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Dr Ruth Wittlinger, MA., Ph.D. (University of Augsburg, Germany)

(email at ruth.wittlinger@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

Ruth Wittlinger lectured at the Stockton Campus from 1992 until 2001 when she joined the Politics Department in Durham. She obtained her MA and her PhD from the University of Augsburg in Germany. Her research focuses on post-unification Germany.

Current Research

Building on her recent work on post-unification Germany's national identity, Ruth Wittlinger is currently working on a project on the German diapora in Eastern and Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union. She is interested in the state of the German diaspora as a transnational community in the aftermath of the mass migration in the 1980s and 1990s and the commonalities and differences in notions of Germanness in these communities.  

Research Groups

School of Government and International Affairs

• Government
• International Relations/International Political Economy

Research Interests

• Debates about Germany's Nazi past
• German diaspora
• German foreign policy
• German national identity
• Politics and literature in Britain in the 1980s
• Post-unification Germany
• Thatcherism

Publications

Books: authored

• Ruth Wittlinger (2010). German National Identity in the Twenty-First Century: A Different Republic After All?. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Ruth Wittlinger (2002). Thatcherism and Literature: Representations of the 'State of the Nation' in Margaret Drabble's Novels. Munchen: Herbert Utz Verlag.

Books: edited

• Langenbacher, Eric, Niven, Bill & Wittlinger, Ruth (2013). Dynamics of Memory and Identity in Contemporary Europe. Berghahn.
• Musolff, Andreas, Good,Colin, Points,Petra & Ruth Wittlinger (2001). Attitudes Towards Europe: Language in the Unification Process. Aldershot: Ashgate.
• Susanne Fendler & Ruth Wittlinger (1999). The Idea of Europe in Literature. Macmillan.

Edited works: contributions

• Wittlinger, Ruth (2013). 'Shaking Off the Past? The New Germany in the New Europe.'. In Dynamics of Memory and Identity in Contemporary Europe. Langenbacher, Eric, Niven, Bill & Wittlinger, Ruth Berghahn.
• Ruth Wittlinger (2009). The Quest for a European Identity: A Europe without Europeans?. In A Companion to Europe since 1945. Larres, Klaus Chichester: Blackwell. 369-386.
• Ruth Wittlinger (2006). 'Taboo or Tradition? The 'Germans as Victims' Theme in the Federal Republic until the mid-1990s'. In Germans as Victims: Remembering the Past in Contemporary Germany. Niven, Bill Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 62-75.
• Ruth Wittlinger (2001). 'Representations of Germany in the Context of European Integration in Margaret Thatcher's Autobiographies'. In Attitudes Towards Europe: Language in the Unification Process. Musolff, Andreas, Good, Colin, Points, Petra & Ruth Wittlinger Aldershot: Ashgate. 23-43.
• Ruth Wittlinger (2000). 'The University as a Microcosm of Society: Two Nations in David Lodge's 'Nice Work''. In Representations of Education in Literature. Edwin Mellen Press. 255-268.
• Ruth Wittlinger (1999). 'Englishness from the Outside'. In The Idea of Europe in Literature. Macmillan. 192-206.

Edited works: journals

• Christian Schweiger & Ruth Wittlinger (2009). The Internal Dynamics of the Enlarged Single European Market. Journal of Contemporary European Research, 5 (4).
• Langenbacher, Eric., Niven, Bill. & Wittlinger, Ruth. (2008). Special Issue on the Dynamics of Memory in 21st Century Germany. German Politics and Society, 26 (4): Berghahn Books.
• Ruth Wittlinger, Schweiger, Christian & Stirk, Peter M.R. (2006). Special Issue on Germany in the 21st Century: In Search of a New Consensus?. Debatte: Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, 14 (3).

Journal papers: academic

• James Koranyi & Ruth Wittlinger (2011). 'From Diaspora to Diaspora: The Case of Transylvanian Saxons in Romania and Germany.'. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 17(1): 96-115.
• Stephen Welch & Ruth Wittlinger (2011). 'The Resilience of the Nation-State: Cosmopolitanism, Holocaust Memory and German Identity.'. German Politics and Society 29(3): 38-54.
• Ruth Wittlinger & Steffi Boothroyd (2010). A 'Usable' Past at last? The Politics of the Past in United Germany. German Studies Review 33(3): 489-502.
• Gerd Strohmeier & Ruth Wittlinger (2010). Bundespräsident Horst Köhler - eine (kritische) Analyse. Zeitschrift für Staats- und Europawissenschaften (ZSE) 8(2): 228-250.
• Gerd Strohmeier & Ruth Wittlinger (2010). Parliamentary Heads of State: Player or Figurehead? The Case of Horst Köhler. West European Politics 33(2): 237-257.
• Gerd Strohmeier & Ruth Wittlinger (2010). Parliamentary Heads of State: Players or Figureheads? The Case of Horst Köhler. West European Politics 33(2): 237-257.
• Ruth Wittlinger (2008). 'The Merkel Government's Politics of the Past.'. German Politics and Society 26(4): 9-27.
• Ruth Wittlinger (2007). 'British-German Relations and Collective memory'. German Politics and Society 25(3): 42-69.
• Wittlinger, Ruth & Larose, Martin (2007). 'No Future for Germany's Past? Collective Memory and German Foreign Policy'. German Politics 16(4): 481-495.
• Ruth Wittlinger (2006). 'Collective memory and National Identity in the Berlin Republic:the emergence of a new consensus?'. Debatte. Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 14(3): 201-212.
• Ruth Wittlinger (2004). 'Perceptions of Germany and the Germans in Post-war Britain'. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 25(5&6): 453-465.
• Susanne Fendler & Ruth Wittlinger (2000). 'Rose Tremain's 'Restoration' and Thatcherism'. Culture and Communication 3(1): 29-50.