologne and at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. Her first book, Transmission Impossible: American Journalism as Cultural Diplomacy in Postwar Germany, 1945-1955 (Louisiana State University Press, 1999), was co-awarded the Stuart Bernath Prize and the Myrna Bernath Prize. Her second book, Sound Diplomacy: Music and Emotions in Transatlantic Relations, 1850-1920 (University of Chicago Press, 2009, 2012) has won the Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award and is currently being translated into Chinese.