Prof Jan Rueger

Overview

Biography

Jan Rueger joined Birkbeck in 2003 after a post-doctoral fellowship at Yale. He was head of department from 2017 to 2020. Since 2021 he has been co-editor of The English Historical Review.

Research

Research overview

My research focuses on modern Britain and Germany in Europe and the world. Heligoland: Britain, Germany and the Struggle for the North Sea, my most recent book, is a microhistory of the Anglo-German relationship as it unfolded from the Napoleonic Wars to the Cold War. It takes a small island in the North Sea as a prism through which to view rivalry, conflict and reconciliation between the two nations. The project has made me engage more with the intersections of national, imperial, European and world histories, on which I reflect in a number of recent and forthcoming publications.

Research clusters and groups

Global history and internationalism
Conflict and violence
Mobility and migration
Difference, race and inequality

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

Supervisions within Birkbeck:: 4

Current and completed PhD theses:
- Learned societies and the ancient national past in Britain, France and Germany, 1830-1890
- The evolution of British official attitudes towards civil war, 1900-1925
- Heroism and exploration in Victorian Britain
- Elections and political culture in Mecklenburg, 1848-1918
- Stereoscopic viewing and visual culture in Imperial Germany and the Weimar Republic
- Royal yachts, maritime tours and constructions of monarchy, empire and decolonization, c. 1875-1997

Current doctoral researchers

ELLIS HUDDART

Nature of supervision:
Principal Supervisor, Oct 2020 onwards
PAUL O'DONNELL

Nature of supervision:
Principal Supervisor, Oct 2023 onwards

Title of thesis:
The left and the Navy in Britain, 1906-1940

Doctoral alumni since 2013-14

JOHN SIBLON

Nature of supervision:
Principal Supervisor, Oct 2023

Title of thesis:
War memory and the construction of hierarchy: representations of African and Caribbean colonial service personnel in the aftermath of the First World War

Awarded:
2024
JACK WATLING

Nature of supervision:
Principal Supervisor, Oct 2015

Awarded:
2018

Publications

Article

Rueger, Jan (2014) Sovereignty and Empire in the North Sea, 1807-1918. The American Historical Review 119 (2), pp. 313-338. ISSN 0002-8762.
Rueger, Jan (2013) Britain, empire, Europe: re-reading Eric Hobsbawm. Journal of Modern European History 11 (4), pp. 417-423. ISSN 1611-8944.
Rueger, Jan (2011) Revisiting the Anglo-German antagonism. Journal of Modern History 83 (3), pp. 579-617. ISSN 0022-2801.
Rueger, Jan (2011) S'amuser en guerre. Histoire Urbaine 31 (2), pp. 115-128. ISSN 1628-0482.
Rueger, Jan (2010) OXO: or, the challenges of transnational history. European History Quarterly 40 (4), pp. 656-668. ISSN 0265-6914.
Rueger, Jan (2009) Laughter and war in Berlin. History Workshop Journal 67 (1), pp. 1-22. ISSN 1363-3554.
Rueger, Jan (2004) Nation, empire and navy: identity politics in the United Kingdom 1887-1914. Past & Present 185 (1), pp. 159-187. ISSN 0031-2746.
Rueger, Jan (2004) Nation, empire and navy: identity politics in the United Kingdom, 1887-1914. Past & Present 185 (1), ISSN 0031-2746.

Book

Arnold, J. and Hilton, M. and Rueger, Jan, eds. (2017) History after Hobsbawm: writing the past for the Twenty-First Century. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198768784.
Rueger, Jan (2017) Heligoland: Britain, Germany, and the struggle for the North Sea. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199672462.
Rueger, Jan and Wachsmann, Nikolaus, eds. (2015) Rewriting German history: new perspectives on modern Germany. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781137347787.
Blyth, R. and Rueger, Jan and Lambert, A., eds. (2011) The Dreadnought and the Edwardian age. pp. 9-18. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. ISBN 9780754663157.
Rueger, Jan (2007) The great naval game: Britain and Germany in the age of empire. Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare. 26, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521875769.

Book Section

Rueger, Jan (2018) Britain and the sea: new histories. In: Davey, J. and Colville, Q. (eds.) A New Naval History. Cultural History of Modern War. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. ISBN 9781526113801.
Trentmann, Frank (2017) Material histories of the world: scales and dynamics. In: Arnold, John H. and Hilton, M. and Rueger, Jan (eds.) History after Hobsbawm: Writing the Past for the Twenty-First Century. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198768784.
Rueger, Jan (2015) Germany’s boundaries and the politics of defeat: Heligoland, 1918–1933. In: Rueger, Jan and Wachsmann, Nikolaus (eds.) Rewriting German History: New Perspectives On Modern Germany. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 52-67. ISBN 9781137347787.
Rueger, Jan (2015) The Nazi concentration camps in international context: comparisons and connections. In: Rueger, Jan and Wachsmann, Nikolaus (eds.) Rewriting German History: New Perspectives On Modern Germany. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 306-325. ISBN 9781137347787.
Wachsmann, Nikolaus (2015) The Nazi concentration camps in international context: comparisons and connections. In: Wachsmann, Nikolaus and Rueger, Jan (eds.) Rewriting German History: New Perspectives on Modern Germany. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave. pp. 306-324. ISBN 9781137347787.
Rueger, Jan (2013) Insularity and empire in the late Nineteenth Century. In: Taylor, M. (ed.) The Victorian Empire and Britain's Maritime World, 1837-1901: The Sea and Global History. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 149-166. ISBN 9780230303881.
Rueger, Jan (2011) The symbolic value of the Dreadnought. In: Blyth, R. and Rueger, Jan and Lambert, A. (eds.) The Dreadnought and the Edwardian Age. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. pp. 9-18. ISBN 9780754663157.
Rueger, Jan (2008) 'In the imaginative fashion of Teutons': Anglo-German history and the naval theatre. In: Gerwarth, R. and Geppert, D. (eds.) Wilhelmine Germany and Edwardian Britain: Essays on Cultural Affinity. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 413-444. ISBN 9780199558285.
Rueger, Jan (2008) Die Berliner schnauze im Ersten Weltkrieg�. In: Biskup, T. and Schalenberg, M. (eds.) Selling Berlin: Imagebildung und Stadtmarketing von der preußischen Residenz bis zur Bundeshauptstadt. Beiträge zur Stadtgeschichte und Urbanisierungsforschung. Stuttgart, Germany: Franz Steiner Verlag. ISBN 9783515089524.
Rueger, Jan (2008) In the imaginative fashion of Teutons: Anglo-German history and the naval theatre. In: Geppert, D. and Gerwarth, R. (eds.) Wilhelmine Germany and Edwardian Britain: Essays on Cultural Affinity. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199558285.
Rueger, Jan (2007) Entertainments. In: Winter, J. and Robert, J.-L. (eds.) Capital cities at war: Paris, London, Berlin 1914–1919 (Volume 2, a cultural history). Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 105-140. ISBN 9780521870436.
Rueger, Jan (2005) Das u-boot. In: Geisthövel, A. and Knoch, H. (eds.) Orte der Moderne. Campus Verlag. ISBN 9783593377360.
Rueger, Jan (2005) 'The last word in outward splendour': the cult of the Navy and the imperial age. In: Stevens, D. and Reeve, J. (eds.) The Navy and the Nation: The influence of the Navy on Modern Australia. Sydney, Australia: Allen and Unwin. pp. 48-66. ISBN 9781741142006.