Alexander Vazansky

Associate Professor of History; Graduate Chair Profile Image
Associate Professor of History; Graduate Chair History avazansky2@unl.edu 402-472-2414 604 Oldfather Hall
JOINED THE DEPARTMENT

2014

Alexander Vazansky came to the history department at UNL as a lecturer in 2009. In the fall of 2014 he joined the department as assistant professor. Before teaching at UNL he had worked as a lecturer and M.A. coordinator at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies, Heidelberg University.

Alexander's research interests include postwar German-American relations, GIs in Germany, and the 1960s in a transatlantic perspective. His book An Army in Crisis: Social Conflict and the U.S. Army in Germany, 1968-1975 will appear in fall 2019. For his next research project Alexander will look at militarism and anti-militarism in West Germany during the 70s and 80s.

TEACHING

19th and 20th Century Germany
19th and 20th Century Europe
The 1960s in Europe and the United States
History of the Cold War
Western Civilization

GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS
  • College of Arts and Sciences ENHANCE Award, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, April 6, 2017.
  • Albin and Pauline Anderson Faculty Award, awarded by the Department of History, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, April 30, 2015.
  • Jolanta and Soheyl Ghaemian Travel Fund for Scholars, awarded by the Ghaemian Foundation, Heidelberg, December 27, 2007-January 7, 2008.
ARTICLES
  • Co-editor with Marco Abel, “What Was Politics in ‘1968’?” Special issue of The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics and Culture (Routeledge, forthcoming).
  • “Army in Anguish: The United States Army, Europe, in the Early 1970s.” GIs in Germany: The Social, Economic, Military, and Political History of the American Military Presence. Edited by Detlef Junker and Thomas Maulucci. Cambridge University Press (Cambridge University Press, August 2013).
  • Co-author with Stefan L. Brandt, “American Cultural ImagiNation: The New Americanists and the Bush Revolution” American Studies: Shifting Gears Edited by Birte Christ et al. (Heidelberg: Winter Verlag, 2010).
  • “Civil Rights und Black Power in Rheinland-Pfalz.”Amerikaner in Rheinland-Pfalz: Alltagskulturelle Begegnungen. Edited by Werner Kremp (Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2009).
CONFERENCE PAPERS
  • “Resistance inside the Army, GI Activism in Germany, 1968-1971,” invited presentation at the Institute for Social Movements of the Ruhr-University Bochum’s workshop on “The Continuation of Politics with Other Means: Protest in the Vietnam War Era,” April 9–10, 2018, in Bochum, Germany.
  • “‘I'll Bleed for Myself:’ Black Power and Antiwar Activism among GIs in Germany, 1968-1971,” invited presentation at the Georgetown University workshop on "1968--The Global and the Local," March 23-24, 2018, in Washington, D.C.
  • “Gewissensentscheidung oder Drückeberger: Public Debates around Conscientious Objection in 1970s West Germany,” presented at German Studies Association 41st Annual Conference, October 5-8, 2017, in Atlanta, GA.
EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

Ph.D., History, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität, Heidelberg, 2009.
M.A., Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, 1999.

EXPERTISE

Postwar Germany and Europe;
Transatlantic Relations;
GIs in Germany;
Civilian Military Relations